It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, September 15, 2022
Ukrainian astronomers observe bizarre, unidentified aerial phenomena over Kyiv
Wed, September 14, 2022 Astronomers report seeing strange objects ‘everywhere’ during observations for meteors. Illustrative photo
According to the article, a team of three researchers were using facilities in Kyiv and nearby Vynarivka to observe meteors when they observed the unknown objects.
“We see them everywhere; we see numerous objects of uncertain nature,” Ukrainian researchers said in their article, which was later picked up by VICE to produce a story on Sept. 13.
The research categorized observed UAPs into two groups: Cosmics and Phantoms.
Phantoms, on the other hand, are “black bodies,” which do not emit radiation, absorbing it instead. This makes them stand out against the background, easy to detect, and to gauge their distance.
Both types of objects apparently move incredibly fast, making it exceptionally difficult to photograph them. The article said the UAPs were detected flying both alone and in groups.
“The human eye cannot register phenomena that last less than a tenth of a second,” the article said.
“Ordinary cameras are also unable to make these detections. It takes specialized, finely-tuned equipment.”
The researchers only provided their observation data, without suggesting any explanations as to the nature of the phenomena. The objects were 3-12 meters in size, moving at speeds of up to 15 kilometers per second.
Public interest in UFOs has lately been on the rise again. Even the U.S. Department of Defense recently said it has detected some “clearly artificial” flying objects of unknown origin, which it said could potentially pose a danger.
Workers' councils and the economics of self-managed society - Cornelius Castoriadis
Cornelius Castoriadis/Paul Cardan's proposals for the workings of a society based on the principle of self-management by workers' councils, originally published in English by Solidarity in 1972. We have significant disagreements with it as it retains the key features of capitalism, but we reproduce it for reference.
So here is an extract from a short book review I wrote way back in 1972:
''This...is an honest and well thought out attempt at dealing with the problems of transition from capitalist to communist society (a phrase misleadingly described as 'socialism'). it's main objective is to disprove the arguments against communism which state that people cannot freely and democractically run their own social affairs, and that it is impossible to carry on production without a specially trained section of workers whose main task is to organise the rest along authoritarian lines. Whilst dealing with the technical and organisational tasks in a realistic fashion avoiding the faults of both anarchism and bolshevism (if not of the De-Leonist SLP) they show an amazing ignoranceof capitalist economics. They warn that a certain group of readers will react emotionally to the use of terms such as money and wages in relation to 'socialism' and we must surely be amongst that group. But our response isn't just emotional - at first site it appears that these terms are used to describe something similar to Marx's non-circulating labour vouchers, one method Marx suggested might be used to deal with shortages at the beginning of communism. Their discussion of 'value' however shows that this is not just a terminological dispute. Solidarity seem to have taken Marx's model of 'pure' capitalism in volume 1 of CAPITAL and wish to apply it in practice. For instance Marx states that the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time embododied in it. Price on the other hand fluctuates about this point and with monoply conditions (and the averaging of the rate of profit) may stay permanently above or below its value. Solidarity seem to want to rationalise this system so that prices always equal value rather than abolish commodity production alltogether.....''
Looking back at this I was too generous in my interpretation of Castoriadis approach which was still stuck in a rather trotskyist understanding of 'socialism' as a distinct society from communism and omitted a more fundamental critique of it's democratic fetish. Unfortunately a longer more critical article we published shortly after this does not appear on-line but it went into more detail on the changes made by (an embarassed?) Brinton/Palace in his translation of the original which certainly came accross as a form of democratic 'market socialism' - actually a form of capitalism. In other ways this pamplets model has some of the same faults as other more modern abstract models for a claimed alternative society such as 'Parecon' and 'Inclusive Democracy' which are criticsed elswhere on libcom.
A slightly one-sided critique (by a party with it's own democratic fetish), which non-the-less still contains some valid points, can be found here:
Other discussions on this site relating to Council Communism and 'labour-time vouchers' are also relevent.
In relation to Castoriadis and Solidarity's lack of understanding of Marx's critique of the 'Value Form' it's also worth looking at David Brown's text 'The illusion of 'Solidarity' ' in the library here: https://libcom.org/library/illusion-solidarity-david-brown
UCP leadership race power rankings: Shoddy polls and even worse slogans
Duncan Kinney <duncank@progressalberta.ca>
Sep 15, 2022,
Say you’re a curious journalist who’s doing a power ranking of the UCP leadership race candidates and you’re trying to figure out if there’s any data out there that supports your purely gut-based predictions from a week ago. Maybe polls would help?
The polls provided to the public via right wing media organizations are no use. In fact, the two most recent public polls on the UCP leadership race are as useful as Elon Musk’s social media manager.
What Don Braid’s column about the poll fails to mention is the sample size by the time it got the sixth ballot–273 people. Brian Jean’s margin of victory in the pollster’s prediction is about the same size as the margin of error of the poll itself, and what’s more, the poll came from an online panel (not a true random sample) of self-identified UCP supporters (not necessarily actual UCP members.) It’s silly to be making big predictions on the back of this kind of data.
The other of the two polls I mentioned is from Mainstreet and was paid for by Derek Fildebrandt’s right-wing media platform, the Western Standard. This poll didn’t bother with rounds of preferential voting, instead it just did a snapshot of support. Mainstreet’s poll, which had Danielle Smith at 44 per cent support, has the same problem with polling self-identified ‘UCP supporters’ instead of an actual UCP membership list too.
So in the absence of useful polling data I looked at something more concrete: fundraising dollars. So far, only two campaigns have released fundraising numbers, and those are Danielle Smith’s and Travis Toews’. They both claim to have raised over a million dollars.
I reached out to every other UCP leadership campaign to see if they would disclose their fundraising numbers and none of them responded.
While preferential ballots can sometimes get wonky, and surprise candidates can come up the middle, if all but two campaigns are so embarrassed of their fundraising numbers that they don’t want to share them it appears this thing really is a two-way race. UCP members will get to pick between a guy who was a director at a Bible college that banned yoga and Dungeons and Dragons and a cryptocurrency bug who wants to do a modern version of Bible Bill’s prosperity certificates but with Bitcoin. Whee!
I did find one poll out there that isn’t as trash as the two I mentioned above. It’s behind a paywall at IPolitics. This poll was also done by Mainstreet but its sample is a little more credible. It polls past Conservative Party of Canada donors in Alberta and Mainstreet has followed up with them and asked if they’re both a UCP member and if they’re voting in the UCP leadership race. Only then are their answers logged in the poll.
You can get three free articles a week at iPolitics if you want to check it out. The poll has Danielle Smith defeating Travis Toews 58 per cent to 42 per cent on the sixth ballot. You have to be careful about making hard predictions from any poll, but at least this one appears to have more predictive power than the other two.
Okay, let’s end on some lighter fare: this week’s power ranking is of the UCP leadership campaign slogans.
It’s just impossible to care about a slogan this boring. With messaging like this it’s no wonder Smith is eating Jean’s lunch when it comes to courting the far right of the UCP base. This is the same dog whistle Smith is playing, but Jean’s is so inept that I have to rank him slightly ahead for being accidentally less evil.
5. Rajan Sawnhey: “Forward”
4. Rebecca Schulz: “Back on Track”
Upbeat, hopeful, and unlike Sawnhey’s actually communicates something: the proposal that the UCP was ‘on track’ to do something right, but got derailed and needs to be righted. Schulz’s campaign may be a complete flop but at least we can’t pin the failure on a bad slogan.
3. Todd Loewen: “Your Alberta, Your Way”
This slogan fits Todd Loewen like a glove. He probably came up with it himself, which gets some extra points from me. It’s the less-boring version of Jean’s pitch or the less overtly-Trumpist version of Smith’s: everyone gets to have their own special bespoke little Alberta where you can ignore the laws you don’t care for.
2. Travis Toews: “Toews for Alberta”
Rarely has a politician’s campaign slogan matched so well with the boring and wooden personality of the politician. This one’s as dull as Jean’s, but at least less evil; almost as empty of substance as Schulz’s, but at least Toews tells you who he wants you to vote for.
1. Leela Aheer: “Lead with Leela Aheer”
The best slogan of a bad bunch, since everything I just said about Toews applies here, but then you get a tiny little bit of fun alliteration on top. She has no hope of winning.
Starbucks CEO is blind to the publicity in labor organizing
Jason Sattler, Alternet September 14, 2022 Starbucks Corp Chief Executive Howard Schultz in Seattle, Washington March 18, 2015. REUTERS/David Ryder
The billionaire who built the Starbucks brand into one of the globe’s favorite recreational drug dealers returned in April as interim CEO of the company. He’s determined, it seems, to either kill the union drives sweeping up his company’s stores or his brand or both.
The National Labor Relations Board has accused Howard Schultz’s company of breaking federal labor laws with the carelessness and passion of a twice impeached president stealing nuclear secrets.
And the caffeineglomerate was recently ordered by a federal judge to rehire seven employees of a Memphis Starbucks, who claim they were fired for union organizing. Starbucks Workers United claims that’s a tiny fraction of the more than 75 workers who’ve been sacked by the company for seeking the basic right of collective bargaining.
We have no idea how much Starbucks is spending on union-busting compared to the millions being spent by Amazon. The company seems to be evading that reporting requirement.
But no matter how much that amount is, the result has been filling garbage bins with stinky wads of cash and setting them aflame.
Until the 12th month of 2021, there were zero – zero! – unionized Starbucks stores.
This floundering matches Schultz’s embarrassing attempt to run as an “independent” for president, which flared out after a couple of “Morning Joe”s and a few fat checks to the political consultants – the only people excited by the idea of Schultz in the White House.
While the pace of new unionized stores has held pretty steady – one every two days – Schultz has escalated his war on workers seeking collective bargaining by closing stores. The company says closures are coming for “safety” reasons. You’re probably not surprised at all to learn that union organizers disagree.
"Every decision Starbucks makes must be viewed through the lens of the company’s unprecedented and virulent union-busting campaign," Workers United said in a statement.
Likewise, everything Schultz does must be seen through the lens of a man who may hate unions more than he loves his company.
Because if you look at this historic union drive from almost any other perspective, you will see what could be the best thing to happen to the Starbucks’ brand this century. Here’s why.
Labor is more beloved now than it’s been in half a century.
The labor movement has experienced an extraordinary upswing in popularity since the beginning of the Great Recession, when the Occupy Movement was birthed. This accelerated in the birther era, when Republicans embraced the rhetoric of (white) worker populism as they continued policies engineered for billionaires’ pleasure.
The overwhelming embrace of unions is pretty remarkable given the country’s polarization and unions’ close relationship with the Democrats. But it’s even more remarkable given that the last time unions were this popular the share of workers who were in a union, 28.4 percent, was almost triple what it is today, around 10.3 percent.
With public affection for unions, an organized workforce would give Starbucks a serious competitive advantage against other chains.
Schultz is well aware his customers like the idea of a company that treats its workers well – it was a cornerstone of Starbucks’ appeal as the company’s stores reached near ubiquity. But the thought of giving workers a voice that puts them on more equal footing with shareholders is apparently his worst nightmare.
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency that enforces the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantees the right of nearly all private sector employees to organize. Of course, under Republican presidents they tend to do the exact opposite.
Since 2021, the Biden-appointed Democratic majority on the NLRB has been attempting to make the case that who the president is really, really, really, really, really, really, really important for workers.
Schultz has decided to become the poster billionaire for union busting, stepping in the fray to take on labor directly right after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos stepped back and let someone else be the face of his company’s assault on organizing.
That means he has to be Public Enemy No. 1 of anyone who cares about workers’ rights. Gruesome tactics against Shultz’s employees will result in reputational loss for this man with a Venti ego.
But that’s not all.
Continued losses at the NLRB may not have a huge financial cost for the company (because our labor laws aren’t strong enough), they could embolden workers in the more than 15,000 Starbucks stores not yet close to being organized while shattering Shultz’s legacy.
Unless he wants to go down in history as a clownish Dickensian villain who got schooled by one of America’s favorite movements.
You have to forgive Baby Boomers for assuming that youthful values fade into reactionary retirement planning by time you buy a house. That’s certainly what happened for many of them and their peers.
But the times actually do seem to be changing, possibly because America’s young people have never been so diverse, connected and in love with labor organizing. They are helping power the organizing surge, according to the dean of labor journalism, Steven Greenhouse.
“Inspired in many instances by Sen. Bernie Sanders’s calls for economic justice and by the Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter, and the #MeToo and environmental movements, today’s young workers are more enthusiastic about unions than those who grew up during Ronald Reagan’s 1980s,” he wrote.
And young organizers include many TikTok and meme masters who have 50-plus years of coffee consumption ahead of them.
A tight job market with a beloved labor movement and a new generation of activated citizens who may actually be interested in living out their values make welcoming unionization the best advertising that Starbucks can’t buy.
Or Schultz can just keep on losing and hope right-wingers get back into power before it’s too late. Given his spectacular lack of political instincts, you can probably guess which path he’ll take.
Biden trolls WSJ editorial board after securing railroad worker deal they suggested wouldn't happen Brad Reed September 15, 2022 President Joe Biden is having better news this week,
with Senate wins and an end to his Covid bout.
(OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP)
President Joe Biden on Thursday took a victory lap after he and his administration secured a deal to avoid a nationwide railroad workers strike -- and he also used the opportunity to take a shot at his critics at the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
Writing on Twitter, Biden pointed to a WSJ editorial published this week that criticized the president and Democrats for not doing enough to avoid a railroad strike that would have had severely negative effects on the American economy.
"You'd think some $5 trillion in new spending by this Congress, much of which will fatten union bottom lines, would be enough to buy some labor peace," the editors wrote. "Let's see if Democrats side with their Big Labor allies, or with the U.S. economy that needs the trains to run on time."
On Thursday morning, Biden announced he and his administration had struck a deal between the railroads and the unions that increased workers' pay and also the ability to take unpaid time off of work to take care of routine preventative medical care.
It's only been a few weeks since President Joe Biden made a speech calling out violent domestic terrorism from white supremacists, militia groups, neo-Nazis and others that have been embraced under the MAGA banner. Now the Miami Herald is concerned that too many of these groups are within Florida's borders and they're part of Gov. Ron DeSantis' (R-FL) supporters.
In an Editorial Board piece on Thursday, the Herald explained hat these "extremists don’t always wear white robes and burn crosses." But they were certainly breaking through the windows of the Capitol on Jan. 6. they were flying swastika flags over interstate overpasses, they harassed those they believed were Jewish and people of color, they staged an event outside of a right-wing conference and held a rally outside of Disney World.
Groups like these were once hidden behind hoods and shamed into the dark corners of the internet. That is no longer the case, however. They've removed their hoods to march with tiki torches in Charlottesville and some replaced them with white gaiter face covering and ballcaps.
The Herald remarked that anyone concerned about what they've seen have been labeled by conservatives as "hysterical liberals."
"Even as we learned about the Proud Boys’ close ties to Miami Republican politics, in addition to their prominent role in the Jan. 6 attacks, many state leaders remained mum," they wrote. Citing a new Anti-Defamation League report, they explained that "Florida has seen a dramatic rise in anti-Semitic incidents — a 50% increase in 2021 compared to the previous year — and hate crimes. Nationwide, anti-Semitic acts also rose but at a slower pace of 34% increase. The organization also found that between 2020 and 2022, there were 400 instances of white supremacy propaganda distribution — 95% of those anti-Semitic — in the state."
They prefaced their comments with the note that neither DeSantis nor Trump said that they support Nazis or white supremacists, "through dog whistles like 'critical race theory' and an anti-LGBTQ agenda," and other buzzwords certainly embrace the ideologies.
"We cannot ignore that the GOP has an extremism problem — and an even bigger problem disavowing it within its ranks," the report explained. "Florida has the largest number of people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attacks, according to the ADL. There was a “significant increase in violent rhetoric in right-wing online spaces” after the FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the report found."
They recalled Trump telling the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," during a 2020 debate, which then became a rallying cry for the militia group. They then helped organize attacks on the Capitol for Jan. 6. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (r-GA) attended the white supremacist event, the America First Political Action Conference in Orlando.
Any time that DeSantis is asked about it, he refuses to give an answer, instead saying Democrats are "trying to 'smear' him with the Jewish community and calling demonstrators 'jackasses' and 'malcontents.'" It shouldn't be difficult to reafirm opposition to Nazis while also attacking Democrats, yet, DeSantis never manages it.
The Proud Boys growing in numbers in the Miami-Dade County GOP led the Herald Board to start asking Republican candidates about it.
"One of them fumbled her response, and did not strongly disavow extremism, so we changed our mind about recommending her in a Florida House primary," the board explained.
The closed by calling on all Florida leaders to speak up and disavow hate and extremism. It's unknown if it will happen, however.
Ottawa announces up to $250M to help Canadians transition to greener home-heating options
Aya Al-Hakim -
Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault announced that the federal government will invest up to $250 million over four years to help make heating more affordable for families across Canada. Nearly half the amount will be set aside for Atlantic Canadians, he said.
Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 17, 2022. Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault announced Thursday that the federal government will invest up to $250 million to help make heating more affordable for families across the country, especially for Atlantic Canadians.
In a press conference Thursday, Guilbeault said that the funding will help homeowners who currently use home heating oil move to more affordable and greener home heating sources, like electric heat pumps.
"We can help Canadians save thousands of dollars on yearly energy bills, all while fighting climate change," he said.
"We committed to Atlantic Canada that we would come to the table with more help for home energy costs, and today we are delivering on that promise," the minister added.
Of the $250 million investment, up to $120 million will be allocated to Atlantic Canada. This money will be provided over four years through the Low Carbon Economy Fund (LCEF), according to the government.
About 30 per cent of homes in Atlantic Canada currently use oil for heating, a press release issued by the government said.
"Allocations by province will be finalized pending final confirmation with each jurisdiction," the release added.
Member of Parliament for Kings–Hants and Chair of the Atlantic Liberal Caucus, Kody Blois, who was also at the conference said that, "Atlantic Canadians are particularly vulnerable to global increases in fuel costs, caused by the war in Ukraine and a worldwide disruption in energy markets."
"Half of our households in the Atlantic region still use home heating oil, and the cost of transitioning to a new, energy efficient electric heat pump can be really daunting, he added.
Early estimates indicate that clean energy transitions funded by this new investment could help 10,000 to 25,000 homes nationwide, with over 40 percent of those in Atlantic Canada, said the government, adding that about 30 per cent of homes in Atlantic Canada currently use oil for heating.
The feds said that by taking advantage of a range of funding programs from different levels of government, some households could see up to 100 per cent of their eligible expenses covered, with up to 75 per cent covered through federal programs.
Will Ottawa invest in massive de-carbonization plan?
The four Atlantic premiers wrote to Guilbeault on Sept. 1 seeking an extension to the federal deadline to submit new carbon pricing plans but were turned down.
They submitted plans on the Sept. 2 deadline but requested talks with Guilbeault's office to address their hopes for a ``practical solution'' to address the costs of implementing carbon pricing during a time of inflationary pressures.
It says that by taking advantage of a range of funding programs from different levels of government, some households could see up to 100 per cent of their eligible expenses covered, with up to 75 per cent covered through federal programs.
The four Atlantic premiers wrote to Guilbeault on Sept. 1 seeking an extension to the federal deadline to submit new carbon pricing plans but were turned down.
They submitted plans on the Sept. 2 deadline but requested talks with Guilbeault's office to address their hopes for a ``practical solution'' to address the costs of implementing carbon pricing during a time of inflationary pressures.
-- with files from The Canadian Press
The West’s water crisis is worse than you think
Jonathan Overpeck, Ph.D., opinion contributor - THE HILL
A couple of years back I moved from Arizona to Michigan, in part because I’m worried about the Colorado River’s growing water crisis.
I have good reason to worry. I lived in the West for over 35 years, first in Colorado and then Arizona, working as a scientist studying climate and hydrological change around the globe, but always with a special focus on the West and the Colorado River.
The West’s water crisis is worse than most think. You can see the lack of appropriate concern in the way the Colorado River is being managed. Most everyone is focused on meeting the declining water levels in the nation’s two largest reservoirs — Lake Mead and Lake Powell — solely with reduced water use.
Water levels are getting lower and lower because of two big problems. First, the long agreed-upon annual allocation of water to about 40 million users in seven states (e.g., California) and Mexico exceeds the supply of water flowing in the river. Second, and ignored by many, the water flowing in the river is also dropping relentlessly, as a warmer, drier climate reduces the amount from snow and rain that reaches the river.
The federal government has asked the seven states to solve the crisis by reducing their demand for water by up to 25 percent. So far, the states can’t agree on how to do this tough task equitably. They’ve been upping their water demand for years, and now they must reverse course and use a lot less if they want to keep the massive reservoirs from drying up. This task is complicated by the river’s legal framework, which dictates that some states must forsake more water than others.
In the hierarchy of who has the most “senior” or strongest legal rights to Colorado River water, California is king, and thus theoretically, California has to sacrifice the least. This is because California spent decades successfully making deals and strengthening its “senior” rights to the Colorado River water.
This creates an opportunity for California to use its position of strength to help all the Colorado River Basin states create a more lasting sustainable water future for California and the rest of the region.
I can imagine many outcomes that might break the current deadlocked crisis. In one scenario, the states agree or the federal government demands (they do have that power), that all the states give up a share of the needed water allocation cuts. This has happened in the past when water savings were needed, and California has even been known to share water voluntarily. In this scenario, the current situation is just like in the movie “Ground Hog Day” — here we go again. A temporary fix to an ever-worsening problem.
However, the situation is far too grave to simply share the pain, make more cuts to the water demands and consider the job done. This is because climate change guarantees that the western water crisis will only worsen for as long as the planet keeps warming.
What’s not fair is that California is putting great effort into stopping climate change, while other Colorado River Basin states do less. Indeed, many leading politicians from Arizona, Utah and Wyoming don’t even acknowledge that human-caused climate change is a grave threat to their water, their forests, their economies and their region. It’s time for California to stand up and say no to continued water sharing unless the other six states of the Colorado River Basin all agree to step up and fight climate change as if the future of their states depended on it.
Fortunately, California should already have climate action allies in the other basin states. Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico are firmly committed to climate action. Moreover, majorities of people across the whole region favors action on climate change. The Southwest is also ideally situated for growth in wind and solar energy, and renewable energy businesses are already starting to boom across the region, including in Arizona and Wyoming. And crucially, the federal government has just made unprecedented funding available to fight climate change.
For a share of its Colorado River water, and the end of the 2022 water crisis, California should demand the formation of a “Southwest Climate Action Alliance,” in which every Colorado Basin state commits to at least halve their economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and be net-zero by 2045. Such an alliance would speed climate action in the United States as a whole, and thus around the globe. This would also place more states of the West with California at the forefront of the 21st century global energy transition. Concerted regional climate action would ensure that the flows in the very lifeblood of the region — the Colorado River — would stop declining and instead become a sustainable resource for generations of Californians to come.
Alternatively, the region can continue to pump its groundwater dry while the Colorado River flows less and less under a hotter and hotter climate, and so become an enduring poster child of climate disaster. It’s just not smart to ignore climate change while time to implement real solutions is rapidly drying up. Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist, was the founding university director of the Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center and is currently the Samuel A. Graham dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. Follow him on Twitter: @GreatLakesPeck
In some of the darkest days of the Cold War, the U.S. intelligence community was alarmed by a startling discovery: the Soviet Union was bombarding the U.S. Embassy in Moscow with microwaves, in what some officials feared was an attempt to harm American diplomats and possibly, even mess with their minds.
The discovery in the 1950s led to years of highly classified research by the Pentagon to assess the impact on the body and mind of what the Russians were doing. Were the Russians implanting sounds or even words into the heads of American diplomats in an effort to disrupt their work and damage their health?
The questions ultimately triggered a supersecret “brain weapons arms race,” says journalist Sharon Weinberger in today’s episode of the "Conspiracyland" podcast entitled “The Mystery of the Moscow Signal.” (It is the second of three episodes in the "Conspiracyland" series “The Strange Story of Havana Syndrome.”)
“So one of the working theories was that [the Soviets] knew something we didn't know,” said Weinberger, the author of a book, “The Imagineers of War,” that dug into the issue. “That they had uncovered some secret of weaponizing microwaves. And so we had to catch up with them, and we had to have our brain weapons.”
The Cold War concerns about the impact of microwave bombardment on American diplomats is newly relevant to one of the most perplexing issues that has confronted U.S. officials in recent years: the epidemic of strange health ailments, ranging from vertigo and dizziness to, in some cases, brain injuries, reported by U.S. diplomats and spies. It is a phenomenon known as Havana syndrome.
In the early 1950s, U.S. officials discovered a microwave-generated bug concealed inside this Great Seal of the United States given as a gift to the U.S. ambassador in Moscow. (Photo combination: Yahoo News; photos: Mark Seman/Yahoo News)
When the reports of health ailments first surfaced in 2017, and later spread to U.S. officials serving all over the world, some in the U.S. intelligence community — and many in the media — concluded that the "Havana syndrome" symptoms were the direct result of secret Russian microwave attacks comparable to what diplomats in Moscow had experienced decades earlier.
But as "Conspiracyland" shows, that theory only goes so far: Pentagon researchers were never able to establish a connection between microwave exposure and injuries to the body and brain, undercutting the entire U.S. interest in developing a brain weapon.
This finding is buttressed by newly declassified documents released just this week about Project Pandora — a top-secret project in which Pentagon researchers in the 1960s bombarded rhesus monkeys with waves of microwaves in an effort to test whether this had any impact on their ability to perform basic tasks on a computer, in exchange for receiving banana pellets. The documents were obtained by the nonprofit National Security Archive. (Peter Kornbluh, a senior researcher at the National Security Archive, appears in a special bonus episode of "Conspiracyland," which will be released today, called “Henry Kissinger’s Radiation Treatment.”)
As the documents show, the researchers couldn’t find evidence that the monkeys were in any way disrupted or harmed by the microwave bombardment, undermining the idea that U.S. diplomats were being injured at the embassy in Moscow. “I feel confident in stating that … persons exposed are at no risk of injury,” a CIA analyst wrote in a September 1967 memo about the monkey experiments.
U.S. Embassy in Moscow from circa 1964. (Bettmann Archive via Getty Images)
"Conspiracyland" also includes an interview with James McIlwain, a neuroscientist who had reviewed the Project Pandora monkey tests for the Pentagon and similarly concluded “there’s no convincing evidence of the effect of a special signal [of microwaves] on the performance of monkeys.”
Still, the conviction that microwave bombardments were affecting the health of U.S. diplomats persisted for years and reached a crescendo in the 1970s, when Walter Stoessel, the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, demanded that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger confront the Soviets over the issue. Stoessel had been diagnosed with leukemia while serving as ambassador, and believed his condition could have stemmed from the Soviet’s microwave-beam bombardment.
Documents obtained by the National Security Archive include transcripts of sometimes testy, sometimes humorous conversations that Kissinger had with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin over the issue.
"I wanna talk to you about the signal,” Kissinger said during one conversation on Dec. 9, 1975. "What signal?" replied Dobrynin, feigning ignorance of what Kissinger was talking about.
"That beam you are beaming into our embassy in Moscow," Kissinger says. He urged the Soviets to “turn it off” — at least until he arrived in Moscow during an upcoming trip — at which point “you can turn it on again” and “give me a radiation treatment.”
“Then you would be radioactive,” joked Dobrynin.
But for all the humorous asides, Kissinger made clear this was a serious issue: The State Department was under pressure to call out the Russians publicly and pressure them to stop the microwave bombardments. “Look, we're really sitting on it here, but too many people know about it,” Kissinger told Dobrynin. “We will catch hell unless we say something is happening."
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, left, chats with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Dec. 5, 1974, as they awaited the arrival of West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. (AP Photo)
The Soviets never 'fessed up to bombarding the embassy with microwaves, although eventually they turned it off in the 1970s under U.S. pressure. The prevailing theory today is they were using the microwaves to activate secret listening devices they had installed to eavesdrop on the conversations of U.S. diplomats.
But the Pentagon’s interest in developing its own microwave weapon didn’t go away. As Weinberger explains in "Conspiracyland," after the Sept. 11 attacks, researchers stepped up their efforts to develop a microwave weapon that could even implant sounds and words into the heads of terrorist targets. It came to be called “a voice of God weapon.”
“So at some point, over the years, the idea was forwarded that if you could create the sensation of sending words into people's heads, you could make them think they're crazy, that their mind is going crazy,” she said. “You could make them think that God is talking to them” and tell them to “lay down your weapons.”
That, she said, would be “the ultimate gaslighting.” But like much else in the realm of microwave weapons research — including those monkey experiments, so far as anybody knows — the exotic theories never panned out.
Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Mark Seman/Yahoo News; Bettmann Archive via Getty Images, Getty Images
WAIT, WHAT?! U.S. limits export of fentanyl to Russia, calling it a potential weapon
The United States on Thursday strictly limited the export of fentanyl and related chemicals to Russia, saying that they “may be useful” as chemical weapons to support Russia’s “military aggression.”
The Commerce Department said sales to Russia of the powerful opiate will now require a U.S. government license. The rule also applies to exports to Belarus, whose leadership supports Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Fentanyl is widely known in the United States as an illicit street drug that has caused thousands of overdose deaths in recent years. But it also has legal uses as a prescription painkiller. It is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Commerce Department didn’t respond to questions about why it took the step. But the move brings the United States in line with the European Union, which controlled fentanyl and related drug exports to Russia in June, saying that the substances “have been used as toxic chemicals … in the past by Russia.”
In 2002, Russian special forces used a gaseous form of fentanyl as a knockout agent before storming a theater where hostages were being held. The gas allowed the agents to enter and kill the Chechen militants who had taken hundreds of people hostage, but the powerful narcotic also killed more than 100 of the hostages.
Russian officials at the time wouldn’t identify the type of gas used, saying only that it was a nonlethal anesthetic. But U.S. officials said that tests done by U.S. Embassy doctors on Americans present during the hostage-taking indicated that the gas was fentanyl.
The new U.S. export controls also apply to the precursor chemicals needed to make fentanyl, and to a group of compounds closely related to fentanyl.
The measure was one of a list of additional sanctions and export controls the United States adopted on Thursday in relation to Russia. It slapped new controls on the export of quantum computing technology to Russia. It also sanctioned additional executives in Russia’s financial sector.
And it adopted new sanctions on people it accused of supporting Putin’s war in Ukraine and committing human rights abuses, including Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov; a Russian neo-Nazi militia allegedly fighting in Ukraine, and a Russian official who the United States said has “led Russia’s efforts to deport tens of thousands of Ukrainian children.”
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