It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, July 15, 2021
Review: New insight into the complex character of Hoover
By JEFF ROWE
July 12, 2021
This cover image released by Scribner shows "The Director: My Years Assisting J. Edgar Hoover" by Paul Letersky with Gordon Dillow. (Scribner via AP
“The Director: My Years Assisting J. Edgar Hoover,” by Paul Letersky with Gordon Dillow (Scribner)
J. Edgar Hoover’s life has been picked apart in other books; Paul Letersky and Gordon Dillow deliver insight that only could be obtained from Letersky’s vantage point as Hoover’s personal assistant for two years.
“The Director: My Years Assisting J. Edgar Hoover” is actually a pair of books in one; the first half Letersky’s experience as Hoover’s assistant; the second covers Letersky’s years as a field agent, first in Cincinnati and then Alexandria, Virginia.
Letersky offers less a historical breakthrough than finer brushstrokes on an American icon, whom the author describes as kind, courteous, formal, thoughtful, fearless, occasionally funny, a perfect gentleman and a devout patriot. He also could be vindictive, closed-minded, hypocritical and a holder of eternal grudges who sincerely thought he was serving his country. In his later years, however, Hoover apparently was oblivious to ethical lapses such as bugging the Rev. Martin Luther King’s hotel rooms
Hoover also emerges as petty, judgmental and sometimes bizarre. He didn’t want men with “pear-shaped” heads as agents and woe to the agent who added a few extra pounds.
More than anything, Hoover was that uniquely American character, the workaholic. His entire life was dedicated to the FBI, which he built into the world’s most respected law enforcement agency. Agents feared letters of censure from the boss; Hoover’s FBI allowed no room for error or forgiveness. Hoover’s singular devotion to the FBI’s success and image made the bureau a tense, competitive place to work. Arrests, closed cases, the accuracy rate of typed pages – everything was measured. “All men, even the best men, must be closely controlled and supervised at all times,” Letersky quotes Hoover as telling him.
He stayed too long and in later years needed an afternoon nap but other than attending horse races, he had little other life.
As for Hoover using his famed and feared “personal files” to pressure the eight presidents he worked for to allow him to stay; in Letersky’s telling, it was more the other way around – several presidents tried to lean on Hoover for political leverage.
The director usually resisted. Letersky says Hoover never joined a political party and never voted.
With Hoover’s death in 1972, many thought the mystery of what was in his personal files would be revealed. Their mere existence generated fear – what secrets might those 30-some file drawers hold?
We can get some clues as to the contents from a file Letersky saw on The Monkees, the American pop group from the 1960s. The file consisted of a few newspaper clips, cut and stored because an informant said the group was transmitting subliminal anti-war messages during their concerts.
This would have been impressive at many levels. The Monkees’ musical abilities were such that studio musicians recorded many of their songs for them.
And the rest of the files?
We will never know. After Hoover’s death, they were shredded by his long-time secretary, Helen Gandy. The job took two weeks.
USA Indigenous children’s remains turned over from Army cemetery
By MARK SCOLFORO
yesterday
1 of 10 Ione Quigley, the Rosebud Sioux's historic preservation officer, returns to her seat after speaking during a ceremony at the U.S. Army's Carlisle Barracks, in Carlisle, Pa., Wednesday, July 14, 2021. The disinterred remains of nine Native American children who died more than a century ago while attending a government-run school in Pennsylvania were headed home to Rosebud Sioux tribal lands in South Dakota on Wednesday after a ceremony returning them to relatives. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) — The disinterred remains of nine Native American children who died more than a century ago while attending a government-run school in Pennsylvania were headed home to Rosebud Sioux tribal lands in South Dakota on Wednesday after a ceremony returning them to relatives.
The handoff at a graveyard on the grounds of the U.S. Army’s Carlisle Barracks was part of the fourth set of transfers to take place since 2017. The remains of an Alaskan Aleut child were returned to her tribe earlier this summer.
“We want our children home no matter how long it takes,” said U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who in June announced a nationwide investigation into the boarding schools that attempted to assimilate Indigenous children into white society.
Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, said at the event that “forced assimilation practices” stripped away the children’s clothing, their language and their culture. She said the government aims to locate the schools and burial sites and identify the names and tribal affiliations of children from the boarding schools around the country.
Nearly a thousand unmarked graves have been discovered in recent months at former residential school sites for Indigenous children in Canada.
In Pennsylvania, the nine sets of remains inside small wooden coffins were carried past a phalanx of tribal members and well-wishers before being loaded into a vehicle trailer to be driven to Sioux City, Iowa. The children died between 1880 and 1910.
Ione Quigley, the tribe’s historic preservation officer, recounted how she attended the disinterment earlier this week and used red ochre to prepare the remains in a traditional way.
“We got everything done as respectfully and honorably as possible,” Quigley said.
Russell Eagle Bear, a Rosebud Sioux tribal council representative, said a lodge was being prepared for a Friday ceremony at a Missouri River landing near Sioux City where children boarded a steamboat for the journey to the government-run Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
The Carlisle school, founded by an Army officer, took drastic steps to separate Native American students from their culture, including cutting their braids, dressing them in military-style uniforms and punishing them for speaking their native languages. They were forced to adopt European names.
More than 10,000 Native American children were taught there and endured harsh conditions that sometimes led to death from such diseases as tuberculosis.
Eagle Bear said children from the tribe endured ridicule along the trip to Carlisle in 1879, three years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Tribal officials said that when the remains arrive in South Dakota, some will be buried in a veterans’ cemetery and others are destined for family graveyards.
“We’re here today and we are going to take our children home,” Eagle Bear said to about 100 attendees on Wednesday. “We have a big homecoming on the other end.”
Since August 2017, the Army has disinterred 22 remains of Native American children from the cemetery, including the 10 that occurred this year. In previous years, remains were turned over to the Northern Arapaho, Blackfeet, Oglala Sioux, Oneida, Omaha, Modoc and Iowa tribes.
3 of 10 Interior Secretary Deb Haaland moves to speak during a ceremony at the U.S. Army's Carlisle Barracks, in Carlisle, Pa., Wednesday, July 14, 2021. The disinterred remains of nine Native American children who died more than a century ago while attending a government-run school in Pennsylvania were headed home to Rosebud Sioux tribal lands in South Dakota on Wednesday after a ceremony returning them to relatives. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Mark Ruffalo meets with young people from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe after a ceremony at the U.S. Army's Carlisle Barracks, in Carlisle, Pa., Wednesday, July 14, 2021. The disinterred remains of nine Native American children who died more than a century ago while attending a government-run school in Pennsylvania were headed home to Rosebud Sioux tribal lands in South Dakota on Wednesday after a ceremony returning them to relatives. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
July 13, 2021 1 of 13 Carissa Moore of the United States, practices for a World Surf League competition at Surf Ranch on Wednesday, June 16, 2021, in Lemoore, Calif. The Summer Games in Tokyo, which kick off this month, serve as a proxy for that unresolved tension and resentment, according to the Native Hawaiians who lament that surfing and their identity have been culturally appropriated by white outsiders who now stand to benefit the most from the $10 billion industry. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — For some Native Hawaiians, surfing’s Olympic debut is both a celebration of a cultural touchstone invented by their ancestors, and an extension of the racial indignities seared into the history of the game and their homeland.
The Tokyo Summer Games, which open July 23, serve as a proxy for that unresolved tension and resentment, according to the ethnic Hawaiians who lament that surfing and their identity have been culturally appropriated by white outsiders who now stand to benefit the most from the $10 billion industry.
“You had Native Hawaiians in the background being a part of the development of it and just not being really recognized,” said Isaiah Helekunihi Walker, a Hawaii historian and activist. “There’s an element of them taking over. That’s when there’s no more aloha.”
The Indigenous people of Hawaii traditionally viewed the act of stylishly riding ocean waves on a board for fun and competition as a spiritual art form and egalitarian national pastime that connected them to the land and sea.
White European settlers who first learned of the sport when they arrived to the island both vilified and capitalized on the sport. Christian missionaries disapproved of the nudity on display, yet white businessmen later ran a whites-only surf club on Waikiki beach.
Today, white people are still seen as the leaders and authorities of the sport globally, as surfing’s evolution is now a legacy shaped by white perspectives: from practically Native Hawaiian birthright to censured water activity, and California counterculture symbol to global professional sports league.
Imagine if the Hollywood version of yoga became an Olympic sport, and by default overshadowed its roots in India, whitewashing the original cultural flavor into a white Californian trope.
“It’s the paradox and hypocrisy of colonization,” said Walker, a BYU-Hawaii history professor who is Native Hawaiian.
White settlers first arrived on the island in the 1700s, bringing with them disease that nearly wiped out the Native Hawaiian population, conquest to take over the land and its bounty of natural resources, and racist attitudes that relegated the Indigenous population to second-class citizenship.
Though it was three Native Hawaiian princes who first showed off surfing to the mainland in 1885 during a visit to Santa Cruz, California, white businessmen are credited with selling surfing and Hawaii as an exotic tourism commodity for the wealthy. That trajectory has since manifested into a professional sports league largely fronted by white athletes.
But the Native Hawaiians never gave up their sport and by the 1970s, there was a full-blown racial clash around surfing with well-documented fights in the ocean. The issue pitted Native Hawaiians and some white residents who grew up among them against the white Californian and Australian surfers who sought to exclude locals from the world’s best waves on their very own turf.
An infamous brawl involved a trash-talking Australian surfer named Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew, who was battered and humbled by the locals. The surfing world’s reverence for Hawaii and Native Hawaiians was cemented. Bartholomew would go on to run the Association of Surfing Professionals, an earlier iteration of the current pro league.
“I treaded lightly in light of what they went through because there was an internalization that this is something that was stolen from them,” said Richard Schmidt, who was among the white Californian pro surfers on the scene in that era. “You’re never a complete surfer until you prove yourself in Hawaii.”
Yet critics say the business and branding aspect of the sport and lifestyle largely remained white-centered.
“When surfing started to become really popular, that triggered money and that triggered business people and things we’d never thought we’d have to deal with as people who surf in Hawaii,” said Walter Ritte, a longtime Native Hawaiian activist. “There’s no doubt that the control is not here in Hawaii.” The effort to take back surfing’s narrative is why sovereignty activists applied for a Hawaii Kingdom national team to compete at the Olympics. Their longshot request hinges on the fact that they say there was no ratified treaty that ever formally dissolved Hawaii’s autonomy. The United States annexed Hawaii in 1898 after the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by U.S.-backed forces in 1893.
A statement from the International Olympic Committee, which has ignored the request, noted only that applicants must be an “independent state recognized by the international community.”
This geopolitical dynamic will be on display when Carissa Moore and John John Florence are in the surf zone to compete for the U.S.
Neither is eager to discuss their views on the matter but they are two of professional surfing’s biggest stars who have long competed under the Hawaii flag in the pro league, as the World Surf League recognizes Hawaii as a “sovereign surfing nation.” Moore as the reigning female world champion is also the only Olympic surfer who is ethnically Hawaiian.
“The hurt and the wounds go back really far,” Moore said. “I usually compete under the Hawaii flag all year with the WSL...For me, that’s not a huge focus right now. I think that I can still represent both, even if I’m not wearing the flag on my sleeve. I’m wearing it on my heart.”
Tatiana Weston-Webb, a white woman who grew up in Hawaii and will surf for her mother’s native Brazil at the Olympics, said Native Hawaiians deserve more recognition but rejected the idea that they are disrespected.
“I don’t think that they’re being overshadowed,” Weston-Webb said. “It just depends on how you look at the situation.”
Fernando Aguerre as president of the International Surfing Association, the Olympic governing body for surfing, pledged to honor Hawaii and Duke Kahanamoku, the godfather of modern surfing, during the Games. Like many surfing industry leaders, Aguerre, who is from Argentina, invokes the legend of Kahanamoku often, even noting that he named his son after the Native Hawaiian icon.
Kahanamoku was an Olympic swimmer who won five medals and introduced the sport via surfing exhibitions in places like California, New Jersey, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. He lobbied the IOC at the 1912 Summer Games in Stockholm to include it in the Olympics, and was the ultimate waterman, whose legacy also includes popularizing flutter swimming kicks and spreading the concept of lifeguarding and water rescue to the masses.
“Everything we do has a connection to Hawaii. I think it’s impossible to detach Hawaiianness from surfing,” Aguerre said. “The ocean doesn’t really care about hate, war or governments. Surfing is that way, too.”
Didi Robello, a descendant of Kahanamoku, said none of his family members have been contacted to participate in any Olympic celebrations. He said his grand-uncle’s name and legacy are exploited, which has become a great source of pain for the family because the trademark rights to the Kahanamoku name are owned by outsiders.
In this Jan. 9, 1935, file photo, two surfers ride the crest of a wave back to the beach in Honolulu, Hawaii. For some Native Hawaiians, surfing's Olympic debut is both a celebration of a cultural touchstone invented by their ancestors, and an extension of the racial indignities seared into the history of the game and their homeland. The Summer Games in Tokyo, which kick off this month, serve as a proxy for that unresolved tension and resentment, according to the Native Hawaiians who lament that surfing and their identity have been culturally appropriated by white outsiders who now stand to benefit the most from the $10 billion industry. (AP Photo/File)
Isaiah Helekunihi Walker, a Native Hawaiian historian and professor, speaks with The Associated Press on a beach in Laie, Hawaii, Thursday, July 8, 2021. Though it was three Native Hawaiian princes who first showed off surfing to the mainland in 1885 during a visit to Santa Cruz, California, white businessmen are credited with selling surfing and Hawaii as an exotic tourism commodity for the wealthy. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)
- In this 1924 file photo, Johnny Weissmuller, TARZAN left, and Duke Kahanamoku are seen at the 1924 Olympic games in Paris. For some Native Hawaiians, surfing's Olympic debut is both a celebration of a cultural touchstone invented by their ancestors, and an extension of the racial indignities seared into the history of the game and their homeland. Kahanamoku was a Native Hawaiian swimmer who won five Olympic medals and is known as the godfather of modern surfing who introduced the sport in surfing exhibitions in Australia and California. (AP Photo/File)
In this Aug. 11, 1933, file photo, Duke Kahanamoku, Hawaiian Olympic swimmer, poses in a swimming pool in Los Angeles. For some Native Hawaiians, surfing's Olympic debut is both a celebration of a cultural touchstone invented by their ancestors, and an extension of the racial indignities seared into the history of the game and their homeland. Kahanamoku was a Native Hawaiian swimmer who won five Olympic medals and is known as the godfather of modern surfing who introduced the sport in surfing exhibitions in Australia and California. (AP Photo/File)
WAR! WHAT'S IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! The cost of the Afghanistan war, in lives and dollars
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER
July 12, 2021
The nearly 20-year American combat mission in Afghanistan was the United States’ longest war. Ordinary Americans tended to forget about it, and it received measurably less oversight from Congress than the Vietnam war did. But its death toll is in the many tens of thousands, and generations of Americans to come will be burdened by the cost of paying it off.
As the U.S. commander for Afghanistan, Gen. Scott Miller, relinquished his command in Kabul on Monday, here’s a look at the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, by the numbers.
Much of the data below from Linda Bilmes of Harvard University’s Kennedy School and from the Brown University Costs of War project. Because the United States between 2003-2011 fought the Afghanistan and Iraq wars simultaneously, and many American troops served tours in both wars, some figures as noted cover both post-9/11 U.S. wars. THE LONGEST WAR:
Percentage of U.S. population born since the 2001 attacks plotted by al-Qaida leaders who were sheltering in Afghanistan: Roughly one out of every four. THE HUMAN COST:
American service members killed in Afghanistan through April: 2,448.
U.S. contractors: MERCENARIES 3,846.
Afghan national military and police: 66,000.
Other allied service members, including other NATO member states’: 1,144.
Afghan civilians: 47,245.
Taliban and other opposition fighters: 51,191.
Aid workers: 444.
Journalists: 72. AFGHANISTAN AFTER NEARLY 20 YEARS OF U.S. OCCUPATION:
Percentage drop in infant mortality rate since U.S., Afghan and other allied forces overthrew the Taliban government, which had sought to restrict women and girls to the home: About 50.
Estimated interest payments on that $2 trillion so far (based on a higher-end estimate of interest rates): $925 billion.
Estimated interest costs by 2030: $2 trillion.
Estimated interest costs by 2050: $6.5 trillion. THE WARS END. THE COSTS DON’T:
Amount Bilmes estimates the United States has committed to pay in health care, disability, burial and other costs for roughly 4 million Afghanistan and Iraq veterans: $1.6 to $1.8 trillion.
Period those costs will peak: after 2048.
UKRAINE Beachgoers Horrified Seeing Woman With Hitler’s Portrait And Swastika Inked On Bum
Nina Siena | Jul 15 2021, Beachgoers enjoying a sunny day at the Black Sea resort in Ukraine were stunned at the sight of a swastika tattoo on a heavily inked bikini-clad woman. The woman was spotted at the beach two days ago with the Nazi symbol on her buttocks as well as a portrait of Hitler on her hand.
Onlookers could not keep themselves from ogling at the unnamed woman with some people having made no effort to conceal their disapproval of the images inked on her body. Jaws dropped as she paced through the scattered beach umbrellas in her blue thong bottom and red bikini top with the swastika clearly in sight on her right buttock.
Anonymous photos of the woman were posted online showcasing not one but two disturbing images that left almost everyone at the resort horrified. On her right hand, a portrait of Adolf Hitler is also clearly visible in the circulating photos.
According to Daily Star, the woman was forced to leave the beach premises not long after she had arrived as a good number of beachgoers made it a point to express how they felt about her tattoos. Some were still reeling and struggling to guess another image that was tattooed right above her crotch as this was covered by her bikini bottom.
Police have not released any statement to comment on the beach incident despite a ruling ordinance in Ukraine against spreading Nazism propaganda or displaying symbols of Nazism. These are considered criminal offenses and anyone caught violating it can be subjected to a maximum punishment of five years in prison.
Offended social media users condemned the woman and her choice of ink, with one quoted saying: ''I don't want to lose hope that she is a fan of Karlsson and that this is just a failed drawing of his propeller.'' Another netizen had no qualms expressing that if the woman had intentions to draw attention to her bum, she definitely succeeded at it.
Nazi type symbols and images are not an uncommon thing requested by people wanting to get inked. In June, a 29-year-old Neo-Nazi from Austria had his testicles tattooed with a swastika. The man claimed he was drunk when he got the ink. After going on all-night bender downing two bottles of whiskey, he urged his brother to ink the swastika on his man-jewels. He was proud of his brother’s work and showed off an image of the tattoo online and even brandished the ink among his army colleagues.
The unidentified Neo-Nazi was later arrested and was also later found in possession of an illegal firearm along with photos of him posing in front of a Nazi memorabilia at the Bunkermuseum Wurzenpass. During his trial at the Klagenfurt District Court in Australia, the man was also said to be known for posting Third Reich propaganda online and indulging himself in Hitler-branded wine.
Representation Image Tattoo ARtist At Work ilovetattoos/Pixabay
Donald Trump Had Sinister Plans After November 2020 Election, New Book Claims
Top generals were reportedly planning to take the informal route if former US President Donald Trump attempted coup after the November 2020 election.
US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley, reportedly feared that Trump might attempt a coup or adopt dangerous or illegal methods following the election. To stop him, Milley and other top officials teamed up and discussed informal plans. The claims are made in "I Alone Can Fix It" by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, reported CNN.
According to the book, Milley and the other Joint Chiefs thought of resigning, one-by-one, rather than following Trump's orders that they considered were illegal, dangerous or ill-advised. The authors wrote that it was like "Saturday Night Massacre in reverse."
Trump's final year as the US president is highlighted in the book for which he was interviewed for more than two hours. It also has a behind-the-scenes look at how senior administration staff and his inner circle navigated his unhinged behavior after losing the election.
The book is also about how a top military officer was gearing up for a showdown amid coup attempt fears. Milley apparently spoke to friends, lawmakers and colleagues about it, and the Joint Chiefs chairman felt that he was required to be "on guard" for what might happen.
According to the authors, Milley told his deputies that they may try take the coup route, but they are not going to succeed. "You can't do this without the military. You can't do this without the CIA and the FBI. We're the guys with the guns."
Leonnig and Rucker wrote that prior to Jan. 6, Milley was concerned about Trump's call to action. Milley reportedly informed his staff that he believed Trump was "stoking unrest," possibly hoping of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call the military.
The authors wrote that Milley saw Trump as "the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose."
Before a November pro-Trump "Million MAGA March" to protest the results of the 2020 election, Milley reportedly told aides that he feared it "could be the modern American equivalent of 'brownshirts in the streets.'" He was referring to the pro-Nazi militia that helped in Adolf Hitler's rise to power.
A spokesperson for Trump and the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been reached out for comment, The Hill reported.
"I Alone Can Fix It" will hit the stands on July 20.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during a press conference announcing a class action lawsuit against big tech companies at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster on July 07, 2021 in Bedminster, New Jersey. Former president Trump held a press conference with executives from the America First Policy Institute to announce a class action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, Google, and their CEOs, claiming that he was wrongfully censored. Since being banned from the social media companies, former president Trump has continued to spread lies about the 2020 election. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
US top general feared Trump’s election fraud complaint was a ‘Reichstag moment’
By Reis Thebault July 15, 2021 —
Washington: In the waning weeks of Donald Trump’s term, the country’s top military leader repeatedly worried about what the president might do to maintain power after losing re-election, comparing his rhetoric to Adolf Hitler’s during the rise of Nazi Germany and asking confidantes whether a coup was forthcoming.
As Trump pushed false claims about the 2020 presidential election, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, grew more and more nervous, telling aides he feared that the president and his acolytes may attempt to use the military to stay in office, according to a new book titled I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year by Washington Post journalists Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker.
General Mark Milley listens as president Donald Trump discusses an Iranian air strike, January 8, 2020. CREDIT:BLOOMBERG
Milley described “a stomach-churning” feeling as he listened to Trump’s untrue complaints of election fraud, drawing a comparison to the 1933 attack on Germany’s parliament building that Hitler used as a pretext to establish a Nazi dictatorship.
“This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley told aides, according to the book. “The gospel of the Fuhrer.”
A spokesman for Milley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Portions of the book related to Milley - first reported by CNN ahead of the book’s July 20 release - offer a remarkable window into the thinking of America’s highest-ranking military officer, who saw himself as one of the last empowered defenders of democracy during the tense stand-off between the president and election officials.
The episodes in the book are based on interviews with more than 140 people, including senior Trump administration officials, friends and advisers, Leonnig and Rucker write in an author’s note. Most agreed to speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity and the scenes reported were reconstructed based on firsthand accounts and multiple other sources whenever possible.
General Milley is pictured on the right, walking with the president on June 1, 2020, to the photo opp at a church during the Black Lives Matter protests. CREDIT:AP
Milley - who was widely criticised last year for appearing alongside Trump in Lafayette Square after protesters were forcibly cleared from the area - had pledged to use his office to ensure a free and fair election with no military involvement. But he became increasingly concerned in the days following the November contest, making multiple references to the onset of 20th century fascism.
After attending a November 10 security briefing about the “Million MAGA March,” a pro-Trump rally protesting against the election result, Milley said he feared an American equivalent of ”brown shirts in the streets,” alluding to the paramilitary forces that protected Nazi rallies and enabled Hitler’s ascent.
Late that same evening, according to the book, an old friend called Milley to express concerns that those close to Trump were attempting to “overturn the government”.
“You are one of the few guys who are standing between us and some really bad stuff,” the friend told Milley, according to an account relayed to his aides. Milley was shaken, Leonnig and Rucker write, and he called former national security adviser HR McMaster to ask whether a coup was actually imminent. “What the f--- am I dealing with?” Milley asked him.
If someone wanted to seize control, Milley thought, they would need to gain sway over the FBI, the CIA and the Defence Department, where Trump had already installed staunch allies. “They may try, but they’re not going to f---ing succeed,” he told some of his closest deputies, the book reports.
In the weeks that followed, Milley played reassuring soothsayer to a string of concerned members of Congress and administration officials who shared his worries about Trump attempting to use the military to stay in office.
General Mark Milley is said to have received panicked calls from congress representatives after Trump refused to concede. CREDIT:AP
“Everything’s going to be OK,” he told them, according to the book. “We’re going to have a peaceful transfer of power. We’re going to land this plane safely. This is America. It’s strong. The institutions are bending, but it won’t break.”
In December, with rumours circulating that the president was preparing to fire then-CIA Director Gina Haspel and replace her with Trump loyalist Kash Patel, Milley sought to intervene, the book says. He confronted White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows at the annual Army-Navy football game, which Trump and other high-profile guests attended.
“What the hell is going on here?” Milley asked Meadows, according to the book’s account. “What are you guys doing?”
When Meadows responded, “Don’t worry about it,” Milley shot him a warning: “Just be careful.”
A damning new report has exposed major US intelligence and security failures, in the lead up to the January assault on the US Capitol.
After the failed insurrection on January 6, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Milley to ask for his guarantee that Trump would not be able to launch a nuclear strike and start a war.
“This guy’s crazy,” Pelosi said of Trump in what the book reported was mostly a one-way phone call. “He’s dangerous. He’s a maniac.”
Once again, Milley sought to reassure: “Ma’am, I guarantee you that we have checks and balances in the system,” he told Pelosi.
Less than a week later, as military and law enforcement leaders planned for President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Milley said he was determined to avoid a repeat of the siege on the Capitol.
“Everyone in this room, whether you’re a cop, whether you’re a soldier, we’re going to stop these guys to make sure we have a peaceful transfer of power,” he told them. “We’re going to put a ring of steel around this city and the Nazis aren’t getting in.”
General Mark Milley salutes new President Joe Biden and former president Barack Obama on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021. CREDIT:AP
At Biden’s swearing-in on January 20, Milley was seated behind former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, who asked the general how he was feeling.
“No one has a bigger smile today than I do,” Milley replied. “You can’t see it under my mask, but I do.”
The Washington Post
The mass demonstrations against Bolsonaro and the fight for socialism in Brazil
Demonstrators march on in Paulista Avenue to demand that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro resign, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Saturday, July 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Nelson Antoine)
Over the past month, Brazil has seen three days of nationwide demonstrations that have brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets against President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration and its criminal response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The scale of the demonstrations and the persistence of the protesters express the growing discontent among broad layers of the Brazilian population with the existing social order and point to the urgency of the fight for genuine socialist politics in Brazil.
Alongside similar demonstrations in Paraguay and Colombia in recent months, the protests in Brazil represent the initial development of mass opposition in the streets against the homicidal policies adopted by the ruling classes across the globe in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
They are part of a global wave of working class radicalization, which has seen strikes in Europe and North America that have confronted previously accepted conditions of exploitation and challenged the domination of corporatist unions.
These events are a vindication of the Marxist prognosis of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), which has analyzed the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic as a trigger event that is provoking a revolutionary response by the working class internationally.
The crimes of Bolsonaro and his accomplices
In Brazil, in addition to the more than half a million lives unnecessarily lost to the coronavirus, the capitalist response to the pandemic has worsened the deplorable conditions of life of the working masses, the already grotesque levels of social inequality and the brutality of bourgeois rule in the country.
The homicidal policy of the Brazilian bourgeoisie found in the figure of fascistic President Bolsonaro is its most radical and virulent expression. Bolsonaro insisted that the pandemic should be faced by the ruling class as a war, demanding the suspension of the social and democratic rights of the working class.
Consistently following the principle that no effort to save lives should be allowed to conflict with profit interests, Bolsonaro repeatedly attacked policies advanced by scientists and public health experts. He has discouraged the wearing of masks and social distancing, promoted drugs—without any scientific basis—as miracle cures for the disease, encouraged the disobedience of “lockdown” decrees and sabotaged the vaccination campaign in the country.
During the pandemic, Bolsonaro has deepened his systematic efforts to install a military dictatorship in Brazil. He brought military officers into every department of his government, entrusted an active duty general with the coordination of his criminal response to the coronavirus and fought to draw the Armed Forces into his government’s “war on lockdowns” policy.
While Bolsonaro has been the most visible protagonist of the attacks against the Brazilian population over the past year, the entire ruling class and its political superstructure are implicated in these barbaric crimes.
The representatives of the different industrial and commercial associations of the Brazilian bourgeoisie even marched alongside the fascistic president to Brazil’s Supreme Court to proclaim “Enough!” and demand the lifting of the meager measures to promote social distancing that were advanced when Brazil had not yet reached 10,000 COVID-19 deaths.
This ruthless order was slavishly obeyed (without even the need for a court order) by all the parties of the bourgeois establishment, from the governors of the Workers Party (PT) to those of the right-wing Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB). All of them promoted the general reopening of the economy and schools, indifferent to the devastating consequences.
The bourgeois state channels for social opposition
Fearing that the growth of social opposition will develop into an open struggle of the working class against the capitalist system, Bolsonaro’s rivals within the ruling class are trying to dissipate popular anger by channeling it behind the bourgeois state.
The political forces that called for the recent demonstrations—the PT, its political satellites, and the unions and social movements they control—are actively working to suppress any class content in the political opposition to the Bolsonaro administration.
Their efforts are aimed at creating narrow political limits for the protests, framing them as a form of pressure on the bourgeoisie and its state. According to this political perspective, the action of the masses should serve to legitimatize and lend a democratic or even “progressive” veneer to the reactionary political maneuvers and deals being worked out by capitalist interests behind the backs of the people.
The demonstrations were politically subordinated to the forging of a reactionary alliance between the PT and its allies and the most right-wing forces of the Brazilian political establishment. And their agenda was tied to the work of the COVID Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) and the schedule for congressional votes on calls for the impeachment of Bolsonaro.
The genuine anger of those who joined the protests over the brutal sacrifice of lives to the coronavirus, the attacks against democracy and the mass impoverishment of the Brazilian population under the Bolsonaro government is thus being driven into a political swamp.
The CPI, to which the demonstrations are being subordinated, is turning into a cover-up of the crimes committed by the Brazilian state in the furtherance of the capitalist herd immunity policy. The investigation is being focused on the government’s “corruption” in the purchase of vaccines, which treats Bolsonaro’s “denialism” regarding the pandemic (that is, his refusal to take any action that would interfere with the capitalist economy) as mere window-dressing for his pursuit of private financial interests.
The calls for the impeachment by Bolsonaro’s “opposition” within the state are based on a reactionary defense of the stability of bourgeois rule in Brazil against the threats posed by Bolsonaro’s provocations.
The overthrow of Bolsonaro based upon these bourgeois methods and political perspective has no progressive content. None of the fundamental problems faced by the working class under the current government would be solved.
Such an outcome, on the contrary, would pave the way for the continuation of the policy of criminal neglect of the COVID-19 pandemic, the deepening of social inequality under capitalism and the ruling class’s turn to authoritarian forms of government.
The pseudo-left apologists for bourgeois politics
The attempt to legitimize such a reactionary political outcome requires a division of labor between the political forces committed to the defense of capitalism, in which the pseudo-left organizations, reflecting the interests of privileged layers of the middle class, play a central role.
Political parties and groups originating in Stalinism, Pabloism and its Latin American Morenoite variant, as well as in academic identity politics, are all working to provide a left cover for the demoralized bourgeois opposition to Bolsonaro.
The PSOL, which was founded as a purported left-wing alternative to the dirty bourgeois deals that underpinned the PT governments, has become the leading apologist for an open alliance with the right and the far right, painting these forces as progressive sections of the national bourgeoisie.
This grotesque political alliance took shape in the PSOL’s joint filing of a “super” impeachment petition of Bolsonaro together with far-right figures who played dominant roles in the election of the fascistic president in the first place, and then broke with his administration for opportunistic reasons.
In the wake of the signing of this document, PSOL leaders enthusiastically promoted the participation of the right-wing parties in the demonstrations against Bolsonaro. PSOL president Juliano Medeiros attacked any “sectarian voices” that “will say that it is absurd to be on the same platform as the Tucanos [a nickname for the right-wing PSDB],” insisting that “any party that wants the impeachment is welcome.”
The Morenoite faction of the PSOL, Resistência, declared that it was necessary to “invite all sections that claim to be in opposition to the government, even segments of the right, to join the demonstrations for ousting Bolsonaro.” Seeking to justify this dirty policy with pseudo-radical phraseology, the leader of Resistência, Valerio Arcary, opposed the “tactic of a slow attrition [of Bolsonaro]” with the assertion that “unity in action with … the bourgeoisie is essential” and “progressive.”
Few sections of the pseudo-left present their opportunism as openly as Transição Socialista. The group has (justifiably) claimed to have pioneered the policy of joint action with the far right and the bourgeoisie, now advocated by the entire Brazilian pseudo-left. It promoted the reactionary middle-class protests that served as a “popular” cover for the impeachment of PT President Dilma Rousseff.
The TS once again argues in favor of “unity with every sector ... even the liberals,” based on the demoralized claim that “one must be realistic,” and accept that “what is posed as a possibility on the horizon is not a ‘general strike.’” In other words, they shamelessly claim that the working class should not be taken as the subject of historical transformation and, instead, one should adapt oneself to what exists, i.e., capitalism.
The reactionary response of these pseudo-left groups to the profound political crisis gripping the Brazilian ruling class is unmasking them as the bitterest enemies of the working class.
For an independent political movement of the working class!
The Brazilian Socialist Equality Group, in solidarity with the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), stands in irreconcilable opposition to the maneuvers of the bourgeoisie and its pseudo-left agents to derail the growing social opposition to Bolsonaro and the entire capitalist system.
We call on the hundreds of thousands of youth and workers who joined the recent protests with the genuine desire to overthrow Bolsonaro’s fascistic government and fight for the social and democratic rights of the Brazilian population to turn to the only social force capable of realizing these demands: the working class mobilized independently based upon its own methods of struggle and political program.
Over the past year, the working class has demonstrated its objectively revolutionary social character by responding with a wave of strikes and militant opposition to the capitalist attacks carried out in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The spread of the coronavirus across Europe and North America provoked a wave of wildcat industrial strikes that forced the ruling class to adopt lockdown policies. In Brazil, a similar wave of wildcat strikes broke out in March 2020 among workers in call centers across the country opposing the deadly risks they faced at their workplaces.
The militant response of Brazilian workers was continued in a series of strikes against unsafe conditions in the workplaces and the assault on living standards by health care workers, bus drivers and other transportation workers, app delivery workers, oil workers at Petrobras, auto workers, workers at meat processing plants and those in other industrial sectors. Dozens of teachers strikes have been and continue to be called against the criminal reopening of schools across Brazil.
All these movements have faced the active opposition of the union federations and local trade unions, which acted consciously to isolate and break the strikes, guaranteeing the operation of the corporations and schools at the expense of the mass death of the workers.
The struggle of the Brazilian working class can advance only through a definitive political break with the PT, its pseudo-leftist satellites and the corporatist unions controlled by them, which represent the police forces of capitalism.
Brazilian workers and youth must appeal not to the supposedly “progressive” sections of the bourgeoisie, but to their fellow workers around the world, who face the same dangers of the uncontrolled spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the massive advance of social inequality and the destruction of democratic forms of government.
With the perspective of unifying the powerful emerging struggles of the global working class and directing them against capitalism, last May Day the ICFI launched a call for the formation of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC).
Brazilian workers should join this initiative, forming rank-and-file committees in every workplace and coordinating their struggles with their colleagues in different industries and across national borders.
As the statement of the ICFI made clear, the IWA-RFC should raise the banner of socialism, orienting the working class toward the seizure of political power, the expropriation of capitalist banks and corporations and the redirection of the vast fortunes accumulated by the financial and corporate oligarchy to meet the social needs of the world’s masses.
Brazilian workers and youth must understand that the uncontrolled spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to threaten millions of lives, the massive growth of social inequality and the systematic destruction of democratic forms of rule are global issues, which have their roots in the insoluble crisis of the world capitalist system.
These threats can only be confronted by unifying the ongoing powerful struggles of the working class internationally in a common fight against capitalism and its outdated system of national states.
This movement must raise the banner of socialism, fighting for the political power of the working class, the expropriation of the banks and corporations and the redirection of the vast wealth accumulated by the bourgeoisie to attend to the broad social interests of the world’s masses.
The fate of this struggle depends upon the construction of a revolutionary party in the Brazilian working class, a section of the ICFI. Over decades, the ICFI has single-handedly defended the socialist and internationalist principles of Marxism betrayed by Social Democracy, Stalinism and Pabloite revisionism.
Today, the gains of this historic struggle are merging with the objective movement of the working class, opening the path for the construction of the Socialist Equality Parties as the leadership of the working class in struggle for the international socialist revolution.
Large Chunk Of Amazon Rainforest Now Emits More Carbon Than It Takes In, Study Finds
I'm a news reporter for Forbes, primarily covering the U.S. South.
TOPLINE
South America's dense Amazon rainforest has long served as one of the planet's primary carbon-absorbing regions, but a new study has found human interference is causing a large part of the rainforest to put out more carbon dioxide than it takes in—making it significantly harder to combat climate change.
Destroyed forests are seen in the Brazilian Amazon. (Photo by Universal Images Group via Getty ... [+]
UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES
KEY FACTS
An area on the eastern side of the Amazon that covers about 20% of the rainforest basin is emitting more carbon than it takes in, according to a study from an international team of researchers that was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
The eastern part of the Amazon has been subjected to massive deforestation and burning, due in large part to an expansion of cattle ranching in the region.
Researchers found the greatest increases in emissions came in areas where burning had taken place.
The researchers measured the concentration of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the air over the Amazon in nearly 600 low-altitude flights between 2010 and 2018.
KEY BACKGROUND
The Amazon has long been considered one of the world's primary "carbon sinks" due to the large amounts of carbon dioxide that its trees suck up. Some 123 billion tons of carbon is believed to be stored in the Amazon rainforest, according to NOAA. But the continued high level of human-caused carbon emissions around the world has taken its toll on the Amazon, and the rainforest can no longer keep up. That's caused temperatures to rise there, while rainfall has declined during the region's dry season from August to October. Combined with deforestation, a massive portion of the rainforest is now at risk of turning into savannah and grasslands, which would significantly reduce the region's natural carbon-carrying capacity. A 2020 study published in the journal Nature Communications estimated up to 40% of the Amazon was at risk of becoming savannah.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
Dr. Thomas Lovejoy of George Mason University published an essay in 2018 warning the Amazon was at a "tipping point," but he told The New York Times reforestation efforts could reverse some of the damage and mitigate future risks. “I don’t think you’ll ever get it back to what it was, but you can certainly improve it,” Lovejoy said.
TANGENT
Rates of deforestation in the Brazilian portion of the Amazon have soared during the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, but Bolsonaro said in April he intends for the country to become carbon neutral by 2050.
