'Despicable': Outgoing Trump Administration to Designate Cuba a 'State Sponsor of Terrorism'

"Cuba has been sending doctors around the world to combat Covid-19," one observer pointed out, while another said the "Trump administration should add itself as a state sponsor of terrorism."

by Kenny Stancil, staff writer
Published on Monday, January 11, 2021
by Common Dreams





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Doctors and nurses of Cuba's Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade take part in a farewell ceremony before traveling to Andorra to help in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, at the Central Unit of Medical Cooperation in Havana, on March 28, 2020. (Photo: Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images)


Cuban and American officials as well as progressives in various parts of the world on Monday blasted the soon-to-be-departed Trump administration's decision to put Cuba back on the U.S. State Department's list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism," a move that critics say reveals the U.S. government's hypocritical approach to the topic of "terrorism."

"As the case of Cuba reveals, 'terrorism' means resistance to massive U.S. terrorism and refusal to bow down to the master."
—Noam Chomsky, linguist and activist

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's last-minute announcement, which reverses an Obama-era effort to improve diplomatic relations with the neighboring island nation, comes just before President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20.

On its way out the door, the Trump administration is "laying political land mines" for Biden—not only in Cuba but also in Yemen and Taiwan—wrote Robbie Gramer and Jack Detsch in Foreign Policy on Monday.

"The decision is a part of a blitz of 11th-hour moves by the Trump administration to push through hard-line policies championed by influential domestic political constituencies despite the complications they create for State Department lawyers, humanitarian interests abroad, and the incoming Biden administration," The Washington Post reported Monday.

Gramer and Detsch, however, suggested that the Trump administration is carrying out these actions not despite the harm they will cause the Biden administration but rather because the changes will constrain the incoming White House.

Cuba joins Iran, North Korea, and Syria on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, a list that critics say conspicuously leaves out "U.S. allies that actually do sponsor terrorist groups: Saudi Arabia and Pakistan."

The U.S. first added Cuba to its list of terrorism-sponsoring states in 1982 even as the Reagan administration provided financial support and arms to Nicaragua's right-wing counterrevolutionary forces accused of widespread human rights violations.

The State Department removed Cuba from its blacklist in 2015, part of what the New York Times called former President Barack Obama's "normalization of relations between Washington and Havana."

In his statement attempting to justify the State Department's re-designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, Pompeo accused Cuba of "repeatedly providing support for acts of international terrorism in granting safe harbor to terrorists."

As The Guardian reported, "That is partly a reference to the former Black Panther Assata Shakur who was jailed in the U.S. for the 1973 killing of a police officer and later escaped to Cuba where she was granted asylum by its then-leader Fidel Castro. It is also based on Cuba's refusal to extradite a group of guerrillas from Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) for alleged involvement in a 2019 bomb attack in Bogotá," as well as the nation's ongoing support for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who survived a failed U.S.-backed coup attempt in 2019.

Last week's attempted coup on U.S. soil, wherein an insurrectionary pro-Trump mob killed a police officer during a violent attack on the Capitol following weeks of lies from the president and Republican lawmakers about the legitimacy of the presidential election outcome, was also at the forefront of critics' minds on Monday.

"This designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism with less than a week to go in his presidency and after he incited a domestic terror attack on the U.S. Capitol... that's hypocrisy," Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) told The Associated Press in an interview.

Trump administration should add itself as a state sponsor of terrorism https://t.co/yu03yamCKE
— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) January 11, 2021

As journalist Reese Erlich explained in a column late last week:

In reality, Cuba has never been a state sponsor of terrorism. It supported armed insurgents in Latin America and sent troops to Angola to beat back a South African invasion of that country. But it never supported intentional attacks on civilians practiced by such groups as Al Qaeda.

Cuba's Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez denounced Pompeo's announcement, calling it "hypocritical" and "cynical" for the U.S. to put Cuba on its list of terrorist-sponsoring states. "U.S. political opportunism," Rodríguez added, "is recognized by those who are honestly concerned about the scourge of terrorism and its victims."

According to journalist Dan Cohen, "the U.S. sponsored and protected right-wing fanatics who used actual terrorism to destroy the Cuban economy while Cuba has aided liberation movements around the world and sought peace."

Trump administration will name Cuba a "state sponsor of terrorism".
The US sponsored and protected right-wing fanatics who used actual terrorism to destroy the Cuban economy while Cuba has aided liberation movements around the world and sought peace.https://t.co/cgao2eJMQJ

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) January 11, 2021

Erlich provided a brief snapshot of how the U.S. has weaponized the concept of "terrorism":

According to the State Department, "Terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience."

By that definition, the people who blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 were terrorists. Although the group attacked soldiers in a conflict zone, the marines were "noncombatant targets," not soldiers fighting in the field.

By contrast, the 2019 U.S. military drone strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and Iraq militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was not terrorism because it was carried out openly, not by "clandestine agents."

How convenient! Insurgent groups can only kill soldiers in the battlefield, whereas the Pentagon can create battlefields anywhere in the world so long as it assassinates people openly.

The State Department uses gobbledygook to lump together Al Qaeda, ISIS, Marxist guerrillas, and Palestinians who are engaged in armed struggle. Its "terror list" has always reflected Washington's drive for hegemony rather than a fight against terrorism.

In recent months, Cuba has been sending doctors around the world to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. Despite being burdened for decades by harmful economic sanctions imposed by the U.S., the biggest export of the small island nation, which has a lower child mortality rate than its more powerful and hostile neighbor to the north, is medical care.

While Cuba has been sending doctors around the world to combat COVID, @SecPompeo is about to designate Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism. Despicable. #CubaNobel#CubaSavesLives#WorstSecretaryofStatehttps://t.co/xJDLce2UqB
— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) January 11, 2021

In addition to drawing attention to the fact that the U.S. has run a "gulag" in Guantánamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba for nearly two decades, CodePink's Medea Benjamin juxtaposed Cuba's international medical brigades with U.S. support for the Saudi regime's starvation-inducing blockades and deadly airstrikes on Yemen and asked, "Who is the state sponsor of terrorism?"

Disgusting hypocrits. Cuba is saving lives around the world with its medical missions. The US is killing and starving people with bombs, like in Yemen. Who is the state sponsor of terrorism? https://t.co/rTclawsN6w
— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) January 11, 2021

Paul Pillar, a retired 28-year veteran of the CIA and former deputy chief of the agency's Counterterrorism Center, told Erlich that the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism has been highly politicized since Congress created it in 1979 and included only countries aligned with the Soviet Union.

"The U.S. won't put allies on the list even though they engage in terrorist behavior," Pillar said, citing the example of Saudi Arabia's murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Instead, experts say, the U.S. uses the blacklist as a coercive tool to reward compliant countries and punish noncompliant ones or entice them to bend to the will of Washington.

Decrying the hypocrisy of the list, renowned linguist and activist Noam Chomsky told Erlich by email that the U.S. should "either eliminate it, or make it honest."

"As the case of Cuba reveals, 'terrorism' means resistance to massive U.S. terrorism and refusal to bow down to the master," Chomsky said.
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US terror designation for Yemen rebels raises famine fears

CAIRO — The Trump administration’s out-the-door decision to designate Yemen’s Iranian-backed rebels as a terror organization sparked confusion in aid agencies and warnings from the United Nations and senior Republicans on Monday that it could have a devastating humanitarian impact on a conflict-wracked nation facing the risk of famine

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The designation is to take effect on President Donald Trump’s last full day in office, a day before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Several aid groups pleaded for Biden to immediately reverse the designation, with Oxfam America’s Humanitarian Policy Lead Scott Paul saying: “Lives hang in the balance.”

The Biden transition team has not yet expressed his intentions.

The Iranian-supported Houthi rebels rule the capital and Yemen’s north where the majority of the population lives, forcing international aid groups to work with them. Agencies depend on the Houthis to deliver aid, and they pay salaries to Houthis to do so.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the U.N.’s humanitarian operation is huge and the U.S. action “is likely to have serious humanitarian and political repercussions.”

Sen. Jim Risch, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed concern in a joint statement that without mitigating measures in place the U.S. designation “will have devastating humanitarian impacts.”

“Good intentions must not be eclipsed by significant unintended consequences,” they warned. “Yemen imports 90 per cent of its food. In light of near-famine conditions ... this designation will have a devastating effect on Yemen’s food supply and other critical imports unless the executive branch acts now to issue the necessary licenses, waivers and appropriate guidance prior to designation.”

Dujarric also said it is “imperative for the U.S. to swiftly grant the necessary licenses and exemptions,” expressing fear that the private sector will not want “to get in the crosshairs of any sort of unilateral sanctions" as it has done in past situations, “so they sort of self-censor and hold back.”

Six years of war between a U.S.-backed Arab coalition and the Houthi rebels have been catastrophic for Yemen, killing more than 112,000 people and reducing infrastructure from roads and hospitals to water and electricity networks to ruins. It began with the Houthi takeover of the north in 2014, which prompted a destructive air campaign by the Saudi-led coalition, aimed at restoring the internationally recognized government.

Most of Yemen's 30 million people rely on international aid to survive. The U.N. says 13.5 million Yemenis already face acute food insecurity, a figure that could rise to 16 million by June.

Some aid agencies said they were considering pulling out foreign staff.

They warned that even if the U.S. grants humanitarian exceptions as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised Sunday, the move could snarl aid delivery, drive away banks, and further wreck an economy in which millions can’t afford to feed themselves.

Houthi officials were defiant over the U.S. designation.

“We are not fearful,” tweeted the head of the group’s Supreme Revolutionary Committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi. “America is the source of terrorism. It’s directly involved in killing and starving the Yemeni people.”

In Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said the designation was “doomed to failure” and the U.S. would eventually have to enter negotiations with the Houthis.

The U.S. designation move is part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to isolate and cripple Iran. It also shows support to its close ally, Saudi Arabia, which leads the anti-Houthi coalition in the war. Saudi Arabia has advocated the terror designation, hoping it would pressure the rebels to reach a peace deal. Past rounds of peace talks and cease-fire agreements have faltered.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry welcomed the U.S. decision, expressing hope the designation would force the rebels to “seriously” return to negotiating table.

But the U.N.'s Dujarric said the designation could hamper efforts by U.N. special envoy Martin Griffiths to revive peace talks by polarizing each side's positions.

Maged al-Madhaji, the director of Yemen’s most prominent think-tank , Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, said the designation will “shut the doors of (Houthi) attempts to win international legitimacy.” It will also ”paralyze their finances and drain money coming from regional allies,” he said.

The Houthis, who receive financial and military support from Iran, have pelted Saudi cities with missiles and drone strikes. Their opponents say they aim to impose an Iranian-style fundamentalist rule under the group’s religious and military leader, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi.

The rebels have been implicated in stealing aid and using aid access to extort concessions and money, as well as in a catalogue of human rights abuses including rape and torture of dissidents.

The U.S., one of the largest donors to Yemen, already suspended millions of dollars in aid to Houthi-controlled areas after reports of theft and looting of relief supplies. U.N. agencies have long complained of rebels stealing and rerouting food aid.

Humanitarian groups said even with special U.S. Treasury licenses promised by Pompeo to allow aid to continue flowing the impact could be disastrous.

Janti Soeripto, president of Save the Children, criticized the “chaotic manner” by which the U.S. took the decision, which she said left agencies scrambling to figure out how to deal with them.

Delays or confusion in the license-issuing process could slow or disrupt imports of food, medicine and fuel.

“Yemen’s faltering economy will be dealt a further devastating blow,” said Mohamed Abdi, Yemen director for the Norwegian Refugee Council. He said banks, businesses and donors could “become unwilling or unable to take on the risk of operating in Yemen.”

If international banks retreat from any dealings with Yemen’s Houthi-dominated banking system, aid agencies and NGOs could be crippled because they must use the banks to move funds, pay salaries and keep operations running. A main income source for individual Yemenis — remittances from relatives abroad — could also be affected.

Once the designation is in effect, the World Health Organization will carry out contingency plans to relocate its international staffers, said its country director in Sanaa, Adham Ismail.

He said the U.S. move will also "make it harder to get donations and deliver health services to Yemenis under Houthi control.

___

Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Maggie Michael And Samy Magdy, The Associated Press

'Wanton Cruelty': Pompeo to Declare Houthis a Terrorist Group, Sparking Fears of Worsening Famine in Yemen

Oxfam called the designation "a counter-productive and dangerous policy that will put innocent lives at risk."

Kenny Stancil, staff writer

Girls collect water from a well in Hajjah province, north Yemen on December 11, 2020. As a result of the U.S. State Department's decision, Oxfam noted, "humanitarian aid, goods, and personnel will be blocked from entering northern Yemen, where 70% of the population lives." (Photo: Mohammed Al-Wafi/Xinhua via Getty)

Advocates for a more just U.S. foreign policy on Monday denounced Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's decision to designate Yemen's Houthis as a terrorist group, a move that progressives say will disrupt the ability of humanitarian agencies to provide life-saving aid in an effort to alleviate widespread civilian suffering generated by the U.S.-backed Saudi regime's assault on the country.

In a statement released Monday, Oxfam criticized Pompeo's decision to label the Houthis a "Foreign Terrorist Organization" (FTO), calling it a "counter-productive and dangerous policy that will put innocent lives at risk."

"This designation will not help to resolve the conflict or provide justice for the violations and abuses committed during the war," Oxfam continued. "It will only compound the crisis for millions of Yemenis fighting for their survival."

Win Without War policy director Kate Kizer on Monday condemned the Trump administration for "levying baseless terrorism designations on the Houthis in Yemen," describing the move as "nothing more than a cynical, last-ditch attempt to prevent the Biden administration from reversing Trump's disastrous Yemen and Iran policies."

"This decision is a devastating blow to the prospects of peace, and a reckless instigation of further suffering in what is already the world's largest humanitarian crisis," Kizer added.

A number of analysts warned in the final two months of 2020 that a terrorist designation for the Houthis, which Pompeo was considering at the time, would "make an already difficult situation worse," in the words of Brookings Institution president John Allen and senior fellow Bruce Riedel.

"There's no quick or easy way to end Yemen's civil war," wrote Crisis Group president Robert Malley and analyst Peter Salisbury in a late November op-ed in The Washington Post. "There are, however, ways to prolong it, one of those being the Trump administration's apparent decision to designate the Houthi movement as terrorists."

And yet, after what Post reporter John Hudson called a "major internal battle regarding [its] humanitarian impact in Yemen," Pompeo decided this past weekend to move ahead with declaring the Houthis a terrorist group, the newspaper reported Sunday night.

One of last acts of the Trump administration will threaten peace talks in Yemen and exacerbate the world’s largest humanitarian crisis being perpetrated by the US/UK-backed Saudi regime. But war in Yemen generates profits for the arms industry.https://t.co/gmoA8uZ32a

— Chris Williamson (@DerbyChrisW) January 11, 2021

U.S. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus claimed that Pompeo's move "will further isolate terrorists in Yemen while the United States takes available steps to facilitate continued humanitarian aid." But Oxfam countered that "given the far-reaching nature of terrorism designations, the humanitarian response and economy in Yemen will be drastically impacted."

Although the State Department announced that the U.S. is preparing "to work with relevant officials at the United Nations, with international and non-governmental organizations, and other international donors to address" the devastating humanitarian implications of the FTO designation, the Post reported that Pompeo is proceeding before having finalized the licenses and guidance that would permit the continued delivery of aid.

"If true, it is difficult to imagine a more irresponsible decision," said Refugees International vice president Hardin Lang, one of many critics who are sounding the alarm that the Trump administration's actions are likely to undermine the flow of aid and intensify suffering.

The mere threat of a designating the Houthis as terrorists caused food imports in the country to drop by 25% in November, according to U.N. Under-Secretary Mark Lowcock.

The State Department's decision is "terrible news for Yemen," Annelle Sheline, a Middle East research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said on Sunday night. "The Saudi-led blockade has already resulted in mass starvations," Sheline said. "Eighty percent of the population live under Houthi control. The designation will prevent aid organizations from delivering desperately needed food."

Characterizing Houthis as terrorists will exacerbate "an already shocking level of hunger in Yemen," Human Rights Watch researcher Afrah Nasser explained on Monday. As a result of the Trump administration's latest actions, Nasser added, the U.S. "risk[s] complicity in hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths."

It’s brutal what’s happening against civilians in Yemen. I don’t know how much more suffering civilians can tolerate. Life is already hell in Yemen. The designation would have disastrous ramification on the already dire economic & humanitarian crisis in Yemen. https://t.co/Tj5QhItSEA

— Afrah Nasser (@Afrahnasser) January 11, 2021

According to Lang, "the litmus test for U.S. policy on Yemen is simple: does it help end the conflict, or keep alive the millions of suffering Yemenis? The designation fails on both counts."

Oxfam pointed out that there are "many options available for identifying and punishing terrorists," but the route pursued by the Trump administration "is by far the most severe—and the most deadly for Yemeni families. It will block U.S. humanitarian aid, goods, and personnel from entering northern Yemen, where 70% of the population lives, and substantially reduce them throughout the rest of the country."

"The consequences will be felt acutely across a country also hit hard by extreme hunger, cholera and Covid-19, as banks, businesses, and humanitarian donors become unwilling or unable to take on the risk of operating in Yemen," Oxfam noted. "Every day these designations remain in place will compound the suffering of Yemen's most vulnerable families."

Foreign policy analysts and humanitarian groups urged President-elect Joe Biden to immediately reverse the Trump administration's designation of the Houthis as terrorists. "In this instance," said Oxfam, "acting 'on day one' cannot be only a figure of speech, as lives hang in the balance."

Sheline noted that "people are going to die as a result of this, even if Biden lifts the designation as soon as he comes to office."

Drawing attention to the timing of Pompeo's move, Suzanne Maloney, vice president and director of foreign policy at Brookings, said Monday that "Trump's foreign policy will end as it began: with wanton cruelty and disastrous fallout for the Middle East and U.S. interests there."

The Martians of Wall Street Have Invaded

As Covid-19 grew ever worse while 2020 ended, the stock market reached heights that hadn’t been seen before. Ever.

by Nomi Prins

Published on Monday, January 11, 2021
by TomDispatch

Today, the top 1% of Americans possess more wealth than the whole of the middle class, a phenomenon first true in 2010 and still the reality of our moment. 

(Photo: Scott Beale on Flickr)

Sometimes things only make sense when seen through a magnifying lens. As it happens, I’m thinking about reality, the very American and global reality clearly repeating itself as 2021 begins.

We all know, of course, that we’re living through a once-in-a-century-style pandemic; that millions of people have lost their jobs, a portion of which will never return; that the poorest among us, who can withstand such acute economic hardship the least, have been slammed the hardest; and that the global economy has been kneecapped, thanks to a battery of lockdowns, shutdowns, restrictions of various sorts, and health-related concerns. More sobering than all of this: more than 360,000 Americans (and counting) have already lost their lives as a result of Covid-19 with, according to public health experts, far more to come.

And yet, as if in some galaxy far, far away, there also turns out to be another, so much more upbeat side to this equation. As Covid-19 grew ever worse while 2020 ended, the stock market reached heights that hadn’t been seen before. Ever.

Meanwhile, again in the thoroughly cheery news column, banks in 2021 will be able to resume their march toward billions of dollars in share buybacks, courtesy of the Federal Reserve opting to support such a bank-and-stock-market stimulus. The Fed’s green light for this activity on December 18th will allow mega-banks to return to those share buybacks (which constitute 70% of the capital payout that they provide shareholders). In June 2020, the Fed had banned the practice ostensibly to help them better navigate risks caused by the pandemic.

Those very financial institutions can now pour money into purchasing their own stocks again rather than, say, into loans to struggling small businesses endangered by pandemic-instigated economic disaster. As soon as Wall Street got the good news from the Fed as 2020 ended, JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s biggest bank, wasted no time in announcing its intent to buy a staggering $30 billion of its own shares in the new year. And as if by magic, those shares leapt 5% that very day. Other mega-banks followed suit, as did their share prices.

The more that individuals, rather than corporations, shoulder the burden of tax revenues, the greater the inherent inequality in society.

Now, for reasons you’ll soon understand, take a little trip back in history with me to the eve of Halloween, 1938, when Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre dramatized his adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1898 sci-fi-meets-dystopia-meets-imperialism novel, The War of the Worlds, on the radio. As Martians “invaded” New Jersey (it had been London in the novel) with mayhem in mind, panic evidently ensued among some radio listeners who thought they were hearing perfectly real reports about an alien invasion of Planet Earth. Later accounts suggest that the media blew that reaction out of proportion (“fake news,” 1938-style?), yet people who tuned in late and missed the set-up about the fictitious nature of the program did indeed panic.

And it’s not hard to understand why they might have done so at that moment. There had already been surprises galore. The world, after all, had barely recovered from the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression that followed. It was also still reeling from the fiery Hindenburg disaster of 1937 in which a German airship blew up in New Jersey, as well as from the escalation of tensions and hostilities in both Asia and Europe that would lead to World War II. Perhaps people already equated or conflated the Martian invasion on the radio with fantasies about a potential German invasion of this country. In some papers, after all, reports on the reaction to Welles’s performance were set right next to news of war clouds brewing in Europe and Asia. With or without Welles, people were on edge.

Whatever the case, fear has been both a great motivator and an anxiety provoker when it comes to the media, whether in 1938 or today. At the moment, the focus is on economic and health-related fears in all-too-ample supply. It is also on the disconnect that exists between the real economic world that most of us live in and turbo-boosted stock markets. These distorted markets are the result of wealth inequality that once would have been unimaginable in this country. In a way, economically speaking, you might say that today we’re suffering the equivalent of an invasion from Mars.

From the Financial Crisis to the Pandemic

It’s not hard these days to imagine the chaos people would feel if their lives or livelihoods were threatened by an external, uncontrollable force like those Martians. After all, we’re in a pandemic age in which the gaps between the rich, the poor, and the middle class are being reinforced in endlessly stunning ways, a world in which some people have the means to remain remarkably safe, secure, and alive, while others have no means at all.

Covid-19 is not, of course, from Mars or sent by aliens, but in terms of its impact, it’s as if it were. And the pandemic is, in the end, only exacerbating, sometimes in radical ways, problems that already were bad enough, particularly economic inequality.

Remember that, long before Covid-19 hit, the financial crisis of 2008 was met by a multi-trillion-dollar Wall Street bailout. At the same time, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to zero, while purchasing U.S. Treasury and mortgage bonds from the very banks that had sparked the disaster. Its own assets then rose from $870 billion to $4.5 trillion between August 2007 and August 2015. On the other hand, the U.S. economy never quite reached a growth level of, on average, more than 2% annually in the years after that near collapse, even as the stock market regained all its losses and so much more. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, aided by an ultra-loose monetary policy, steadily rose from a financial-crisis low of 6,926 on March 5, 2009 to 27,090 by March 4, 2020, which was when Covid-19 briefly trashed its rally.

However, within a month of the market dip that followed widespread shutdowns, its climb was refortified by similar but larger maneuvers, as Federal Reserve policy was once again deployed to save the rich under the auspices of saving the economy. Rally 2.0 took the Dow to a new record of 30,606.48 as 2020 closed.

On the other side of reality, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that, according to recent Federal Reserve reports, the U.S. wealth gap continued to widen dramatically as economic inequality increased yet again in 2020 thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. That’s because the health and economic devastation it inflicted affected low-wage service workers, low-income earners, and people of color so much more than the upper-middle class and elite upper class.

Meanwhile, as 2020 ended, the richest 10% of Americans owned more than 88% of the outstanding shares of companies and mutual funds in the U.S. The top 1% also controlled more than 88 times the wealth of the bottom 50% of Americans. Simply put, the less you had, the less you could afford to lose any of it. Indeed, the combined net worth of the top 1% of Americans was $34.2 trillion (about one-third of all U.S. household wealth), while the total for the bottom half was $2.1 trillion (or 1.9% of that wealth).

And yet, American billionaires scored monumentally during the pandemic, due particularly to their lofty position in the stock market. The planet’s 2,200 or so billionaires got wealthier by $1.9 trillion in 2020 alone and were worth about $11.4 trillion in mid-December 2020 (up from $9.5 trillion a year earlier). Twenty-first-century tycoons like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos raked it in specifically because of all the money pouring into shares of their stock. Even bipartisan congressional stimulus measures meant for necessary relief turned into a chance to elevate fortunes at the highest echelons of society.

If you want to grasp inequality in the pandemic moment, consider this: while the market soared, more than 25.5 million Americans were the recipients of federal unemployment benefits. The S&P 500 stock market index added a total of $14 trillion in market value in 2020. In essentially another universe, the number of people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic and didn’t regain them was about 10 million. And that figure doesn’t even count people who can’t go to work because they have to take care of others, their workplace is restricted, or they’re home-schooling their kids.

The Martians and the Inequality Gap

In The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells evokes a species—humanity—rendered helpless in the face of a force greater than itself and beyond its control. His depiction of the grim relationship between the Martians and the humans they were suppressing (meant to remind readers of the relationship between British imperialists and those they suppressed in distant lands) cast an eerie light on the power and wealth gap in Great Britain and around the world at the turn of the twentieth century.

The book was written in the Gilded Age, when rapid economic growth, particularly in the United States, bred a new class of “robber barons.” Like the twenty-first-century version of such beings, they, too, made money from their money, while the economic status of workers slipped ever lower. It was an early version of a zero-sum game in which the spoils of the system were increasingly beyond the reach of so many. Those at the top ferociously accumulated wealth, while the majority of the rest of the population barely got by or drowned.

A crisis of inequality had been sparked by the Industrial Revolution itself, which started in England and then crossed the Atlantic. By the late nineteenth century, America’s “robber barons” were insanely wealthy. As economist Thomas Piketty wrote, there was a steeper increase in wealth inequality during the Gilded Age than ever before in American history. In 1810, the top 1% of Americans held 25% of the country’s total wealth; between 1870 and 1910 that share leapt to 45%.

Today, the top 1% of Americans possess more wealth than the whole of the middle class, a phenomenon first true in 2010 and still the reality of our moment. By 2018, about 75% of the $113 trillion in aggregate U.S. household assets were financial ones; that is, tied up in stocks, ETF’s, 401Ks, IRAs, mutual funds, and similar investments. The majority of nonfinancial assets in that mix was in real estate.

Even before the pandemic, only the richest 20% of American households had recovered fully (or, in the case of the truly wealthy, more than fully) from the financial crisis. That’s mostly because since that crisis, fewer households had participated in the stock market or owned real estate and so had no chance to capitalize on increases in the values of either.

Much of the appreciation in stock market and real-estate values has been directly or indirectly related to the Fed’s actions. By the end of December 2020, its balance sheet had increased by $3.164 trillion, reaching a total of $7.35 trillion, 63% more than its book at the height of the decade following the 2008 disaster.

Its ultra-loose policies made it cheaper to borrow money, but not as attractive to invest it in low-interest-rate, less risky securities like Treasury bonds. As a result, the Fed incentivized those with extra money to grow it through quicker, often riskier investments in the stock market or real estate. By 2020, there were bidding wars for suburban houses by urbanites seeking refuge from coronavirus-stricken cities with all-cash offers, something beyond the reach of most traditional buyers.

Though Congress passed two much-needed Covid-related stimulus packages that extended unemployment benefits, while offering two one-off payments and a Paycheck Protection Program support for smaller businesses, the impact of those acts paled in comparison to the tax breaks and power of investment the stock market provided the well-off and corporate kingpins.

While markets leapt to record highs, poverty in the United States also rose last year from 9.3% in June to 11.7% in November 2020. That added nearly eight million Americans to the ranks of the poor, even as America’s 659 billionaires held double the wealth of the 165 million poorest Americans.

The Martians Are Here

The gap between incoming and outgoing federal funds rose, too. The U.S. deficit increased by $3.3 trillion during 2020. The size of the public debt issued by the Treasury Department reached $27.5 trillion. Total federal revenue was $3.45 trillion, while the corporate tax part of that was just $221 billion, or a paltry 6.4%. What that means is that in an ever more unequal America, 93.6% of the money flowing into the government’s till comes from individuals, not corporations.

And though many larger and mid-size corporations filed for bankruptcy protection due to coronavirus related shutdowns, the brunt of absolute closures hit smaller local businesses — from restaurants to hair salons to health-and-wellness shops — much harder, only exacerbating economic disparity at the community level.

In other words, the real problem when it comes to inequality isn’t the total amount of taxes received versus money spent in a time of crisis, but the composition of federal revenue that’s wildly out of whack (something the pandemic has only made worse). Take the defense sector, for example. The U.S. government doled out $738 billion to the Pentagon for fiscal year 2020. The contracts to defense-related private companies in the last year for which data was available, fiscal year 2018, totaled roughly 62% of a full defense budget of $579 billion, or $358 billion. Now imagine this: that amount alone dwarfed the total of all corporate taxes flowing into the U.S. Treasury in 2019.

Inequality is about the disparity between people and countries with respect to income, wealth, or power. The more that corporations keep relative to their bottom line when compared with ordinary citizens, the more the stock market rises relative to the real economy. The more that individuals, rather than corporations, shoulder the burden of tax revenues, the greater the inherent inequality in society. The more that financial assets appreciate on money seeking to multiply itself in the quickest way possible (think of it as like a virus), the greater the distortion created.

The Fed can focus on its inflation-versus-full-employment dual-mandate all it wants, while pushing policies that distort the value of the real economy compared to financial assets. But the reality is that the more those Fed-inflated assets grow relative to real ones, the greater the inequality gap. That’s plain math and it’s the ugly essence of the United States of America as 2021 begins.

The market doesn’t care about politics. It’s a creature that acts in accordance with the goals of its largest participants. The real economy, on the other hand, requires far more effort — planning, prioritizing, and executing programs and projects that can produce tangible profits. We’re a long way from a world that puts investment in the real economy ahead of those soaring financial markets. That gap, in fact, might as well be like the distance between Earth and Mars. In the midst of a pandemic, as billionaires only grow richer and the markets soar, can there be any question that we’re experiencing a Martian invasion?

Nomi Prins is a former Wall Street executive and author. Her newest book is "Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World" (2019). Her previous books include "All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power" (2015) and "Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America" (2006). Follow her on Twitter: @nomiprins

 

Coming January 25th (January's fourth Monday) Confronting the current deep Environmental crisis   David Schwartzman will map out a path to a just green recovery, to a Global Green New Deal and an eco-socialist transition leaving fossil capitalism in prehistory where it richly deserves to be.    David W. Schwartzman, Professor Emeritus, Howard University (Washington DC, USA), holds a PhD in Geochemistry from Brown University, USA. In 1999 (updated paperback, 2002) he published, Life, Temperature and the Earth (Columbia University) and has several recent papers in Capitalism Nature Socialism (CNS). David serves on the Editorial Board of Science & Society and the Advisory Boards of  CNS Advisory Board and the Institute for Policy Research & Development. He is an active member of the DC Statehood Green Party/Green Party of the United States, CCDS, DSA as well as several other community organizations, especially since his retirement from Howard University in 2012. His book, co-authored with his son Peter, recently was published The Earth is Not for Sale: A Path Out of Fossil Capitalism to the Other World That is Still Possible. World Scientific: Singapore.  Latest book is The Global Solar Commons, the Future That is Still Possible: A Guide for 21st Century (Free download at: https://www.theearthisnotforsale.org/solarcommons.pdf; More readable for activists than our deeply documented more technical The Earth is Not for Sale; Donations of any amount welcome suggested to the Green Eco-Socialist Network, https://eco-socialism.org/join-contribute/; Review: https://washingtonsocialist.mdcdsa.org/ws-articles/20-11-global-commons-solar-energy) Email: dschwartzman@gmail.com

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82275247451?pwd=VUZPcmw0VkNmczBkVXdkemVPMFFhQT09 Meeting ID: 822 7524 7451 Passcode: 945473

Researchers in Turkey Unearthed a 2,500-year-old Temple Dedicated to Aphrodite

Turkish archaeologists unearthed what they believe to be a 2,500-year-old temple of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, in the Urla-Cesme peninsula of western Turkey. According to The Greek Reporter, pieces of the temple, located outside the city of Izmir, were first discovered in 2016 while archaeologists were working on a search of the province.

© Provided by Travel + Leisure jokerpro/GETTY Urla, Turkey


"During our screening of the surface, we detected the Aphrodite temple from the sixth century B.C. Aphrodite was a commonly worshiped figure back then. It is a fascinating and impressive discovery," Professor Elif Koparal from Mimar Sinan University shared with the Andalou News Agency. He added, the team found a number of artifacts, including 35 prehistoric settlements. "It is a rural temple. Aphrodite was a very common cult at that time," Koparal said. "The finds that we have indicate that there is the Temple of Aphrodite in this region." Those finds, Koparal further explained, included a piece of a statue of a woman on the floor, as well as a terracotta female head figure, which helped them deduce that it was likely a temple in honor of the goddess.

"As we scanned the epigraphic publications, we understood that it was most likely the Temple of Aphrodite. There is also an inscription around the temple. It sets the border with the statement, 'This is the sacred area,'" Koparal said.

As for how the Greek goddess found herself a temple in Turkey, Ancient Origins explained that Greek settlers likely moved into the area around 8,000 B.C. And, because of the town's "proximity to the sea, the region now occupied by Izmir province would have been seen as an ideal spot to rebuild by Greek ex-patriots, and the discovery of the Temple of Aphrodite from the sixth century BC suggests that fleeing Greeks did indeed settle in this area in significant numbers."

According to the Hurriyet, the researchers also found and documented artifacts that help tell the tale of the people who lived around the temple and in the region dating back to 6,000 B.C. The team found burial mounds as well as caves used as sacred sites. According to Koparal, his team is now working with the local population to ensure they can preserve their findings and protect them against both urban development and the very real threat of treasure hunters who may come to see what they can unearth too.

BLM vs Capitol protests: This was the police response when it was Black protesters on DC streets last year

As hundreds of supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol, breaking windows and wreaking havoc, politicians and activists were among the many who drew comparisons between the police response on Wednesday to that of last year's Black Lives Matter protests.

© Martha Raddatz/STR/Latin America News Agency/Reuters National Guard troops were deployed to the Lincoln Memorial on June 2, 2020, during protests held in Washington, DC, over the death of George Floyd.

The death of George Floyd -- a Black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd's neck -- in May of 2020 prompted hundreds of protests nationwide over the summer. In many cities, including the nation's capitol, police met protesters with tear gas, violence and arrests.

However, Wednesday's protests, many pointed out, were different. The Black Lives Matter Global Network, one of the most well-known organizations fighting for the well-being of Black people, described Wednesday's riots as a "coup."

The group said it was "one more example of the hypocrisy in our country's law enforcement response to protest."

"When Black people protest for our lives, we are all too often met by National Guard troops or police equipped with assault rifles, shields, tear gas and battle helmets," the group said in a statement. "Make no mistake, if the protesters were Black, we would have been tear gassed, battered, and perhaps shot."

Here's a look at the protests from last year, compared to those on Wednesday.

January 6, 2021

Hundreds of pro-Trump protesters on Wednesday stormed the Capitol and filled the steps of the building. In some images, officers could be seen deploying pepper spray. Tear gas was also deployed, but it's not clear whether by protesters or police, and people wiped tears from their eyes while coughing.

June 2, 2020

Members of the DC National Guard, armed and wearing camouflage uniforms, stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial last June, as crowds of demonstrators held a peaceful protest following several days of demonstrations.

During Wednesday's events, rioters had already made it inside the building before the DC National Guard was activated.

January 6, 2021

A livestream video of the Wednesday's events appears to show a Capitol Hill police officer taking a selfie with a rioter inside the building. The snippet of livestream posted online is short, so it's unclear what prompted the interaction -- or what followed.CNN has reached out to the Capitol Hill Police for comment regarding the incident.

June 1, 2020

Before Trump made his remarks at the Rose Garden last June, police near the White House released tear gas and fired rubber bullets at protesters in an effort to disperse the crowd for the President's planned visit to the St. John's Episcopal Church.

Earlier in the day, Trump had encouraged the nation's governors to more aggressively target protesters in their states.

After speaking, Trump walked past protesters to the church for a photo-op.

January 6, 2021

Pro-Trump protesters pushed past metal fences and breached the US Capitol building, walking throughout the complex for several hours.

Trump had directed the National Guard to Washington along with "other federal protective services," according to White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. The entire DC National Guard was activated by the Department of Defense, according to the Pentagon.

June 3, 2020

Last June, protesters in Washington, DC, repeatedly faced tear gas. Many were detained. One protest led to 88 arrests.

By comparison, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert Contee said Wednesday evening that police have made 52 arrests -- 26 of which were made on US Capitol grounds.

January 6, 2021

Trump supporters flooded the steps of the Capitol, as Congressional leaders evacuated the complex following a lockdown.

A federal law enforcement official told CNN that DC National Guard did not anticipate being used to protect federal facilities, and the Trump administration had decided earlier this week that would be the task of civilian law enforcement.

© From Twitter Livestream video appears to show a Capitol Hill police officer taking a selfie with a rioter inside the building. The snippet of livestream posted online is short and it's unclear what prompted, or followed, the interaction. CNN has reached out to the Capital Hill Police for comment about the incident.

     Video of Arnold Schwarzenegger Comparing Capitol Mob to Nazis Viewed Over 24 Million Times

An emotional video of former Republican California Governor and Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger strongly condemning the deadly U.S. Capitol riots has garnered more than 24 million views on Twitter.

© Screenshot/Twitter An emotional video of Arnold Schwarzenegger condemning the U.S. Capitol riot has garnered over 23 million views on Twitter.

Christina Zhao 1 day ago

In the nearly eight-minute clip shared on Sunday, Schwarzenegger compared the pro-Trump mob who stormed the Capitol building last Wednesday to the Nazis of the 1930s.

"I grew up in Austria. I am very aware of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass," he said "It was a night of rampage against the Jews carried out in 1938 by the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys."

"Wednesday was the Day of Broken Glass right here in the United States," Schwarzenegger continued. "The broken glass was in the windows of the United States Capitol. But the mob did not just shatter the windows of the Capitol; they shattered the ideals we took for granted."

Schwarzenegger

· Jan 10

My message to my fellow Americans and friends around the world following this week's attack on the Capitol.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1349481284874482240

— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) January 10, 2021

"They did not just break down the doors of the building that housed American democracy. They trampled the very principles on which our country was founded. I grew up in the ruins of a country that suffered the loss of its democracy," he said.

"I was born in 1947, two years after the second World War. Growing up, I was surrounded by broken men drinking away their guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history. Not all of them were rabid anti-Semites or Nazis, many just went along, step-by-step, down the road."

As of Sunday evening, the video had garnered 24.3 million views, over 870,000 likes, and more than 330,000 retweets.

Schwarzenegger also blamed President Donald Trump for the attack on the Capitol, saying he "sought a coup by misleading people with lies."

"President Trump is a failed leader," he said. "He will go down in history as the worst president ever."

His remarks came days after crowds of Trump supporters flocked to the nation's capital on Wednesday to demand President-elect Joe Biden's election win be overturned. Amid the protests, a violent mob unlawfully barged into the Capitol as lawmakers convened to certify the election results.

The rioters climbed and destroyed barricades surrounding the building and entered the premises, making it as far as the House Chambers. Five people died in the attack, including a police officer.

A slew of public figures quickly praised Schwarzenegger for his powerful statement.

Former CIA Director John Brennan tweeted: "Powerful & poignant. A sobering message that all Americans should applaud."

"I've often found that immigrants better appreciate the greatness of America than many born here. This @Schwarzenegger message proves that again," remarked MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Twitter.

Newsweek reached out to the Republican National Committee for comment. This story will be updated with any response.