REWARDING MEAT INDUSTRY THAT KILLED ITS WORKERS DURING COVID

US pledges $500 million to boost meat processing capacity

12 July 2021

The US government will invest at least $500 million to expand beef, pork and poultry processing capacity, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Friday, after consumers faced limits on meat purchases during the COVID-19 pandemic last year.

According to a report from Reuters, the money from a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package approved in March will be awarded to meat processors in grants and loans to make the supply chain more resilient and increase competition in the sector, Vilsack said at a news conference in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order that pushes the US Department of Agriculture to crack down on "abusive practices of some meat processors" and promote more competition in the US economy.

Cattle ranchers say there are too few processing companies that buy livestock to turn into beef, sometimes forcing farmers to accept the one and only bid they receive for animals.

Ranchers are now selling cattle for a loss even though meat companies make profits selling beef to consumers, Vilsack said.

"It seems to me in fairness profit ought to go both ways," he added.

The meatpacking sector came under increased scrutiny after slaughterhouses closed temporarily during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as workers fell sick.

When large meat plants close, meat supplies tighten while ranchers get stuck with cattle that would otherwise have been slaughtered. That means the price of cattle generally falls, while the price of meat in supermarkets rises.

A cyberattack against the North American arm of Brazilian meatpacker JBS SA that shut US beef plants last month highlighted concerns about concentration in the sector.

Biden's order directs USDA to consider new rules to make it easier for farmers to bring and win legal claims against big processors.

The USDA said in June it would pursue three rules to strengthen enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act, passed 100 years ago to protect farmers from unfair trade practices.

The North American Meat Institute, which represents meat companies, said on Friday that Biden's order will "open the floodgates for litigation."

"Government intervention in the market will increase the cost of food for consumers at a time when many are still suffering from the economic consequences of the pandemic," said Meat Institute President Julie Anna Potts.

TheCattleSite News Desk

Ashli Babbitt as the 21st-century Horst Wessel: Symbolic martyr to the fascist cause
Trump's followers are trying to turn Babbitt into their movement's martyr: All she needs now is a hit song

By MATTHEW ROZSA
PUBLISHED JULY 11, 2021 6:00AM (E

Horst-Wessel, Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump and Ashli Babbitt (Photo illustration by 

Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old QAnon supporter and Trump superfan who was killed in the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, is already far more famous in death than she ever was in life. Her fate reminded me of a famous 1963 episode of "The Twilight Zone," "He's Alive," in which Adolf Hitler's ghost (Curt Conway) returns from the grave to teach a young neo-Nazi named Peter Vollmer (Dennis Hopper) how to manipulate a crowd. Hitler explains that exploiting the death of an obscure follower transforms that individual into a heroic martyr. "This is an act of friendship," says the spectral Führer. "We are allowing him to serve the cause."

Whether or not Donald Trump and his movement think they are doing Babbitt a favor by lionizing after her death, she has clearly become a sacrifice to the ex-president's ego and glory. Trump's supporters are eager to uncover the name of the police officer who shot Babbitt, but much less eager to remember that she died after Trump urged an angry right-wing mob to storm the Capitol. The video of her shooting, which makes clear that Babbitt and other members of the mob were literally trying to break into the House chamber and attack members of Congress, is likewise swept under the rug. That's without even mentioning the obvious fact that Babbitt died in service of the bogus cause of Trump's Big Lie about the 2020 election.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has sided with Vladimir Putin in questioning Babbitt's shooting. Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, the leading insurrectionist in Congress, has staged a spectacular performance of outrage over her death. Her name has repeatedly been a trending topic on Twitter. Even those outside the Trump cult have been bowed: CNN, a frequent target of Republican abuse and outrage, published a piece about Babbitt last month that omitted many damaging facts and seemed infected with terminal both-sides-ism.

Trump recently told a crowd of his supporters in Florida that he wanted to know the identity of the police officer who had shot Babbitt, suggesting there was something sinister at work. "We all saw the hand, we saw the gun," Trump said. "You know, if that were on the other side, the person that did the shooting would be strung up and hung. OK? Now they don't want to give the name. ... It's a terrible thing, right? Shot. Boom. And it's a terrible thing."

There's a disturbing historical echo behind Trump and his supporters' effort to manipulate Babbitt's death this way, an echo also clearly referenced in Rod Serling's script for the "Twilight Zone" episode. That would be the case of Horst Wessel, who became for Hitler and the Nazi Party what Babbitt may now be for the Trump.

Born in the German city of Bielefeld in 1907, Wessel was a law school dropout who joined the SA or "brownshirts," the Nazi Party's paramilitary organization, during the waning days of the Weimar Republic in the late 1920s. He was perhaps more like a member of the contemporary Proud Boys or Oath Keepers; we still don't know how deeply Ashli Babbitt was involved with right-wing extremism. At any rate, Wessel impressed future Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, helped organize the Nazi youth movement in Vienna and staged or led numerous violent street clashes in Berlin with Communists — the antifa of their day, more or less. Wessel fancied himself as a tough guy and sought out situations where he could act out his macho impulses. Given that, his death almost had elements of farce. After a dispute with his Communist landlady — which was likely over unpaid rent, not politics — Wessel was shot on the street by two other Communists on Jan. 14, 1930. He died in a hospital a few weeks later, three years before the Nazis took power in Germany.

Wessel looks like a distinctly mediocre individual in the historical rear-view mirror, but the Nazis transformed his life and death into legend. In a campaign approved by Hitler and led by Goebbels, Nazi propaganda outlets depicted him as a hero. His funeral procession was viewed by 30,000 people who lined the streets of Berlin. He become the subject of a major motion picture and was honored by numerous monuments and books. A song Wessel had written for the SA the year before he died, later universally known as the "Horst Wessel Song," became an unofficial anthem of the Third Reich: According to a 1934 law, every German citizen had to give the "Hitler greeting" upon hearing it.
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As far as we know, Ashli Babbitt didn't write a song and had no previous history of right-wing violence. But like Wessel, she cannot be described as a peaceful protester or even an overzealous advocate for a dubious cause. She died in a violent attack against democracy, as part of the first serious effort in American history to overturn an election by force. She died based on the lies of a would-be authoritarian dictator, the first American president to resist leaving office after losing an election. Her death was a personal tragedy, no doubt. But now the cynical movement that sent her to die in the Capitol wants to exploit that tragedy by turning her into a martyr for fascism. We've seen that before, and we've seen where that can lead — to a place even darker than the Twilight Zone.

MATTHEW ROZSA
Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer for Salon. He holds an MA in History from Rutgers University-Newark and is ABD in his PhD program in History at Lehigh University. His work has appeared in Mic, Quartz and MSNBC.

In a fight for survival, Juul funds pro-vaping studies, then pays a scholarly journal to showcase them

2021/7/11 
©The Philadelphia Inquirer

Electronic cigarettes and pods by Juul are offered for sale at the Smoke Depot in Chicago on September 13, 2018. - Scott Olson/Getty Images North America/TNS

In less than two months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is supposed to decide, at long last, whether the company most responsible for the teenage vaping epidemic should be stopped, or at least restrained, from marketing its e-cigarettes.

The decision will hinge on whether scientific research shows that Juul’s sleek nicotine-delivery device has public health benefits. Does it enable smokers to break or reduce their addiction to cigarettes? Or does it primarily lead to dual use of e-cigs and traditional cigarettes, while luring nonsmokers — especially young people — into nicotine addiction?

Juul, which is partly owned by tobacco giant Altria, decided to add to that scientific evidence.

Juul paid more than $50,000 to a scholarly journal so it would devote the entire May-June issue to 11 studies that Juul funded, all showing vaping is a public health boon. The availability of e-cigs could “avert millions of premature deaths in the U.S.,” one Juul study concluded.

But Juul’s gambit may have backfired.

Three members of the editorial board of the 45-year-old American Journal of Health Behavior resigned in protest, while editor and publisher Elbert D. Glover retired shortly after the “Special Issue on JUUL Use” was published, according to The New York Times.

“It’s just a horrible ethical breach,” declared Brian Jenssen, a pediatrician who specializes in tobacco policy research at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “We have 60 years of data showing Big Tobacco lies. Now Juul has lied, saying they haven’t targeted teens.”

A tobacco regulatory scientist who reviewed and critiqued two studies for the special issue said she and other reviewers were kept in the dark about Juul’s role until they asked questions about “fishy” aspects of the studies.

“We’ve been hoping the truth would come out,” said the scientist, who shared with The Philadelphia Inquirer an email Glover sent to reviewers that said nothing about Juul’s sponsorship.

“I don’t want to be named, because I’m not sure of the implications,” she said. “I don’t want to take a career hit” for being a reviewer.

Battery-operated gizmos that convert liquid nicotine into an inhalable mist were invented in China and came to the U.S. around 2007. A decade later, the U.S. vaping industry was vast, largely unregulated, and dominated by Juul. Teenage use exploded, fueled by fruit and candy flavors that Juul and other e-cig makers added to the liquid nicotine. Juul’s early marketing campaigns blatantly targeted the young.

By 2019, more than a quarter of high school students reported vaping in the previous month. That year, the debate over the safety of vaping hit a crescendo as more than 2,000 young people were hospitalized with a mysterious vaping-related lung illness. That led regulators to investigate Juul’s youth-oriented marketing, and prompted Juul to discontinue sales of flavored vape pods. The company still faces thousands of lawsuits, including from 14 states that want money to fight youth vaping.

The lung illness has not gone away, but amid the COVID-19 pandemic, attention has dwindled. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn’t updated data on the illness since February 2020.

Congress gave the FDA authority to regulate any new tobacco-derived products, including e-cigs, in 2009. But it wasn’t until seven years later, in 2016, that the agency began cracking down, making new products subject to the same rules as cigarettes. Suddenly, e-cig makers and vendors weren’t supposed to sell to anyone under 18. They also couldn’t advertise the products as safer than smoking, or as a way to quit smoking.

Even though e-cigs were already on the market, the FDA also ordered makers to submit applications for marketing approval. By law, that meant the companies had to provide scientific evidence that their addictive products were sufficiently beneficial to the public health to keep selling them.

The vaping industry fought this extension of the FDA’s power all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — and lost early last month.

Meanwhile, pre-eminent public health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Cancer Society, have been pressuring the FDA to snuff out Juul.

Why the focus on Juul?

The FDA says its “finite resources” have been overwhelmed by marketing applications, so it decided to prioritize review of the products that account for most of the current market. Juul remains dominant, even though its market share has shrunk from 70% to about 40% as stores such as Walmart have stopped selling e-cigs.

“Juul’s products have been largely responsible for the extraordinary growth in the percentage of youth who have become addicted to e-cigarettes — an epidemic which continues to this day — with no measurable public health benefit,” the health organizations wrote in April to Janet Woodcock, the FDA’s acting commissioner.

Over the past three years, numerous comprehensive reviews of e-cig research around the world have found the same thing.

“Strong and consistent evidence finds that children and adolescents who use e-cigarettes are significantly more likely to go on to use traditional cigarettes — a product that kills half its long-term users,” the American Academy of Pediatrics wrote in a 2019 statement.

There is also evidence that e-cigs help some smokers quit or cut back, at least temporarily. For example, in the United Kingdom, where national health insurance covers e-cigs as part of smoking cessation programs, a study found that e-cigarettes worked better than nicotine-replacement therapies such as patches. But better is not to say great: The smoking abstinence rate at one year was 18% in the e-cigarette group, compared with about 10% in the nicotine-replacement group.

Many tobacco policy scientists are so convinced that e-cigs do more harm than good that they refuse to serve as pre-publication reviewers of e-cig research. Vaping studies are often tied to companies or researchers with financial conflicts — a problem that has undermined the integrity of academic publications in general.

But the reviewer who agreed in November to critique two articles in the special issue on Juul tried to keep an open mind.

She was not aware that the American Journal of Health Behavior is unusual in that it charges authors hefty fees for publication. But she respected Glover, who was also the editor of Tobacco Regulatory Science, where she had been on the editorial board.

“Reviewing articles has become a divisive thing,” she said. “I felt someone needs to be objectively evaluating the science. But this experience burned me.”

She shared with the Inquirer the email from Glover to scores of potential reviewers. “Peer reviewers” are usually not paid, but Glover offered $75 per review if it could be turned in quickly — one week. He said the special issue was on “e-cigarettes” in general and did not mention that the authors of the 12 studies were on Juul’s payroll. The actual manuscripts redacted the name of the sponsor.

The design of one study she reviewed seemed so biased that she recommended rejecting it. “I thought, ‘No way it wasn’t funded by Juul.’ ” She questioned Glover about it. Soon, he sent another email to the group.

“It has been brought to my attention that some reviewers were unaware that the special issue on e-cigarettes is being funded by JUUL,” Glover wrote. “My apologies for not alerting everyone. ... I honestly did not believe it to be a concern as the comprehensive reviews always purge weak or biased manuscripts.”

Of the 12 manuscripts submitted by Juul, apparently one was “purged” because 11 appear in the issue. The reviewer does not know if that means her rejection recommendation was taken, because “I was so disgusted with how it went that I didn’t look at what ran.”

Could genocide really happen here? Leading scholar says America is on "high alert"

Alexander Laban Hinton on his new book, Trump's snake metaphor and the rising danger of white-power movements

By DAVID MASCIOTRA
PUBLISHED JULY 11, 2021 

 

Members of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) wave American Flags and NSM flags as they march from the Washington Monument to the grounds of the United States Capitol Building on April 19, 2008 in Washington, DC. Between 30-40 members of the group marched to bring attention to their views on illegal immigration and the city had about 1200 police officers on duty. (David S. Holloway/Reportage by Getty Images)


Even the title of Alexander Laban Hinton's new book provides a chilling summary of the current danger facing this nation: "It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the U.S."

Hinton is one of the world's leading authorities on genocide and atrocity crimes. He is the author of 12 books on the subject and directs the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University. He testified as an expert witness, at the trial of Nuon Chea, who was prime minister of Cambodia during the genocidal tyranny of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.

With sober analysis and in assiduous detail, Hinton explores the ways the United States is "simmering at a low boil," and evinces every risk indicator for widespread mass atrocity crimes. White supremacist organizations and armed militias are mobilized for political action, the Republican Party has declared war on multiracial democracy and right-wing voters have become increasingly radical and hostile, falling into the personality cult of Donald Trump and the apocalyptic cult of QAnon.
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As historian Timothy Snyder, philosopher Jason Stanley and former Republican insider Mike Lofgren have also warned, the U.S. is teetering at the edge of fascism. With "It Can Happen Here," Hinton brings his knowledge and experience to bear on a dynamic history of the Trump administration — taking his readers inside his classroom, to white power rallies and to his own testimony at the Chea trial. One of the book's strengths is its accessibility. Written with literary style rather than in dry academic prose, it makes for fascinating, albeit deeply disturbing, reading.

Alarming but never alarmist, Hinton provides a chilling introduction to genocide studies through a chronicle of his travails during the Trump years. The echoes of historical genocide are impossible to miss in contemporary American politics.

Most Americans undoubtedly prefer to think of the United States as immune to the forces of history, and above the various forms of political violence and societal collapse that have affected every populated continent on the planet at one time or another. Hinton is here to tell us that kind of passivity and apathy is all too likely to create the conditions for historic catastrophe.
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I recently interviewed Hinton by phone. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

You gave your book the title, "It Can Happen Here." You are, of course, playing off Sinclair Lewis' classic novel, "It Can't Happen Here." Like Lewis, you are combating the illusion of American exceptionalism, the idea that freedom, democracy and progress toward equality are almost like laws of nature. In fact, you make the argument that "it" has already happened here. Can you explain how the belief that "it can't happen here" is historically wrong?

I think of two contextual blockages that prevent us from grappling with our past, and the present that is informed by it. One is what you just named, "American exceptionalism," the "not us" idea. You know, "this is America and it can't happen here." We get this over and over again. The corollary to that is "not me." That's the idea, "Oh, it's a bunch of crazy racists over there. I have nothing to do with that." From "not me," we get the "bad apples" idea. I spend a lot of time in the book addressing the fallacy of "bad apples" and "the hater" — the isolated villain. The danger of these concepts is that if we allow people to believe that "not us" and "not me," they will soon think, "Well, then it's not my problem."
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To the second part of your question, that was how the project began. I was testifying in the trial of Nuon Chea right as Trump was riding into power. Many people were making analogies between Trump and genocidal leaders. As someone who studies these things, I am always wary of direct historical analogies. I think of them more as echoes, or patterns that take place, and we can look for a manifestation. For example, if we look at the history of fascist ultra-nationalism, there are many echoes with the Trump administration. I started noting the echoes, and then we got to Charlottesville. That was when I felt it was necessary to take it on, and bring to bear an analysis of the risk and danger of mass violence.

That begins with a long journey through the specific lens of genocide studies, and a genocide-driven revisionist look at the United States, which leads us through settler colonialism and the connection between the need for land and need for labor, which sets everything in motion. I also teach about atrocity crimes. We're talking about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Indian Exclusion Act, what happens when we push Native Americans further and further west and, of course, systemic white supremacy. Oddly, now the latter is being pushed through the frame of "critical race theory." I don't use that language, but I'm certainly familiar with the literature. When I began writing the book, few people were having these conversations, and now they are commonplace. The speed with which the discourse has changed is remarkable.
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When it comes to the writing itself, you made an interesting choice. Rather than writing this book as an academic treatise, you use literary techniques to establish a chronicle, taking us inside your classroom as your students react to events such as Charlottesville. You take us to your testimony, and even attend a white power rally, reporting on it almost as a journalist. Why did you decide to approach the book that way?

I was trained to do academic writing, but over time, I grew increasingly dissatisfied with that form of writing. With this particular book, however, it wasn't so much a pre-planned strategy as much as it emerged out of the context of what I was writing about. I wanted to directly confront the issues, in one sense. The classroom was an effective setting, because what is teaching about, if not critical thinking and searching for the truth? Here we are in the midst of a time when the very basis of truth is called into question, which is another echo of genocide studies, especially if you think about Holocaust denial. Also, with the students I am teaching at Rutgers, this is their lived reality. Most of them are Black and brown, and the events of the Trump years were having a powerful effect on them. That was another aspect that made me think I should take the readers into the classroom.

I also wanted to write a ground-level history of the Trump administration, while we were facing the risk of atrocity crimes. Little did I know that it would get even worse, because I finished the book before Jan. 6. So I wanted to capture what it was like to live in the middle of this heightened crisis, and not from the White House or another institution of power, as most history is told, but at the ground level. Through reporting on the classroom and my students, I could also write an accessible history of white power mass atrocities in the United States, and that became the narrative thread.

My goal was to write a book that could actually be used by high school students in genocide education. To write with narrative engagement and clarity makes it more accessible to that audience. Many states, including mine, which is New Jersey, mandate some Holocaust or genocide studies. The chapter I write on the Charlottesville teach-in, for example, could be pulled out and used in a high school classroom.

Yes, and you consistently make excellent use of Theodor Adorno's admonition: "The premier demand upon all education is that Auschwitz not happen again." You're attempting to rise to that challenge, bringing your analytical apparatus to bear on the Trump administration and the radical right-wing movement within the United States, offering your expertise as a genocide scholar and anthropologist. The ultimate question, then, is about the current threat of the United States descending into mass atrocity crimes. How do you assess that, and on what do you base that assessment?



The United Nations has a good means of risk assessment, using a few key clusters of risk indicators. One factor is a history of mass atrocities. Well, that hasn't gone away. That's always there. If you think about it as a kettle on a stove, there's always a little bit of heat with that risk factor.

Another risk factor is "upheaval," and before I get into that, because it is really important, you have these other things that the UN calls "buffers." Well, Trump eroded the buffers throughout his administration. You can read about what he did to the Justice Department, and how he marginalized anyone who tried to push back on him. Many democratic practices and norms, which we thought were really strong in the United States, were quickly eroded.

Then, you have "catalyst." OK, guns. The U.S. is awash in guns, and we have armed groups becoming more active throughout the country.

Now, back to "upheaval." We had a pandemic. Then you bring in economic collapse. Then you bring in presidential incitement of militias and armed groups. Then you bring in increasing polarization. We have this incredible mix of factors.
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The book finishes in July 2020, and to return to the kettle on the stove, we were at a high boil at that point. I wrote an op-ed around that time, headlined, "Trump's Helter Skelter," warning that we were in a really high-risk situation. Other experts began issuing the same warning.

If we look at Jan. 6, it is almost remarkable that there wasn't a lot more violence. If there had been, it would have sparked more violence across the country. Also, if we didn't have Jan. 6, and Trump was still on Twitter and social media platforms — he's a master at using these mediums — we would have gone right up to the inauguration with Trump potentially inciting mobs and hate groups, and who knows what would have happened? Trump losing Twitter was a defusing of the situation.

So, moving forward, Biden comes in. We have a strengthening of the buffers, the pandemic is improving and the economy is improving. That takes things down from the rapid simmer, but what is worse is the lingering polarization and the belief that Biden is illegitimate. This overlaps with the GOP now having white grievance as its default issue.
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We have the high-alert danger posed by extremist groups — white power groups, militias. Now, let's imagine that Trump gets access to Twitter, or another dynamic social media platform and things can move in a very dangerous direction, very quickly.

On the subject of buffers, the Republican Party, along with its propagandists in right-wing media, are waging a war on electoral politics.

Of course. That's incredibly dangerous, and you have the potential for counterprotesters directly confronting white power extremists. We have gone from Charlottesville, which was a collection of small extremist organizations gathering together, with the militias claiming they were there only to keep order, and then we move to Trump announcing, "Stand by, Proud Boys." With that comment, the militias are highly agitated and mobilized, and move from "keeping order," or so they claimed, to becoming directly active.

You also have white Christian fundamentalists, which we saw clearly during the January insurrection, agitated and mobilized. You also have the "Stop the Steal" people very upset and feeling increasingly desperate. Then, we have QAnon, which went from barely existent at the time of Charlottesville to a movement of millions strong. To add one more piece, we have this long documentary record showing that, among the general public, 10 to 15 percent have white supremacist sympathies. That's a lot of people. Then, we have Fox News increasingly taking the white nationalist line in their broadcast. Even today, CNN and MSNBC are talking about COVID-19, and Fox is talking about Black and brown crime in the inner cities, and the "invasion" of immigrants that everyone should fear.


In January 2021, the risk was really high. It has subsided with the Biden administration, but we are still at a low boil. It's not a good place to be.

How crucial was it that Trump, using the bully pulpit of the presidency and with the full support of the Republican Party, provided encouragement to these hate groups? It seems to have functioned in two ways. It strengthened them. But also it ushered them into the mainstream of right-wing politics, and allowed average Republican voters to excuse or even embrace them. Robert Pape, one of the country's leading researchers on terrorism, found that most of the participants in the insurrection of Jan. 6 were not connected to hate groups.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. At the time of Charlottesville, it is a small group of extremists. They are savvy on social media, but appear as if they are on the fringe. By the time we get to January of 2021, the white nationalist movement is millions and millions strong. So what was a shock to some people, when you look at Pape's study, was not a surprise, because it had been a trend for a long time. The swelling of support for Trump has not gone away. Perhaps it has dissipated at the edges, but it is still tens of millions of people who are enraged, and that includes far-right extremists, but also QAnon, which is a lot of things, but a key piece is "Deep State," globalists, antisemitic tropes. So QAnon can have synergy with far-right movements, and it is massive.

Think back to Sinclair Lewis. He looked around in the 1930s, and he saw that millions of people were listening to Father Charles Coughlin. There were the Silver Shirts, which were the U.S. equivalent of Brownshirts. If we look around now, it is very similar to what Lewis saw.

We are in a different cycle, but one that is highly volatile. If Trump can return to a dynamic social media platform, or if his former campaign strategist, Jason Miller, can succeed with the social media platform that he has created, that is the ingredient that can escalate the crisis.

Returning for a moment to Trump, Fox News and the "white nationalist line," you make Trump's appropriation of the snake parable central to "It Can Happen Here," even placing that image on the cover of the book. It tells the story of a woman who accepts a wounded snake with "colored skin" into her home, nurtures it to health, only to have it kill her with a venomous bite. As she is dying, the snake mocks her: "You knew I was a snake when you took me in." Trump recites this story to audiences at nearly every rally. Why do you view this story as pivotal to understanding Trump, the white power movement and right-wing politics more broadly?

It embodies the idea of "white genocide." It embodies the idea of Black and brown invaders. Before Trump would recite it, he would frame it as saying, "I'm talking about immigration." In the 2016 cycle through his presidency, this is a clear metaphor of "white genocide" invasion. The snake traverses the domestic boundary of the home, manipulates the innocent woman, who symbolizes white purity. There is a big trope in white-power discourse that is very patriarchal, with white women in need of protection by white men from the dangers of other races. So, in the story, the woman is bitten and dies. The Black and brown invaders kill whiteness, according to the metaphor.

Trump recited the snake parable the same day that I testified in the Nuon Chea trial, and this is the exact same language that he used, and that authoritarian leaders, demagogues and hate leaders use, about external enemies threatening the body politic. There are notions of contamination, and that the body politic will be destroyed if they don't take extreme action.

I was stunned to learn that the Khmer Rouge discussed nearly the same story, about a crocodile.

Yes, the crocodile, which was the metaphor for the Vietnamese. Also linked to Trump, and common in these regimes, is language of "enemies lurking within." If you remember, former Sen. Jeff Flake, Republican from Arizona, to his credit, took to the Senate floor to point out that Hitler, Stalin and Mao all derided journalists and critics as "enemies of the people." Donald Trump, as president of the United States, did the exact same thing.

There is also an antisemitic thread that runs through all this, because Jewish allies of Black and brown people are often the "enemies of the people." In terms of the snake, there are many depictions in white power literature of the Jewish people as snakes. A big part of Trump's constituency is Christian fundamentalists, and of course in the Bible the snake is representative of Satan. So the snake has many different valences.

This is why the book begins with the snake, but ends with Toni Morrison's bird. Morrison tells the story in her Nobel Prize address of an old, blind woman confronted by young men. One of them taunts her by saying, "I hold in my hand a bird. Tell me whether it is living or dead." The woman takes a long pause, and then answers, "It is in your hands." Morrison explains that the blind woman "shifts attention away from assertions of power to the instrument through which that power is exercised."
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Rather than distilling everything down to the snake point of view, which is overwhelming, hegemonic terms of power, we have to listen to multiple voices, and consider multiple possibilities.

DAVID MASCIOTRA
David Masciotra is the author of "I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters" (Bloomsbury Publishing) and "Mellencamp: American Troubadour" (University Press of Kentucky, 2015).

 'It’s coming soon and they won’t be able to stop it': Americans concerned after latest Trump CPAC speech

Sarah K. Burris
July 11, 2021

President Donald Trump (image via Nicholas Kamm/AFP).

Sunday, former President Donald Trump flapped through a rambling speech that didn't address anything new but repeated some of the same old talking points typically heard at his rallies.

Trump bragged about his crowd size, he attacked President Joe Biden's family, he went after Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), lied about crime, and went off on several tangents that were impossible to follow.

One piece of the speech disturbed some, however. At one point, while Trump was bragging about what he did to rebuild the old-school military with ships and jets. The United States doesn't typically fight wars using ships and jets anymore, the new war is being fought in cyberspace, as military experts have explained. Still, Trump bragged about what he accomplished. But it was what he threatened after that left some concerned.

"Everything's brand new and we have a great military, or it's coming soon and they won't be able to stop it," said Trump. It's unclear if Trump meant that the new fighter jets the American taxpayers bought are "coming" to the military or if he meant that the military was "coming soon."

There are several reports of militia members and radical right-wing terrorists who have penetrated the American military and police departments. As Trump fans are promising that their guy will be reinstated in August, many Americans have been left wondering if there will be another attack on the U.S. Capitol like the Jan. 6 attack.

Others questioned Trump's ongoing lies and how people still believe them after so many fact-checks and reality has proved otherwise.

See the comments below:

Fox News runs disclaimer across the screen while Trump lies about 2020 election in CPAC speech

Sarah K. Burris
July 11, 2021

Fox News Trump disclaimer (Photo: Screen capture)

Former President Donald Trump continued to spread his 2020 election lies in this CPAC speech Sunday. But one thing was notably different: Fox News ran a disclaimer that he was lying.

While Fox has spent the past several weeks allowing their prime-time hosts to spread lies about the COVID-19 vaccine. The network appears to be drawing a line when it comes to the election.

"The voting system companies have denied the various allegations made by President Trump and his counsel regarding the 2020 election," the screen says.

Networks like OAN and others have been sued for allowing people on their air to lie about election tabulations companies that are now engrossed in litigation.

Goats: unlikely allies in California's fight against wildfires



Issued on: 12/07/2021 -

On a hot July morning, a herd of 80 goats were deployed to a hilly patch of land in Glendale, just outside Los Angeles Robyn Beck AFP


Glendale (United States) (AFP)

Their mission, should they choose to accept it, is simple: graze.

Goats are an unlikely but increasingly popular weapon in California's fight against the wildfires that rage through the western US state every year.

On a recent hot July morning, a herd of 80 ungulates were deployed to a hilly patch of land in Glendale, just outside Los Angeles.

They had been chomping away for the past 10 days or so, helping to clear away bone-dry vegetation that could go up in flames and threaten the surrounding homes.

Their work comes up a vital time. Last year was the worst in California's modern history for wildfires, with more than four million acres (1.6 million hectares) scorched.

Due to climate change and a brutal drought, officials fear that months of massive infernos are now the norm.

So any help is welcome.

"We started hearing a lot about goats, both from community members, other fire departments, other cities," said Glendale fire marshal Jeffrey Ragusa.

"And the more we looked into it, the more we realized how effective they can be, how environmentally friendly they can be."

- Corridor -

The goats' voracious appetite serves two purposes.

Eating easily flammable vegetation helps to restrict the spread of fire, and also creates a convenient corridor in which firefighters can operate to "protect the homes in a safer environment" should the need arise, said Ragusa.#photo1

Of course, the animals are just one small part of the strategy for coping with the threat of fires.

But their help can be valuable, lightening the workload for overstretched human contractors who create buffer zones by removing vegetation -- often manually, in sweltering heat and difficult terrain -- before and during ever-longer fire seasons.

"There's always a threat of injury to personnel," said Ragusa.

"I haven't seen a goat trip yet," he added with a smile.

The goats grazing in Glendale are brought in by Sage Environmental Group, a company that carries out habitat restoration and environmental planning.

Its founder, Alissa Cope, began incorporating goats into her work five years ago, and now owns around 400 of the animals.

- 'Watch them closely' -

The strategy carries an inherent risk -- goats, if left to their own devices, will munch anything in their path.

"We watch them closely," she said. "If there's an area that we feel that they're overgrazing -- which is essentially the downside of using goats -- we will deliberately move them," using electric fences or luring them with hay.

Without revealing how much the goats earn for their labor, Cope says the cost of employing the animals is comparable to what authorities would pay for human workers -- at a lower environmental toll.#photo2

The company runs similar projects elsewhere in California, including nearby Anaheim and South Pasadena.

The idea to bring in goats to Glendale originated with Rick Stern, a member of the neighborhood homeowners association.

Stern heard of the strategy when his wife found out goats had helped keep the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library -- also in southern California -- safe from fire in 2019.

Months before the devastating blaze, a trip of goats had been dispatched to create a fire break around the famous complex.

While the goats' presence in Glendale is just a pilot program for now, it will be evaluated with a view to broader use.

"So far, it's been a really good program," said Ragusa. "We've been really happy with the results."

© 2021 AFP

The battle for Brazil's indigenous land heats up



Issued on: 12/07/2021

Indigenous people, who represent some 0.5 percent of Brazil's population, hold about 13 percent of its land under constitutionally-protected ancestral rights Sergio Lima AFP/File



Brasília (AFP)

Brazil's indigenous peoples are bracing for a legal battle with far-right President Jair's Bolsonaro's government as it seeks to rush laws through parliament to carve away at their land.

Indigenous people, who represent some 0.5 percent of Brazil's population, hold about 13 percent of its land under ancestral rights guaranteed by the country's 1988 constitution.

These have been under threat ever since Bolsonaro came to power in 2019 on the promise of ceding "not one centimeter more" to Brazil's native population.

He has sought to open public land up for economic exploitation in one of the world's biggest agricultural producers, and several bills are before parliament seeking to achieve this.

"We are living our worst time," said Joenia Wapichana, the first indigenous lawmaker in the country's history and the spearhead of a protracted legislative and legal fight.

"These (parliamentary) projects which are a setback for us, are being voted on much faster now," she said.

Last month, a commission of the chamber of deputies -- one of two houses of congress -- approved a bill introduced already in 2007 to recognize as ancestral only land occupied by indigenous peoples when the 1988 Constitution was promulgated.

The day before the decision, clashes between indigenous and security forces at a protest against the bill left several injured, including three police struck by arrows.

The bill has yet to pass a full sitting of the chamber, and then the senate.

A slew of other draft laws seek to authorize mining and farming on indigenous land where it is now illegal.

- 'Period of highest risk' -

"The Constitution already provides for economic activity in indigenous areas and lands," Mines and Energy Minister Bento Alburqueque insisted at a meeting with foreign correspondents last week.

"What is there belongs to Brazilian society, and must be regulated taking into account the rights of indigenous peoples," he added.

Brazil's original people also oppose a law passed in May to ease environmental requirements for farming and energy companies.

Indigenous peoples and environmental groups claim the government's moves are unconstitutional and fear a further acceleration of Amazon deforestation, which has picked up pace on Bolsonaro's watch.

The president, widely accused of being a friend of the free market at the expense of the environment, has signed proclamations in the last two years to transfer the delineation of indigenous land to the agriculture ministry, and to allow big business takeovers of public land.

But these endeavors have been paralyzed in congress, partly due to the president's fraught relationship with the speakers of the chamber of deputies and the senate.

This all changed in February when Bolsonaro succeeded in appointing two allies -- Arthur Lira and Rodrigo Pacheco, which both enjoy the backing of the agri-business lobby -- to these positions.#photo1

"We are living the period of highest risk since Bolsonaro came to power," said Mauricio Voivodic, executive director of WWF Brazil.

"Especially the speaker of the chamber (of deputies) has shown a big appetite for advancing on (projects which threaten) the rights of indigenous peoples, reducing their territories."

According to environmental lawyer Andre Lima, Brazil's agri-business lobby believes the country already has "too many parks and conservation areas, and too much reserved native land" and that expanding conservation will "undermine rural development."

"We are a minority in parliament defending our rights," said Wapichana, who has vowed to take the battle to the highest court if necessary.

"If parliament makes our lives difficult, our only alternative is to seek support from justice... to save what remains of our indigenous land and natural resources."

© 2021 AFP

Avocado farmers take up arms as Mexico violence spikes

Issued on: 12/07/2021 

Members of the Mexican self-defense group Pueblos Unidos guard avocado plantations in the western state of Michoacan ENRIQUE CASTRO AFP

Ario de Rosales (México) (AFP)

A convoy of vigilantes snakes along a road in western Mexico, vowing to defend their avocado orchards from gangs sowing terror in a country reeling from a new wave of bloodshed.

Armed with assault rifles and other firearms, the masked men travel between plantations and maintain checkpoints in Ario de Rosales in Michoacan state, the scene of a bloody cartel turf war.

Before they began patrolling the area, residents lived in fear of kidnapping, extortion and theft of avocados, according to a member of the self-defense group Pueblos Unidos, which says it has 700 members.

"We need to be armed to defend ourselves," he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity, wearing a badge reading "Down with injustice, no more dead."

Previously, criminals "came to do what they wanted to us, and that doesn't happen anymore," he added.#photo1

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador opposes such self-defense groups -- a phenomenon that dates back to 2013 -- saying that some of them have become fronts for criminals.

Such comments are not well received in Ario de Rosales, where another Pueblos Unidos member says the president should "get his shoes dirty" to discover the reality of life in the area, where the Jalisco New Generation and Los Viagras cartels operate.

The police and military "feared the criminals or were paid by them to do nothing," said another vigilante who gave his name as Martin.

- 'Hugs not bullets' -

It is estimated that there are around 50 such self-defense groups in Mexico, which has seen intensifying violence in recent months, notably in Michoacan and the northern states of Tamaulipas and Zacatecas.

Mexico registered 14,243 murders in the first five months of the year, and the bloodshed has shown no sign of stopping since then.

On June 19, alleged members of the Gulf Cartel shot dead 15 people described by the government as innocent victims in the border city of Reynosa in Tamaulipas.

Four attackers were killed by the police.

One hitman who was arrested said that the massacre sought to "heat up the plaza" -- a form of random killings to divert the attention of the authorities away from other areas.

On June 29, nine bodies were found near Ciudad Miguel Aleman, also in Tamaulipas, where criminals are fighting for control of a border bridge used to smuggle drugs, weapons and migrants, according to an intelligence source.#photo2

And a shootout between alleged gang members left 18 dead in Zacatecas, where the bodies of two policemen were hung from a bridge.

Despite the escalation in violence, Lopez Obrador refuses to declare war on the cartels, arguing that this policy failed in the past.

Instead he has maintained a strategy of "hugs not bullets" and fighting crime at its roots by attacking poverty and inequality.

More than 300,000 people have been murdered since the government of then president Felipe Calderon deployed the military in the war on drugs in 2006.

- 'Power vacuums' -

Since then the dominant cartels have splintered to the point that around 200 gangs now operate in the country, according to the think tank InSight Crime.

Lopez Obrador has told the United States that he wants to end military cooperation in fighting narcotics trafficking.

"You cannot confront violence with violence," he said on Friday about the situation in Aguililla, another Michoacan town terrorized by warring gangs.

In April, former US ambassador Christopher Landau said that Lopez Obrador saw the cartels as a "distraction" from a domestic agenda mostly focused on social programs.#photo3

"So he has basically adopted a pretty laissez-faire attitude towards them," said Landau, who was ex-president Donald Trump's envoy in Mexico City.

Lopez Obrador's policy of non-confrontation with the cartels has left "power vacuums" exploited by gangs, according to Jose Reveles, a drug trafficking specialist.

In Aguililla, residents recently attacked a garrison with homemade explosives to try to pressure the military into reopening roads that had been blocked by rival gangs.

"We were trapped in the village and getting food was very difficult," said Eugenia, a mother of two living in the town.

Aguililla is at the center of a turf war between Carteles Unidos and Jalisco New Generation, whose leader Nemesio Oseguera was born there.

"While the government said that things were fine and there was no organized crime, we saw them on a daily basis, with high-powered weapons," another resident who did not want to be named told AFP.

"The government always looks the other way."

© 2021 AFP

Heat risks add to challenges for Tokyo's pandemic-hit Olympics


Issued on: 12/07/2021 - 

Tokyo has been notorious for its stifling summer for years CHARLY TRIBALLEAU AFP


Tokyo (AFP)

Searing heat, dripping humidity, and face masks: it's going to be a sweaty Tokyo Olympics and while coronavirus measures are top priority, heatstroke remains a serious risk, experts warn.

Long before the pandemic forced Tokyo 2020's postponement, the Japanese capital's brutal summer heat was the main health concern for organisers.

While the Games have been held in places that are hotter or more humid than Tokyo, including Athens and Beijing, Japan's sweaty summers offer both, in an unpleasant and sometimes deadly combination.


Organisers have moved the Olympic marathon and racewalks to the northern island of Hokkaido, hoping to outrun temperatures that can hit 37 degrees Celsius and humidity over 80 percent.

And with fans now banned from nearly all Games events over virus fears, the risk of large crowds sizzling in the sun is no longer a concern.

But athletes, who will have little time to acclimatise because they are only allowed to arrive just before competition, could still suffer.

"Holding the games during July and August... was a serious issue even before the coronavirus pandemic," Haruo Ozaki, chairman of the Tokyo Medical Association, told reporters recently.

"There are still high risks of heatstroke at events such as competitive walking, triathlon, and beach volleyball," even after moving the marathon and racewalking, he warned.

At test events in summer 2019, organisers rolled out a variety of anti-heat measures: 1,360 tonnes of ice to cool athletes, tents for shade, ice cream for volunteers and mist fans and artificial snow for spectators.#photo1

Even so, several people were treated for suspected heatstroke at a beach volleyball event and 10 people including athletes fell ill at a rowing test event.

Ironically, Tokyo won its bid to host the Olympics, beating out rivals including Doha, in part by boasting of its "mild" weather.

But the city has been notorious for its stifling summer for years. The last time it hosted the Games, in 1964, the event was shifted to October to beat the heat.

And it has only got hotter in recent years, with climate change and urbanisation exacerbating the trend, according to experts.

- 'Not possible to eliminate risk' -

A report published in late May by the British Association for Sustainable Sport (BASIS) warned "intense heat and high levels of humidity are a threat to athletes at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics".

British rower Melissa Wilson told the report she felt her sport was "approaching a danger zone" given rising temperatures at events around the world.

"It's a horrible moment when you see athletes cross the line, their bodies fling back in total exhaustion and then not rise up," she said.

In pre-pandemic 2019, more than 71,000 people sought emergency care for heatstroke across Japan, with 118 deaths during the June-September period.

And even in 2020, with fewer people out and about, emergency care cases stood at just below 65,000 with 112 dying.

Doctors in Tokyo have warned organisers that medical emergencies during the competition -- including heatstroke -- could divert resources away from the domestic coronavirus response.

The pandemic could complicate things, with rules requiring athletes to "wear a face mask at all times, except when training, competing, eating, drinking, sleeping or during interviews".

A Tokyo 2020 official told AFP that the rules would be "flexible depending on the situation" given the risks of heatstroke -- allowing people to go mask-free when "outside and able to keep two metres apart from others".

Masks in hot weather could cause people to feel ill and have difficulty breathing, "even if this is not heatstroke in a strict sense", said Shoko Kawanami, a professor at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health in western Japan.

"It's important that spectators and volunteers take off their masks if they feel uncomfortable... making sure they keep a distance from crowds."

Japan's weather agency forecasts this July-August period in Tokyo will be hotter than average, and even a small rise in temperature "will have a major impact on whether the event is safe to run," Ben Bright, head coach at the British Triathlon Federation, told the BASIS report.

"It is not possible to eliminate risk."

Olympics host city Tokyo enters fresh Covid-19 emergency as Games near

Spectators have already been banned from nearly all venues for the Tokyo Games because of the pandemic.PHOTO: REUTERS

TOKYO (REUTERS) - Olympic host city Tokyo entered a fresh state of emergency on Monday (July 12), less than two weeks before the Games begin amid worries whether the measures can stem a rise in Covid-19 cases.

Organisers last week announced that spectators would be banned from nearly all venues, all but depriving Japan of hopes for a Games with public spectacle.

Spectators from abroad had been banned months ago and officials are now asking residents to watch the Games on TV.

"We would ask people to support athletes from home," Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said on a Sunday TV programme.

The Games, postponed from last year because of the pandemic, run from July 23 to Aug 8, while the state of emergency - the capital's fourth - lasts until Aug 22, shortly before the Paralympics begin.

The government and organisers had long seen the event as a chance to display the country's recovery from a devastating 2011 earthquake and nuclear crisis.

On Saturday, the governor of Fukushima prefecture, site of the nuclear disaster, said spectators would also be banned from softball and baseball games there, reversing an earlier decision.

World No. 1 tennis player Novak Djokovic said on Sunday he was "50-50" about competing at the Tokyo Olympics following the organisers' decision to ban fans from attending and limits on the number of people he can take to the Games.

Some of the sport's biggest names, including Rafa Nadal, Dominic Thiem, Stan Wawrinka, Nick Kyrgios, Serena Williams and Simona Halep have already announced decisions to skip the Games.

Japan has not seen the explosive coronavirus outbreak occurring elsewhere but has recorded more than 815,440 cases and nearly 15,000 deaths.

The recent rise in the number of infections in Tokyo has been particularly worrisome amid a vaccination roll-out that got off to a slow start and has faced supply glitches after speeding up. Only about 28 per cent of the population has received at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Tokyo recorded 614 new cases on Sunday, the 22nd straight day of week-on-week gains, and many areas were crowded with shoppers.

The coronavirus curbs include asking restaurants to close early and stop serving alcohol in exchange for a government subsidy, measures that have hit the eateries hard and caused many to complain of unfairness as the Games are set to go ahead.

Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who is in charge of the pandemic response, sparked outrage when he suggested late on Thursday he would ask banks to put pressure on eateries that do not comply with the stricter measures.

In an about-face, the government's top spokesman Kato said on Friday it had decided banks would not be asked to press restaurants and bars that do not follow the government request to stop serving alcohol under the emergency restrictions.

But Mr Kozo Hasegawa, president of Global-Dining Inc, which runs 43 restaurants including one that inspired a bloody fight scene in the movie Kill Bill: Volume I, said on Friday that he would not obey the rules and would open as normal.