Now we know, what gets roots to grow: Can help in future droughts

PLANTS A biological mechanism familiar to people who fast helps plant roots grow strong. The discovery by University of Copenhagen scientists provides an answer to a long-unanswered question and a deeper understanding of the "mouths" of plants that can he

UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN - FACULTY OF SCIENCE

 

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TO INVESTIGATE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AUTOPHAGY, THE RESEARCHERS DEVELOPED A MUTANT ARABIDOPSIS (THALE CRESS) PLANT IN WHICH IT'S AUTOPHAGY WAS DISABLED WHICH IS SHOWN ON THE RIGHT. WITH AN ENZYME FROM FIRE FLIES THE RESEARCHERS MADE IT POSSIBLE TO DISTINGUISH THE NORMAL PLANT FROM THE PLANT WITH IT'S AUTOPHAGY FUNCTION DISABLED. THE PLANT TO THE RIGHT HOS FEWER LIGHT AREAS AND THEREBY FEWER POTENTIAL PLACES TO GROW NEW ROOTS WITH IT'S AUTOPHAGY FUNCTION TURNED OFF.

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CREDIT: ELEAZAR RODRIGUEZ, DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN.

Now we know, what gets roots to grow: Can help in future droughts

A biological mechanism familiar to people who fast helps plant roots grow strong. The discovery by University of Copenhagen scientists provides an answer to a long-unanswered question and a deeper understanding of the "mouths" of plants that can help to develop climate-resilient crops.

Imagine eating with your feet and having half your body underground. Such is the life of most plants, with roots as the mouths through which they eat and drink. Roots also serve to anchor plants and keep them safe in wind and rain. Indeed, roots are critical for a plant's life.

But many things remain unknown about the life of plants. How they grow their roots big and strong has long been a question and there are key pieces missing to the puzzle.

In a new study published recently, researchers from the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Biology share their discovery of how plants control root growth.

It turns out that a beneficial clean-up mechanism in plant cells called autophagy plays a key role. The same mechanism exists in humans and is part of a popular health trend.

"Fasting has become popular as it seems to have a range of health-promoting effects in humans, as periods without food cause the body to activate a clean-up processes to dispose of various waste products in cells. In our study, we have proven that the same mechanism, which also exists in the plant kingdom, plays a vital role in the ability of plant roots to grow and absorb water and nutrients for the rest of the plant," explains Assistant Professor Eleazar Rodriguez from the Department of Biology, who led the study. 

Roots have a heartbeat

It has long been known that auxin, a plant hormone, controls plant growth, root growth included. Auxin is a fuel for a kind of heartbeat that beats in each and every root tip of a plant. Roughly every four to six hours, auxin levels and the heartbeat in a plant’s roots reach a maximum that causes new roots to grow.

"The movement of a root is almost like watching a snake slithering forward in search of water and nourishment in the soil. And we can see that the heartbeat is strongest every time the root meanders forth," says Eleazar Rodriguez.  

But how plants control its heartbeat so as to optimize root growth, has remained an unanswered question. This is where the plant's internal clean-up mechanism comes into the picture.

"In our experiments, we disabled the clean-up mechanism to understand its significance. Imagine if every garbage collector in Copenhagen went on strike – it wouldn’t be long before trash filled the streets. The same thing happened in the plant cells, as the heartbeats that drive root growth became much weaker and went out of sync," explains Eleazar Rodriguez.

Doing this allowed the researchers to conclude that the clean-up mechanism helps keep levels of different biochemical components in perfect balance to provide the most efficient root growth.

Can help germinate new climate-resilient crops 

According to the researchers, the new knowledge about plant roots may prove important in the fight against climate change. Extended periods of drought and floods are a new normal that place greater demands on food security. As such, the roots of the crops, which must be able to grow even in these harsh conditions.

“Numerous methods to change the genetic characteristics of plants are available today. These can be used to get plants to develop longer roots, faster, and in doing so, become more resistant to droughts or floods. One of the methods enlists the help of bacteria that live in symbiosis with the plant and can cause the plant to change its growth pattern. Several companies in Denmark are working on this right now," explains Ph.D. student Jeppe Ansbøl who co-authored the study..

The new knowledge applies to all flowering plants and perhaps more, according to the researcher. In principle, crops like tomatoes, potatoes, rice, wheat and corn could be altered to grow more and denser roots, because we now know how plants get their roots to grow.

"The more roots the plants have the more water and nutrients they can take, so the plants grow better faster. We’re heavily dependent on plants because they feed us, extract CO2 from the atmosphere and produce the oxygen we breathe. As such, it is extremely important to understand them fully, to which end we have just taken a big step forward," concludes Eleazar Rodriguez.

 

More about the result: Causing the garbage collectors in cells to go on strike

Autophagy means 'self-eating' and is a key mechanism when plants develop roots. To investigate the significance of autophagy, the researchers developed a mutant Arabidopsis (thale cress) plant in which its autophagy was disabled.

At the same time, they made the ARF7 protein luminescent, which is the protein that controls the auxin responses and which the plant cell's garbage collectors clean up to provide optimal root growth. The plant's garbage collectors collect waste from cells and transport it to a kind of recycling station in the plant called a vacuole.

"When we disrupted the plant's autophagy, there was waste everywhere, and we were able to detect the ARF7 protein among the waste," says Eleazar Rodriguez.

About the study

• The study has just been published in the scientific journal EMBO Reports [https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1038/s44319-024-00142-5]
• The study was conducted in collaboration with Spanish researchers. The research team consists of: Elise Ebstrup, Jeppe Ansbøl, Ana Paez-Garcia, Henry Culp, Jonathan Chevalier, Pauline Clemmens, Núria Sánchez Coll, Miguel Anguel Moreno-Risueno and Eleazar Rodriguez.
• Institutions that contributed to the research are: Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Centro de Biotecnología y Genómica de Plantas (CBGP), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria, Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.
• The study is funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark.

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JOURNAL

EMBO Reports

DOI

10.1038/s44319-024-00142-5 

ARTICLE TITLE

NBR1-mediated selective autophagy of ARF7 modulates root branching

Capitalism, climate change and workers’ health: Notes on a research agenda

Raju J Das
18 May, 2024



Abstract:

 Climate change is producing health challenges. It has therefore contributed to an enhanced scholarly attention to public health. This article presents some basic ideas about how capitalism, workers’ health and climate change are inter-connected. It explains: a) the impacts of the production of capitalist wealth on workers’ health, and b) how these impacts are mediated by climate change, which is also a product of capitalism. Building on Friedrich Engels, the article introduces the concept of “eco-social murder” to explore the ways in which the ecological character of capitalism is killing and harming workers.

Capitalism produces a lot of wealth, including the development of new technologies. Karl Marx admired capitalism for this in the Communist Manifesto and elsewhere.1 But it is also a society where workers’ health is severely compromised relative to the opportunities available to escape from avoidable illnesses and deaths. There have been significant improvements in health conditions, as demonstrated by a massive increase in longevity, thanks to the capitalist development of science and technology aided by the state and thanks to workers’ struggle for better health. Yet, capitalism produces conditions for illnesses and deaths too. In Capital 1, Marx (1887) says: “the capitalist mode of production…has seized the vital power of the people by the very root” (ibid.: 181, italics added).2 In our time, the scope of this idea from Marx, along with Friedrich Engels’ idea of social murder, can be broadened to include the impacts of climate change.

Engels (1845), Marx’s co-writer, independently wrote about workers’ health.3 He has deservingly received much attention for his work on workers’ health and, especially, for his concept of social murder. This concept refers to avoidable deaths of workers caused by the operation of the capitalist economic system and the capitalist state policy. Social murder is an “early and an unnatural death” caused by the people’s deprivation of necessaries of life. It is “one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet”. Social murder is social and a murder because it is the capitalist society that forces people “through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues” and society knows that people will suffer and die and yet does nothing to stop this. The capitalist society commits this murder “daily and hourly” by placing common people “under conditions in which they can neither retain health nor live long” and it “undermines the vital force of …workers gradually, little by little, and so hurries them to the grave before their time” (Engels, 1845:84).

The idea of social murder has relevance in the context of climate change, which contributes to workers’ illnesses often causing death. So what Engels calls social murder should be called eco-social murder.

The health impacts of climate change on the population have been the subject of a large amount of literature.4 However, the impacts of climate change on workers have not received the serious attention through the theoretically informed empirical work that it deserves. This is a significant intellectual neglect, in part because workers’ health challenges caused by global warming are not exactly those of the general population. The workplace experience of people is an important determinant of health.

In this article, by building on Marx’s Capital 1, I discuss the idea that capitalism has adverse impacts on workers’ health.5 I also show that these impacts are mediated by climate change which is also a product of capitalism’s private property and profit maximization principles. So health challenges of workers — including social murder, or eco-social murder — in capitalism are caused by “direct” impacts of the capitalist labour market and workplace dynamics, and by “indirect” impacts of capitalism (transformation of the environment, including climate change). This approach constitutes a class dimensions of health approach (Das, 2023; 2024), which, in the current age of climate change, must be broadened to include a class-ecological dimensions of health approach.
Impacts of capitalism on workers’ health in an age of climate change
Value of labour power, employment precarity and low income

Labouring individuals, as part of nature, have “natural wants, such as food, clothing, fuel, and housing” which “vary according to the climatic and other physical conditions of [their] country” (Marx, 1887: 121). These natural wants also vary over time: for example, with climate change resulting in extremely high or extremely cold temperatures, people need energy for cooling or heating, respectively. So, people’s energy needs must be met for them to return to work daily with a healthy body and mind. “If the owner of labour-power works to-day, to-morrow [they] must again be able to repeat the same process in the same conditions as regards health and strength” (ibid.: 121). But in reality, the value of labour power does not include all the social-ecological needs, or if it does, wages fall below the value of labour power. The situation where wages fall below the value of labour power is called “super-exploitation”.6 Super-exploitation is bound to make people fall ill because they find it difficult to access the financial resources needed for good health (e.g. medicine, hospital facility and doctor’s advice) which are available only/mainly as commodities.

By producing extreme weather events, heat waves, floods, etc climate change is increasing the cost of housing, food, healthcare, etc. The nominal wages conventionally paid do not cover the increased costs of reproduction (for example, cooling devices at home, costs of illness caused by climate change which has become a grave problem in the last 50 years or so). This situation impacts workers’ ability to lead a healthy life.

One’s annual income determines one’s ability to obtain the financial resources needed for good health. Annual income is normally a function of a) wages per hour and b) employment (hours worked in a year). There is no guarantee that one’s wage covers all the necessary costs of reproduction as we have seen. Nor is employment guaranteed. Whether or not one gets hired depends on capital’s need for a worker and on capital’s economic ability to hire. Climate change adversely impacts employment opportunities.7 By weakening profitability in sectors affected by climate change, the latter is reducing employment-generating capacity of employers. Disruption of supply chains caused by climate disasters can make many businesses unviable, so they may not be able to hire people. When individuals experience illnesses (for example heat-related illness or infectious diseases) due to climate change, they are less likely to be hired and be able to work. Adverse impacts of extreme weather events are weakening economic viability of small-scale producers (peasants, fishermen/fisherwomen) as well who are joining the urban reserve army and precarious labour market, a process that puts downward pressure on wages.

All in all, when people’s wages are inadequate and/or when they are un- or under-employed, they are bound to be in poverty. Poverty is an important determinant of health. And poverty — which is being exacerbated by consequences of climate change — is the inevitable effect of capitalist production (Das and Mishra, 2023).8
‘Absolute and relative’ overwork

For some workers, unemployment and under-employment is a curse, with its health implications. For others, having to work excessively long hours is a problem and has health implications too.


It is not the normal maintenance of the labour-power which is to determine the limits of the working day; it is the greatest possible daily expenditure of labour-power, no matter how diseased, compulsory, and painful it may be, which is to determine the limits of the labourers’ period of repose. (Marx, 1887: 179)

Both tendencies — overwork and under-employment/unemployment — coexist in capitalism. Just as wages are expected to be enough to pay for the normal expenses, the length of the working day should be reasonable to ensure that the worker gets enough rest. In reality, workers are forced to work longer than their body-mind complex can normally tolerate. Long working days ruin workers’ physical and mental/spiritual health. By excessively extending the working day, capitalism subjects workers to “the premature exhaustion and death of this labour power itself” (Marx, 1887: 179; italics added). This problem — the problem of physical harm to the working bodies including exhaustion and workplace-caused mortality, etc — is compounded by the impacts of climate change on health, that is, by the fact that when workers working outdoor have to work long hours, they are exposed to excessive atmospheric heat and to an air that contains harmful gases that are released when fossil fuels are burnt. So they experience ill-health.

The impacts of climate change produced by capitalism on workers’ health proves a more general point: “Capital cares nothing for the length of life of labour-power” (Marx, 1887: 179; italics added), unless “under compulsion from society” (ibid.: 181), that is, government regulation, which is difficult in times of neoliberalism. When temperatures are very high during the working day, workers need more rest in part to cope with exhaustion and to avoid peak heat hours, and there is a need to reduce the length of the working day. Capitalism will not normally allow this, however.

When the working day is excessively prolonged, when the temperatures are high and when there are not enough rest breaks, wages — that is, the price of labour-power — may fall below its value for an interesting reason. Thus the law of equal exchange may be violated in the sense that the expenses that workers need to incur to deal with the extra wear and tear and exhaustion caused by excessive heat (or indeed excessively low temperatures without availability of heat) are not included in the normal price of labour power. This results in “The price of labour-power and the degree of its exploitation ceas[ing] to be commensurable quantities” (Marx, 1887: 371). And, precisely because of the violation of the law of equal exchange, the long-term interests of the capitalist class as a whole are threatened. This is because more value (a greater quantity of resources in their commodity form) needs to be commonly spent to reproduce a healthy working class — to replenish the used-up forces — to be made available for work. If workers are ill and die prematurely, there is an additional cost to capital as-a-whole, and yet capital does not prevent workers from experiencing the health effects of climate change. Why?

One reason, obviously, is that the longer the workers work, other things being constant, the more is the surplus value and therefore profit. If workers take a lot of rest for their body to cool down or to avoid heat exhaustion, capital suffers a loss. In pursuit of a value greater than the value of labour power, capitalists make workers work very long hours at the cost of their own health. But capital is indifferent towards workers’ health: “in its blind unrestrainable passion, its were-wolf hunger for surplus labour, capital oversteps … physical maximum bounds of the working day” (Marx, 1887: 179; italics added). Another reason is that driven by the competitive pressure to reduce the cost of production, every capitalist is forced to extract as much work as possible from their workers, even if they work under extremely adverse climatic conditions. This tendency, in many cases, is expressed in the form of excessive overwork which ruins workers’ health. So bad health due to excessive overwork — that is, overwork relative to the physical, including, climatic conditions of work — when temperatures are very high is to be explained at the level of capital as a whole and in terms of the competitive interests of individual capitalists.
Physical conditions in the despotic capitalist workplace

An important aspect of capitalist society is its “hidden abode of production” (Marx, 1887: 123): the workplace where surplus labour is produced and appropriated. The physical conditions of the workplace — or, “the material conditions under which factory labour is carried on” (ibid.: 1887: 286) — are often characterized by “unhealthiness and unpleasantness” (ibid.: 170). In some workplaces, “Every organ of sense is injured in an equal degree by artificial elevation of the temperature, by the dust laden atmosphere, [etc.]” (ibid.: 286). Consider how workers in textile industries work in factories without air-conditioning, and especially in summer times in tropical climates. Consider also how harmful the conditions of capitalist workplace are when the workplace is outdoors when temperatures are much above the body temperature of 37oC.

Workers engaged in strenuous outdoor activities are particularly vulnerable to heat stress as well as infectious diseases. In some cases, heat strokes can cause death (Yang et al, 2018).9 In the US, extreme heat is one of the three main causes of death and injury in the workplace, contributing to between 600 and 2000 deaths a year, along with 170,000 injuries (Baker, 2023).10 As well, adverse impacts of climate change on workers’ health cause low productivity and dent companies’ profit, which in turn may affect workers’ chances of employment.

The health impacts of extremely high temperatures are especially severe for construction workers. They often engage in physically demanding tasks outdoors, increasing their susceptibility to dehydration and heat stress (Acharya, et al, 2018).11 Adverse impacts of climate change on construction workers’ health cause low productivity as indicated by the fact that, for example, construction activities involving physical work take, on average, 36% longer to execute during extreme heat (Bleasby, 2023).12 Construction workers are indeed at an elevated risk of heat stress, due to the strenuous nature of the work, high temperature work condition, and a changing climate (Acharya, et al, op.cit.). Other outdoor workers — for example workers engaged in sanitation, parks and nature conservation, eco-tourism, refuse collection, fire-fighting, farming and mining, and infrastructural work (such as fixing damaged electricity lines) — suffer in similar ways.

The health impacts of climate change on workers can be especially serious in the urban landscape: indeed, health impacts are compounded — if not created — by rapid urbanization and consequent high population density, and climate-sensitive urban built environments where heat accumulates preventing atmospheric cooling leading to urban heat islands.

It is through the despotic control that during the working day capital seeks to fill all potential pores by making workers work every single minute. Capital “steals the time required for the consumption of fresh air and sunlight” (Marx, 1887:179). One could say that capital steals the time required for rest to cope with heat exhaustion. On the whole, in the workplace, most workers have little control over the conditions of their work. “Every kind of capitalist production ... has this in common, that it is not the workman that employs the instruments of labour, but the instruments of labour that employ the workman” (ibid.: p. 286).

This lack of control must have some impact on workers’ mental and physical health. Workers have no control over speed of work, rest hours, etc. in this time of global warming.
An interim summary

Marx’s discussion on the political economy of health centres on wage-labour and production of value. If a worker does not produce surplus value, they are not needed or hired by capital, so they are denied access to the required means of subsistence, including food and healthcare. Climate change, by causing massive destruction of capitalist wealth, is contributing to weaker economies and lowering the ability of capital to employ people. Even if people are hired, they may not receive adequate compensation, one that covers additional expenses that need to be met because of climate change. If one does not have adequate income from wage-work because of low wages and/or under- or unemployment, one does not have the money to meet basic needs such as health. Clearly, health is an important part of the value of labour power and of the process of the production of value. Therefore, health is an important part of Marx’s political economy and indeed of his class theory as such (Das, 2017, op. cit.).

And, health has an ecological dimension. Climate change impacts workers’ health in diverse ways. Among other things, as we have seen, it causes extremely high temperatures, including heat waves and urban heat islands, which lead to health challenges (e.g. heat exhaustion) for workers who work outdoors.13 This happens globally — in countries that are tropical and temperate, poorer and richer — although there are important differences.
Towards a research agenda

There is a limit to what can be said about the world at a theoretical level. Theoretical reflections must be supplemented by theoretically-informed empirical research. It is important to examine the health impacts of climate change in an urban context as well as in rural areas, where farm and mining workers work. It is useful to compare the impact of climate change on the health of outdoor workers in the less developed and more developed worlds. An international comparative perspective would allow one to examine if the level of economic development matters when it comes to health impacts of climate change and how they are sought to be mitigated.

There is a need to understand how the impacts of climate change on people’s health are not direct but mediated by specific economic-political processes. These are: companies’ need to maintain an average level of profit; state’s “duty” to maintain a conducive business environment by promoting labour productivity; and state protection of workers’ health prompted by workers’ own agency demanding the latter. It is important to examine in particular:What health issues do (outdoor) workers face due to high temperatures during the working day? How do they explain the health challenges their face?
What are the state policies (and employers’ voluntary actions) to mitigate the health impacts of high temperatures, and to what extent do they actually meet workers’ health needs?
How have workers’ climate awareness and class consciousness, as well as their action through unions or civil society associations, influenced state’s and employers’ responses to workers’ health challenges?
What constraints do the state and employers face in helping workers cope with the health consequences of climate change, and why? What limits are there to the improvements of workers’ health conditions in capitalism that are impacted by climate change, and why?

Research asking the types of questions suggested above will contribute to the understanding of the social and ecological dimensions of public health, from a global perspective. It will show how the character of the workplace itself and economic conditions of workers are an important social dimension of public health in the age of climate change.14 More specifically, such research will shed light on the ways in which the impact of the capitalist economy on workers’ health is mediated by climate change, which is also largely a product of the market economy. This research will shed light on the climate-sensitive nature of the capitalist workplace, not only as a site where profit is made but also one where workers experience health challenges. Such research will also support workers’ organizations by providing vital intellectual resources to fight for “a social-ecological wage” that is automatically adjusted to inflation, and that covers the need for a sustainable environment, including a cooler planet and other needs such as food, shelter and healthcare, as a part of their fight for a democratic society beyond the rule of capital that subordinates working people and nature.15

Raju J Das is Professor at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Research, York University. https://rajudas.info.yorku.ca1

See Das (2022:218-219) on this point: Das, R. (2022). On the communist manifesto: ideas for the newly radicalizing public. World Review of Political Economy, 13(2), 209–244. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48687800
2

Marx K. 1887. Capital, vol. 1. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
3

Engels, F. (1845) The conditions of the English working class. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/condition-working-class-england.pdf
4

See the collection of articles in: Levy, B and Patz, J. (eds) 2015. Climate Change and Public Health. Oxford: Oxford University press.
5

In doing so, I draw on Das, R. J. (2023). Capital, Capitalism and Health. Critical Sociology, 49(3), 395-414. https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205221083503
6

See, Das, R.J. 2017. Marxist class theory for a skeptical world. Brill: Leiden/Boston (p. 269; 294; 302; 311; 347; 366; 386-88).
7

Newman, F. and Humphrys, E. 2020. Critical Sociology, Vol. 46(4-5) 557–572
8

Das, R. and Mishra, D., Eds. 2023. Global Poverty: Rethinking Causality. Leiden: Brill.
9

Yang Xia, Yuan Li, Dabo Guan, David Mendoza Tinoco, Jiangjiang Xia, Zhongwei Yan, Jun Yang, Qiyong Liu, Hong Huo, Assessment of the economic impacts of heat waves: A case study of Nanjing, China, Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 171, pp. 811-819.
10

Baker, A. 2023. Extreme heat is endangering America’s workers – and its economy. Time. https://time.com/6299091/extreme-heat-us-workers-economy/.
11

Acharya P., Boggess, B., and Zhang K. Assessing Heat Stress and Health among Construction Workers in a Changing Climate: A Review. International Journal of Environmental Research on Public Health. 2018 Feb 1;15(2):247.
12

Bleasby, J. 2023. Climate and Construction: Extreme heat increases worker safety risk and reduces productivity https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/news/resource/2023/09/climate-and-construction-extreme-heat-increases-worker-safety-risk-and-reduces-productivity
13

Habibi, M, Ghahria, A., Karimi, M, Golbabaeif. 2016. The Past and Future Trends of Heat Stress Based On Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Index in Outdoor Environment of Tehran City, Iran. Iranian Journal of Public Health. 45(6):787-794.
14

Flynn, M. 2021. Global capitalism as a societal determinant of health: A conceptual framework. Social Science & Medicine.;268:113530. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113530.
15

For details on ecological social wage, see Das, R. J. 2018. “A Marxist Perspective on Sustainability: Brief Reflections on Ecological Sustainability and Social Inequality.” Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal. https://links.org.au/marxist-perspective-sustainability-brief-reflections-ecological-sustainability-and-social Such a fight for a social-ecological wage must be connected to a fight for a social-ecologically remunerative price for peasants and other such small-scale producers who also experience health and other challenges because of climate change caused by capitalism, which means that there is a need for an alliance between workers and small-scale producers, especially in the South. On this topic, see: Das, R. J. 2023. ‘On the worker-peasant alliance in India (and other countries of the Global South)’. Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal. https://links.org.au/worker-peasant-alliance-india-and-other-countries-global-south

 

Downsizing local news contributes to crumbling infrastructure

Study links local journalism with voter support for fixing public works, which adds to climate resilience

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES

Key takeaways

• A new study from UCLA and Duke University shows local journalism that produces detailed coverage about aging infrastructure increases voter support for additional infrastructure investment.

• Basic, undetailed reporting, like that from severely understaffed newsrooms or AI-generated stories, resulted in lower support for infrastructure spending.

• Voters demonstrated a willingness to hold local politicians accountable when provided with context in local reporting. 

Reading strong local journalism is tied to greater support for funding dams, sewers and other basic infrastructure vital to climate resilience, according to new research from UCLA and Duke University.

The study, published this month in the journal Political Behavior, found that reading fictionalized samples of news coverage with specific local details about infrastructure maintenance requirements led to as much as 10% more electoral support for infrastructure spending compared to reading bare-bones reporting. Just a few extra paragraphs of context in the mock news stories not only increased support for spending, but also increased voters’ willingness to hold politicians accountable for infrastructure neglect by voting them out of office.

“Local news reporting builds public support for infrastructure investments,” said UCLA political scientist Megan Mullin, a co-author of the study whose research focuses on environmental politics.

“Heat, floods, drought and fire are putting new stress on aging and deteriorating infrastructure, which must be maintained to protect communities against these growing climate risks,” said Mullin, a UCLA public policy professor and faculty director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. “Our study shows that investing in facilities that improve our resilience to climate hazards requires investing in the health of local news.”

Private ownership has cut or eliminated local news staff nationwide, reducing original reporting and local political stories while focusing on national news that can be centrally produced and shared in many newspapers within the same ownership structure, the study’s authors noted. They cited research that found 300 to 500 fewer political stories after average staffing cuts, and a Pew Research Center found that 56% of newspaper employment disappeared from 2008-2022. With fewer reporters staffing newsrooms, the depth of reporting on infrastructure declines.

“Local newsroom capacity is critical to democracy,” said co-author Andrew Trexler, a Duke University doctoral candidate studying political communication. “Our study shows that when newsrooms can commit resources to report more information about infrastructure conditions and failure risks, readers notice and are more willing to hold officials accountable for inaction, and more willing to support higher spending.”

The study surveyed more than 3,300 adults. Each read a news-style story about an upcoming election with an incumbent mayor, a mayoral challenger and a property tax increase averaging $40 annually to fund aging infrastructure. The sample stories, viewable on page 15 of the study’s appendix, described either a local dam or a sewer system.

Control groups read basic, limited-information versions of the articles representing what might be generated with little reporting staff or even AI. Other groups read more complex coverage with a few extra paragraphs: either an investigative version highlighting longstanding flaws and government neglect; a contextual version referring to a similar nearby dam or sewer that failed disastrously; or a combined investigative and contextual version. Study participants then indicated how they would likely vote.

All of the detailed articles increased infrastructure support compared to the control.

“Across the board, we saw more support for infrastructure spending when people read news coverage that provided context about infrastructure neglect and its consequences,” Mullin said. “Empty newsrooms and AI reporting don’t provide communities with the information they need to make investments for their own health and security.”

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JOURNAL

Political Behavior

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin audiobook review – from the civil rights frontline

Law & Order’s Jesse L Martin narrates two powerful essays examining the Black experience in the US, the first in a series marking the author’s centenary year

Fiona Sturges

Fri 10 May 2024 

THE GUARDIAN 

First published in 1963 at the height of the US civil rights movement, James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time comprises two astonishing essays examining the Black experience in the United States and the struggle against racial injustice.

The first, My Dungeon Shook, takes the form of a letter to Baldwin’s 14-year-old nephew, and outlines “the root of my dispute with my country … You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity.”

The second, Down at the Cross, is a polemic examining the relationship between race and religion, and finds Baldwin reflecting on his Harlem childhood, his encounters with racist police, and a spiritual crisis at the age of 14, which, triggered by his fears of getting drawn into a life of crime, “helped to hurl me into the church”. There, he was filled with anguish “like one of those floods that devastate countries, tearing everything down, tearing children from their parents and lovers from each other”.

The essays are narrated by the Law & Order actor Jesse L Martin, who highlights the rhythmic nature of Baldwin’s prose, and channels his anger and devastation at the unceasing suffering of Black Americans. This audiobook is one of several new recordings of Baldwin’s writing being published over the next few months, to mark the influential author’s centenary year, which also include Go Tell It to the Mountain, Another Country, Giovanni’s Room and If Beale Street Could Talk.

Available via Penguin Audio, 2hr 26min

Further listening

Fire Rush
Jacqueline Crooks, Penguin Audio, 11hr 3min
Leonie Elliott narrates this coming-of-age story set in the late 1970s about the daughter of a Caribbean immigrant who finds kindred spirits and thrilling new sounds at an underground reggae club.

Two Sisters
Blake Morrison, Harper Collins, 10hr 28min
A tender account of the life of Gill, Morrison’s younger sister who died from heart failure caused by alcohol abuse, and his half-sister, Josie. Read by the author.

TYRANNY IN LIBERTARIAN CLOTHING
New bill would allow Alberta government to take command of local emergencies

CBC
Thu, May 9, 2024 

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, centre, says legal changes are required to allow the provincial government to more quickly respond to natural disasters. Ministers with portfolios included in Bill 21 are, from left: Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz, Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen, Smith, Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis, and Justice Minister Mickey Amery. (Marc-Antoine LeBlanc - image credit)More


The Alberta government wants to give itself new powers to speed its response in managing forest fires, floods, droughts and other emergencies.

Bill 21, tabled Wednesday by Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis, proposes several amendments to the Emergency Management Act and five other pieces of legislation.

If passed, the legislation would also move Alberta's fixed provincial election date to Oct. 18, 2027, about five months later than the currently scheduled date of May 31, 2027.


At a news conference, Premier Danielle Smith said the record-setting May 2023 wildfires coincided with a provincial election campaign, which made the emergency difficult to manage.

"It was bizarre for ministers and other candidates to have to go through these motions while so much of Alberta was burning and so many Albertans were out of their homes," Smith said.

Cabinet ministers lacked access to government information and devices during the campaign period, while they were tasked with making rapid and high-stakes decisions, she said.

Election dates in October are less likely to conflict with natural disasters in the province, she said.

During the writ period, the provincial government goes into "caretaker mode," limiting the power of elected officials and handing responsibilities to top civil servants.

Some candidates running in areas affected by the spring 2023 wildfires temporarily suspended campaigning to respond to the crisis. Elections Alberta moved some polling stations to accommodate evacuees.

A new election date also necessitates changes to the legislation governing senate elections and campaign financing, which are also included in the bill.

The growing threat of natural disasters such as larger, more ferocious wildfires prompts the need for the province to be able to rapidly assume command of a local emergency, Smith said.

If passed, Bill 21 would allow the government to take over emergency management in a municipality or region if local leaders ask for more help, become overwhelmed and unable to respond, and where local priorities are at "cross purposes" with the province, said briefing notes provided to reporters.

The government could also do this without the blessing of local leaders.

The bill would also require local authorities to provide more information to the province during a local state of emergency.

Government officials like Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi visited wildfire evacuees at the Edmonton Expo Centre on Sunday.

Government officials including Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi visited wildfire evacuees at the Edmonton Expo Centre in May 2023. ( Wildinette Paul/Radio-Canada)

Smith said local authorities asked for these measures, saying the province was too slow to react to past disasters.

"Everybody's come to the same conclusion — that we can't sit back and wait for the fire to jump the border and burn down Slave Lake or burn down Fort McMurray or potentially burn down Drayton Valley," she said.

Alberta Municipalities president Tyler Gandam said in an interview Tuesday afternoon that municipalities asked for extra resources and help during the 2023 wildfire season, but he's unaware of any municipality asking for the province to take control of the emergency response.

Bill 21 is the third piece of legislation the government has tabled in the last month without consulting first with municipalities, despite having potentially profound effects on municipalities, Gandam said.

The organization needs time to understand what problems the government is trying to solve with this latest bill, he said.

Although Wednesday's announcement did not make reference to the role of climate change leading to more catastrophic natural disasters, Smith said the government does have to be concerned about climate change, but must also send a message to the public to be cautious when burning garbage, lighting campfires or driving vehicles that could lead to wildfires.

More control to respond to fire and floods

If passed, the bill would give the provincial government the authority to fight fires on any Crown land, including land that is outside its forest management area. Right now, it would be a municipality's responsibility to battle a blaze on Crown land within its borders, although it can ask for provincial help.

The bill would clarify the province's power to fight fires in Alberta's eight Métis settlements.

The bill would also authorize firefighting crews to remove private buildings or fences if they need to build a fireguard to protect a community.

Although Alberta has never had to declare an emergency under the Water Act, past floods and currently parched land are prompting government officials to prepare for that possibility. The government says it needs to be able to control the flow of scarce water to prioritize human and animal health and safety.

If the province declares a water emergency, the bill would allow cabinet to decide how to prioritize water use in an area, and when water licence holders can and cannot divert water.

Right now, the legislature must pass a bill to move water between major basins. Bill 21 would allow the province to move water during an emergency.

Some drought or flood mitigation initiatives could also skip approval processes during an emergency, and emergency decisions would be protected from appeal.

People responding to the emergency could also go onto private land and temporarily place equipment, such as hoses.

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley told Albertans that they pension "was not safe" during a press event held Thursday.

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley questions the UCP government's motivation for moving the province's fixed election date four-and-a-half months later. (CBC News)

Bill could give government more time in power

NDP Leader Rachel Notley, who was premier from 2015 to 2019, said government leaders lose some access to information during an election campaign, but that lack of information is "not quite the problem that they're trying to claim it is" during an emergency.

Ministers would still have access to emergency briefings from staff during a campaign. Top public servants could give media briefings instead of politicians, she said.

Notley said the government should have consulted with the Opposition before proposing a timing change, or moved the fixed election date to October 2026. She said the proposed move, which could potentially extend the UCP's rule by more than four months, is "self-serving and opportunistic."

Alberta Municipalities president Gandam questioned why the election date change was necessary more than three years in advance of the next provinicial election.

Alberta to shift the fixed election date to fall when natural disaster risk is lower

The Canadian Press
Thu, May 9, 2024 



EDMONTON — Alberta is moving its election date from the spring to the fall to avoid clashing with major natural disasters -- but the Opposition says in doing so, Premier Danielle Smith’s government is conveniently granting itself six extra months of power.

Smith’s United Conservatives introduced a bill Thursday to move the scheduled vote date from the fourth week of May every four years to the third week of October.

That would mean the next election will be Oct. 18, 2027, a time when there is less risk the province will face wildfires, droughts and floods.

Smith told reporters last year’s election was a prime example of the dilemma as her government had to campaign while also fighting fires and organizing evacuations.

She had to be careful to not appear to be using the crisis to boost her profile while also needing to raise her profile to get the word out to Albertans on what was happening with the fires.

"Running an election parallel to this crisis made a difficult situation more challenging," Smith said prior to the bill being introduced in the house.

She noted she and her ministers faced the threat of fines from Elections Alberta for using government resources during the campaign.

"I also found myself answering questions about the election at wildfire briefings as well as questions about wildfires at campaign events," said Smith.

An election requires the government go into caretaker mode, while cabinet ministers are still technically in their posts.

Last year's record-breaking wildfire season saw almost 30,000 people forced from their homes by early May, days after the spring election campaign had officially kicked off.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley said given climate change is making natural emergencies more frequent, she is not opposed to reconsidering the fixed election date.

But she said Smith could have looked at going to the polls earlier than the current date, such as February 2027 or October 2026.

"Giving themselves an extra six months seems very self-serving and opportunistic from a government that has a strong record of being very self-serving and opportunistic," Notley told reporters.

Notley said if the problem is a need for proper communication, the government could instead have had public servants lead public emergency updates.

The bill, if passed, would also give the province the authority to quickly take over local emergency response efforts in what it considers extreme circumstances.

That includes situations where the municipality becomes overwhelmed or is working at cross purposes with the province.

Smith said if the province had that authority last season, they could have stepped in sooner to help fight jurisdictions, particularly those that threatened to stretch across local jurisdictions.

Forestry Minister Todd Loewen said the legislation is about providing clarity to powers that already exist.

"This isn't about taking over or trying to control municipalities. They still have the right to be there, and we still respect that," he said.

The legislation would allow cabinet, during emergencies, to direct water use and make "temporary low-risk" water transfers between major water basins.

The proposed legislation comes after two other pieces of legislation have already sparked backlash from municipalities over concerns the province is making an unnecessary power grab.

One bill would give the province gatekeeping power to veto federal funding deals with cities and towns. Another would give Smith's cabinet the power to fire councillors and overturn local bylaws.

Tyler Gandam, the head of Alberta Municipalities, which represents Alberta towns, cities and villages, said he was still examining the bill but has concerns.

"Once again, another bill was introduced and tabled without consultation with municipalities," said Gandam.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 9, 2024.

Lisa Johnson, The Canadian Press

At least 224 people, 153 pets rescued in Texas floods with more rain in the forecast


By CNN

May 6, 2024

As rivers swell across South Texas, leaving homes and businesses flooded and thousands of people displaced, residents have been looking skyward as more rain looms.

At least 224 people have been rescued from homes and vehicles in Harris County, an official said Saturday night, with evacuation orders and flood watches in place, as more rain descended on the state Sunday, with a bull's-eye of excessive rainfall over the already waterlogged Houston area.

No deaths or serious injuries have been reported, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo told CNN, adding 153 pets have also been rescued during the deluge.

An SUV is stranded in a ditch along a stretch of street flooding during a severe storm Thursday in Spring, Texas. (CNN)

"It's been really sad to see the impact of people's livelihoods, homes, infrastructure as well as just the public infrastructure," Hidalgo told CNN Saturday.

"We're really asking folks to give it a minute before they go back home."

CNN's Rosa Flores rode in a boat Sunday with rescuers from the Harris County Sheriff's Office and said the craft passed over fences and mailboxes. Stop signs were at eye level.

In some areas, the water had receded Sunday but was still very high.
The first responders took CNN to an area where the banks of the San Jacinto River were not visible.

"It's kinda hard to tell where the river ends," Lt. David Jasper said.

Many people in the City of Houston were evacuated before the worst of the severe weather, Brent Taylor, chief communications officer for the Houston Office of Emergency Management told CNN's Amara Walker Sunday.

"We have Houston Police and Houston Fire who are patrolling these neighbourhoods that are near the river and where the water is gone so high," Taylor said. "There's been some instances where it's someone just yelling for help saying, 'Hey, I'm stuck over here!'"

"We have high water rescue vehicles. We have Jet Skis, we have airboats. Our Houston Public Works Department has dump trucks that can be outfitted to move people through those high waters, so it really is a unified effort to make sure that these Houstonians are staying safe," he added.

The website for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's West Gulf River Forecast Center shows nine river gauges in Texas in major flood stage, 22 in moderate flooding and 35 in minor flooding.

Forecast calls for rain

Most of the weekend's rain fell over western and central Texas, but there's a significant chance of heavier rain in the greater Houston area Sunday.

The National Weather Service office in Houston posted on X at 1.30 pm CT, the "next round of storms has arrived and continue to train along the I-10 corridor."

Jackson, Wharton, and Colorado counties were under a severe thunderstorm watch in effect until 7 pm Storm activity is expected to wind down this evening.

Flooding in Livingston, Texas. (CNN)

Earlier, the office said 1 to 3 more inches of rain were possible by Monday morning. Some areas could see up to 4 to 8 inches.

"Because of multiple rounds of heavy rain over the past week, flooding may be seen earlier than would be expected under typical conditions. Rainfall today will continue to exacerbate existing river flooding," warned the Houston weather service office.

The rainfall amounts in the region have been huge over the past week, with some areas picking up two months' worth of rain in five days.

There is relief on the horizon, however. The rest of the week's forecast for Houston is showing dry weather and warm temperatures from Monday through Saturday, with lots of sunshine to help dry the region out.

This week's storms were just the latest in a series of brutal weather events that have pounded the state since early April. Dozens of tornadoes have hit from the Panhandle to the Gulf Coast, some areas of the state have been pounded with softball-sized hail and months of rain has fallen in East Texas in intense spurts, causing rivers to rise to levels not seen since the devastating floods of Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

Mandatory evacuations are in place in counties in and around the Houston area, as local officials make comparisons to past disasters. The flooding is "85 per cent worse than Hurricane Harvey," Emmitt Eldridge, San Jacinto County's emergency management coordinator, told CNN. "This has been a historic flood for Walker County. We have flooded more from this event than we did during Hurricane Harvey," Sherri Pegoda, Walker County's deputy emergency management coordinator, said.

A mandatory evacuation order remains in place for low-lying unincorporated areas of Polk County through Sunday evening, emergency managers said in a Facebook post, as are homes along rivers in Harris and Montgomery counties.

Disaster declarations are active for over a third of Texas counties after Texas Governor Greg Abbott expanded the storm-related declarations in response to the flooding, according to a news release. Additional counties could be added in the coming days, particularly with more storms in the forecast.

Capitalism carries war and authoritarianism like the cloud carries the storm...

WEDNESDAY 1 MAY 2024, BY THOMAS RID


For months now, we have been blinded by the glare of bombs in the windows of the media and social networks. We see them falling on Gaza or Ukraine. We continue on, astonished, dazed even, by the sound of cannon fire echoing in the distance.

As the shadow of war spreads, our governments are preparing for it and intend to throw us into it with all their might. And behind them, the Bolloré, Dassaut, Peugeot and other gun merchants are licking their lips, calculating their next profits.

CAPITALISM, COLONIALISM, AUTHORITARIANISM AND WAR

Globalized capitalism under the domination of the United States and its allies has entered a multidimensional crisis of inextricable contradictions. Environmental crises (droughts, floods, pandemics), financial and economic crises (subprimes, debt, etc.) and the crisis of hegemony of the capitalist system are combining and reinforcing each other. This economic system is on its last legs, reinforcing exploitation and inequality, and fanning the flames of hatred, racism and the far right... and war. The proof is in the rise in military budgets around the world, along with the authoritarianism of governments and the rise of extreme right-wing ideas.

This situation gives wings to all forms of colonialism, starting with Israel’s colonial project, which consists of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians in order to seize the massive gas deposits on the shores of Gaza and the land and water on the West Bank. In Ukraine, Russia intends to get its hands on natural resources, immense arable land and nuclear power stations. In the United States, the war is concentrating financial and economic flows in order to maintain hegemony over globalization and remain the imperial centre. And in France, the return of a warlike imperialism is delighting the ‘captains of industry’ and financiers. For the French state, the aim is to regain a foothold in Africa and the Middle East, to regain the markets and positions it has lost over the last twenty years.

THE WAR ECONOMY AND BRINGING FRANCE INTO LINE

Before the war, the “war economy” and “rearmament” had been called for by capital’s lackeys, court economists and prefecture intellectuals. It’s not their children who will live in misery and die under bullets. So Macron is opening gunpowder and cannon factories with great fanfare, while the champagne is flowing in the gilded salons of the Republic. He intends to spend €413.3 billion on the armed forces between 2024 and 2030. And to do all that, the people have to be brought to heel. You have to teach them discipline and sacrifice. Attal has therefore decided to lock up young people for 10 hours a day, every day, by turning secondary schools into barracks and introducing uniforms, following the introduction of the SNU.

SILENCING DISSENT

For their part, Darmanin [Interior Miniuster] and Dupont-Moretti [Justice Miniter] are hunting down any talk of environmental or social protest.

The repression is particularly zealous towards expressions of solidarity for the Palestinian people under genocide. At the end of January, the Ministry of Justice counted 626 proceedings for “apology for terrorism” in connection with the war in Gaza. The secretary of the local CGT in the North has just been given a one-year suspended prison sentence for a leaflet; Rima Hassan, a candidate on the LFI list for the European elections, has been summoned by the judicial police for “apology for acts of terrorism”, as have activists from the Solidaires ÉtudiantEs section of the EHESS, SUD-Rail, journalist Sihame Assbague, our own publication director and dozens of others... and now MP Mathilde Panot.

Finally, because we’ll have to pay for the cannons and the champagne, Le Maire [Finance Minister] is announcing total austerity, with deep cuts in the education, health and social protection budgets.

But for how long? Will we agree to march in step and send our children to the slaughterhouse? Or will we turn our guns on our own generals? It is high time we raised our heads and refused censorship and repression. To reject the authoritarianism of the Macron government and the war that is coming.

War on war! Solidarity and freedom for all peoples! Freedom for Palestine! Freedom for Ukraine! More anti-capitalist and internationalist than ever! That’s what we’ll be saying on 1 May.

24 April 2024

Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.

ATTACHED DOCUMENT

Scapitalism-carries-war-and-authoritarianism-like-the-cloud_a8507.pdf (PDF - 907.2 KIB)
Extraction PDF [->article8507]


Thomas Rid
Thomas Rid writes for l’Anticapitaliste.

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Trump, Genocide, and Profit Seeking Suicide – The Devil Is No Longer In Disguise

By Michael Albert

April 26, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.




What to do. What to do. Consider our times. Do you feel, like I feel, massive confusion at what is happening out there. Even if I confine myself to considering perhaps the three largest current instances of mind madness, confusion abounds.

The three are the Orange Trumpist or fascist onslaught in the U.S. and elsewhere; the still raging and even spreading genocidal violence in the Mideast; and the steady ecological devolution of survival prospects worldwide.

I am sorry that all that horribleness is center staged in this essay, but at least the confusions addressed here are about potential corrections.

So what’s with the title, The Devil Is No Longer In Disguise.

Well, it is either clickbait and I got ya, or by undisguised devil I simply mean the evil of these three issues are not hidden. The rot is not even trying to hide. You can’t avoid the horrific details. The perpetrators brag more than they try to hide.

Okay, so for the first topic, I came across a description of Trump by a British writer Nate White, who I otherwise know absolutely zero about. It was in an online dialog like cyber platform program, put there by someone else. I hope Nate won’t mind my also quoting him at length. I usually hate over focusing on Trump, but this is to go to not share:

“Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?

“A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

“Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

“Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

“There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

“And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

“So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

“This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

“God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

“And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?’

It would seem the British writer, Nate White, whoever he is, can certainly turn a phrase. You might wonder, however, why there isn’t any reference to Trump’s actual views. But wonder not. I would guess Nate’s point is that beyond what is offered, Trump’s views don’t actually exist. They are mere noise, not his essence.

At any rate, I am here, in America. And I look around, mostly on Youtube, at interviews of Trumpers and at descriptions or quotes of his current utterances, and at his talks, and what all else, and I find myself confused about the same concern as this Britisher.

Why does a third of the U.S. population support Trump in any way at all, and why does some subset of that group support him to the point of what appears to be worship? Trump to my eyes is Oxycodone incarnate. An addiction which, once it’s got you ravages you or your brain, at any rate. But that isn’t much of an answer to why, so what is? And what can one do to reduce and reverse the support?

Before trying to answer, however, let’s name the second and third top stories that confuse me and confuse many others.

Israel goose steps bombs across Gaza to demolish hospitals, homes, and pretty much everything else. As if punctuating that, Israel starves people as overt policy, and acknowledges that death is the aim. So, as with Trump worship, I wonder, how can we understand such baffling as well as nauseating assessments of Israel’s genocidal policies. How does one confront that?

And my third focus of confusion is the trajectory of the world that is currently right out in the open displayed for all to see in the world’s steadily worsening ecological dissolution, and, again, how do we explain people’s reactions to that?

So, our topics here, how is it possible for so many people to support Trump? And then, two, how is it possible for the vast bulk of otherwise sane Israeli souls to support Massacre and Mayhem that even calls itself, well, revenge unto death, and also, how is it possible for so many otherwise presumably caring sensible souls in the U.S. to also support genocide and be horrified by and even repressive toward growing support for Palestine? And finally, three, how is it possible for an incredibly large number of sentient humans to effectively ignore or tut-tut the suicidal trajectory of the planet they inhabit?

A hard rain is falling and yet so many ignore or even run from but don’t rise up against the already raging and everywhere impending floods?

In a nutshell, on these scores, what’s going on in peoples’ heads? It feels to me like one has to have a feel for that to impact where we are all headed.

In a book titled Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut has a passage where a character tries to address the same underlying question as is vexing me, though far more creatively than I can muster.

The character comments:

“I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be linked unto a system of gears where teeth have been filed off at random. Such snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even by a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell.


“The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. ‘You’re completely crazy,’ he said.


“Jones wasn’t completely crazy. The dismaying thing about classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, thought mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined.


“Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell – keeping perfect time for eight minutes and twenty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year.


“The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases.


“The wilful filling off a gear teeth, the wilful doing without certain obvious pieces of information – That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuehrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony –


“That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love fora a blue vase.


“That was how Rudolf Hess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers –


“That was how Nazi Germany sense no important difference between civilization and hydrophobia.


“That is the closest I can come to explaining the legions, the nations of lunatics I’ve seen in my time.”

So that is Vonnegut’s attempt. But what does that moving dismissal say one should do when a great many one hears of, works with, or even lives with seem to have in their heads one or another cuckoo clock in Hell—or when one fears there may be willfully missing truths in one’s own head as well.

My answer is, I can only guess. I am not sure. I am confused. But I think how we answer matters for a host of reasons.

First, to prevent fascism, curb wars, and preserve planetary habitability is going to require that many who currently favor or ignore insanity, injustice, and or social suicide change views. Second, whatever allows people to take otherwise absurd, self-denying, other-denying, reason-ignoring, and even suicidal stances in these three cases that I have mentioned occurs in countless other domains as well, albeit perhaps less screamingly visibly. Here are some: guns, immigration, AI, vaccines, health generally, abortion, salaries, incentives, book banning, and all kinds of fundamentalism including sectarianism, and sexism, racism, and classism in all their forms.

So back to our topics, first, why do folks like or even purport to love Trump?

I think we can confidently answer only for a very few. For example, the rich and powerful who support him typically expect largesse in return. No confusion about that. And I suppose a connected or ancillary explanation is that those who anticipate him re-occupying the Oval Office comes the election don’t want to be on his enemies list. This is also not confusing, albeit grossly cowardly.

A second oft-touted explanation is that a subset of Trump’s supporters are literally, even genetically, little Trumps who he has released from hiding their vile side by his parading his violent side. This explanation says Trump’s vulgar racist and sexist outbreaks, wherein the Devil struts about in all his grotesque perversion, has freed others from making believe they aren’t racist and sexist to now let go and openly strut like their pied piper. Then the question of course arises, why do however many of these folks exist have these inclinations in the first place, but it is in any case a plausible explanation for some of Trump’s support.

So one group supports him as a lackey to serve their interests or so he won’t punish them. A second group supports him as a pied piper who legitimates their preferred inclinations.

Next there are what folks looking on who say his followers are ignorant and deceived. So, they explain, some Trump supporters actually believe Biden stole the election and believe Trump cares about them. Some supporters, that is, have fallen down the rabbit hole of Fox reporting, and once down there they protect themselves from others who lie about their buddy.

Finally, we also have two more groups or perhaps it is two components of one group. This whole constituency can see that Trump is a horrible person. For one part of them, however, he is also a wrench in society’s works. He is not same-old same-old but is instead so wildly berserk that he just might upset existing norms and habits enough for things to get better. So these folks support Trump literally because he is off the rails. And they hope for good to come from the messes that he creates. The other half of those who can see he is a horrible person, ironically, support him as the lesser evil. That is, these folks quite reasonably trust very little that comes out of any politician’s mouth. They rightly know they are hurting. They feel it. feel that the country is going to hell in a hand cart. They don’t really know what another Trump regime will mean but they do feel that they know what another Biden regime will mean. It will mean more of what they have suffered. So, for them Biden is just business as usual, and they tend to think that nothing replacing business as usual could be worse than business as usual. So for them the Orange man is the lesser evil. Imagine that. And since politics is sleight of hand anyhow, why not at least beat the system.

We could stop there, and most who think about Trump’s support do, I think, but why even guess at what yields support for Trump, for for fascism? It ought to be to ask, how can we constructively address Trump supporters?

So, okay, how about talking to the rich who want to get richer? We know that will go nowhere. Power alone will affect them. We get that. We have to pressure them. Raise costs for them until they relent. And finally, remove them. It is lesson one of activism.

How about the previously closeted or out in the open but significantly restrained racists and sexists who now happily follow Trump’s bombastic lead? Can we address them with evidence, reason, and even empathy? Maybe, sometimes, that might work. For us to say no, don’t bother—is that wisdom or is it evidence of a clock in our heads with a very nasty flaw?

What about the group who thinks Trump will do less harm—in that case, evidence and reason should matter. Such Trump supporters dislike things worth disliking. They just think that with Trump there is more chance those ills will be muted or stopped. They don’t know the error that involves, and so to make a case that reveals that error seems worth undertaking. Indeed, it seems essential.

I know that lots of people think that supporting Trump, and especially that workers supporting Trump is the really inexplicable mindset of our times. They chalk it up to untouchable broken gears. I am not one who thinks that. I agree there is some ignorance and myth involved, but whose fault is that? The stacked system is at fault, of course, but, beyond that, aren’t activists like me and you who have known otherwise but who in fifty years haven’t communicated sufficiently well with working people for them to even be immunized against supporting a billionaire buffoon, also at fault.

And before throwing rocks at Trump’s working class male, female, white, and black supporters, consider the upside down views of the non-Trump millions who think that attacking our government is vile. Who think hating politicians is vile. Who think rage at doctors who push drugs, at lawyers who plea bargain lives into prisons, and at teachers who purport to know more but actually know less and teach inanities, are vile.

So yes, of course, there are Trumpers who are now out of their minds, who were drawn slowly into a cult-like defense of their prior support for Orange man, and who now manifest grotesquely deep racism and sexism, but I actually think most of the support for Trump is no more peculiar, given the facts, than actual positive support felt by many for Genocide Joe.

I certainly want Biden to win, absolutely, because Trump is an outright megalomaniacal egomaniacal fascist lunatic and as horrible as new liberalism is, fascism is a helluva lot worse—really, it is—but to feel literally positively for a guy who has armed, rationalized, and even cheered on Israel’s brazenly open extermination policies? Does that evidence a clock in good order?

And that brings us to our second example.

How do we explain much less relate to support for such visibly, undeniably, genocidal policies as perpetrated in Gaza? Consider a subset of the Jewish community in the U.S.

They video-saw Hamas horribly kill Israelis. They assessed and presumably decided right off, or later, that decades of open air imprisonment, random deaths, colonial occupation, denial and indignity, and being deemed vermin, didn’t justify that. It was Terror.

But then those same people who have themselves also suffered through history Hitler imposed denigration, death, more death, unto genocide—decided to unleash their own American emblazoned military might in unyielding assault. They do unto others what had been done unto them. They announce it, they prepare it, they do it, they celebrate it, they sing praises to it, they admire their intentionally aimed bombs blasting everything—homes, hospitals, limbs, and souls—until there is nowhere for Palestinians to run that isn’t bursting with death and destruction because Hamas’s actions justify it. In that case, what do Israel’s actions justify?

Well, some in my country think Israel’s actions warrant praise. Some think they warrant support. Some think that to oppose Israel’s genocidal, planned, praised actions and U.S. support for them is anti-Semitic and such protesters should be silenced. And those people don’t bow and pray to Trump but, well, what would Vonnegut who described Nazi cuckoo clock mind’s say about this horrible reversal?

So, two down, and what have I offered. Maybe just a little clarity along with a whole lot of confusion. My apologies that I don’t have better for you. And so we come to our third focus.

Outside your window, every window. The world faces fire, faces ice, faces flooding, faces starving. High water rising.

On the one hand, mired in the rat race, fancy captains of industry clutch at profit to enrich themselves and, one would think, their off-spring, even while they simultaneously pursue the oil-drenched death of everything that breathes, including their off-spring. Is that Cuckoo clock brains at work, or it just just profit-seeking identities wedged into perpetual self aggrandizement, even unto death?

And on the other hand, so many other heads just look away. Don’t look. See only what you want to see. Is that fear? Is it ignorance? Is it surrender? Is it being too busy? Are we going over the edge because, well, that’s where the mob is going? What do you say to that if you would like to try to help save everything?

Dylan in a different time but distraught at what he saw It’s Alright Ma. When I heard that, I turned left. Hard Left. Dylan didn’t. A pity that. But maybe give it a listen.

Dylan’s a poet but It’s Alright Ma isn’t meant to be read, but I present it as text anyhow. The whole thing. So sue me, and see in it whatever you want, which is, I hope less like what Dylan saw, and more like, dare I suggest it, what I saw.

Darkness at the break of noon

Shadows even the silver spoon

The handmade blade, the child’s balloon

Eclipses both the sun and moon

To understand you know too soon

There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn

Suicide remarks are torn

From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn

Plays wasted words, proves to warn

That he not busy being born is busy dying

Temptation’s page flies out the door

You follow, find yourself at war

Watch waterfalls of pity roar

You feel to moan but unlike before

You discover that you’d just be one more

Person crying

So don’t fear if you hear

A foreign sound to your ear

It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing

As some warn victory, some downfall

Private reasons great or small

Can be seen in the eyes of those that call

To make all that should be killed to crawl

While others say don’t hate nothing at all

Except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark

As human gods aim for their mark

Make everything from toy guns that spark

To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark

It’s easy to see without looking too far

That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates

Teachers teach that knowledge waits

Can lead to hundred-dollar plates

Goodness hides behind its gates

But even the president of the United States

Sometimes must have to stand naked

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged

It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge

And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it

Advertising signs they con

You into thinking you’re the one

That can do what’s never been done

That can win what’s never been won

Meantime life outside goes on

All around you

You lose yourself, you reappear

You suddenly find you got nothing to fear

Alone you stand with nobody near

When a trembling distant voice, unclear

Startles your sleeping ears to hear

That somebody thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit

Yet you know there is no answer fit

To satisfy, insure you not to quit

To keep it in your mind and not forget

That it is not he or she or them or it

That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules

For the wise men and the fools

I got nothing, Ma, to live up to

For them that must obey authority

That they do not respect in any degree

Who despise their jobs, their destinies

Speak jealously of them that are free

Cultivate their flowers to be

Nothing more than something they invest in

While some on principles baptized

To strict party platform ties

Social clubs in drag disguise

Outsiders they can freely criticize

Tell nothing except who to idolize

And then say God bless him

While one who sings with his tongue on fire

Gargles in the rat race choir

Bent out of shape from society’s pliers

Cares not to come up any higher

But rather get you down in the hole

That he’s in

But I mean no harm nor put fault

On anyone that lives in a vault

But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him

Old lady judges watch people in pairs

Limited in sex, they dare

To push fake morals, insult and stare

While money doesn’t talk, it swears

Obscenity, who really cares

Propaganda, all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see

With a killer’s pride, security

It blows the minds most bitterly

For them that think death’s honesty

Won’t fall upon them naturally

Life sometimes must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed

Graveyards, false gods, I scuff

At pettiness which plays so rough

Walk upside-down inside handcuffs

Kick my legs to crash it off

Say okay, I have had enough

what else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen

They’d probably put my head in a guillotine

But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only

What can I say? Fuck the Devil in disguise and also the one who parades unbidden. And keep kicking.



Michael Albert
Michael Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His political involvements, starting then and continuing to the present, have ranged from local, regional, and national organizing projects and campaigns to co-founding South End Press, Z Magazine, the Z Media Institute, and ZNet, and to working on all these projects, writing for various publications and publishers, giving public talks, etc. His personal interests, outside the political realm, focus on general science reading (with an emphasis on physics, math, and matters of evolution and cognitive science), computers, mystery and thriller/adventure novels, sea kayaking, and the more sedentary but no less challenging game of GO. Albert is the author of 21 books which include: No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World; Fanfare for the Future; Remembering Tomorrow; Realizing Hope; and Parecon: Life After Capitalism. Michael is currently host of the podcast Revolution Z and is a Friend of ZNetwork.