The study of evolution is fracturing – and that may be a good thing

Erik Svensson
The Conversation
November 10, 2022

Butterfly (Darkdiamond67/Shutterstock)

How will life on Earth and the ecosystems that support it adapt to climate change? Which species will go extinct – or evolve into something new? How will microbes develop further resistance to antibiotics?

These kinds of questions, which are of fundamental importance to our way of life, are all a focus for researchers who study evolution and will prove increasingly important as the planet heats up.

But finding the answers isn’t the only challenge facing evolutionary biology. Charles Darwin’s theories might be over 150 years old but major questions about how evolution works are far from settled.

Evolutionary biology is now undergoing one of the most intense debates it has had for more than a generation. And how this debate plays out could have a significant impact on the future of this scientific field.

Some biologists and philosophers claim that evolutionary biology needs reform, arguing that traditional explanations for how organisms change through time that scientists have assumed since the 1930s are holding back the assimilation of novel findings

Contemporary evolutionary biology, a vocal minority argue, is incomplete. The dominant and traditional view of the field is too preoccupied with how the genes in a population change over time. This neglects, these critics argue, how individual organisms shape their environments and adjust themselves during their lifetimes to survive and reproduce.

Some go so far as to say that evolutionary theory itself is in crisis and must be replaced with something new.

Not all biologists are convinced. Some argue that repeated calls for reform are mistaken and can actually hinder progress.


How microbes develop resistance to antibiotics is evolution in action. MD_style/Shutterstock

Modern evolutionary theory

The version of evolutionary biology that is still largely taught in schools has its origin in the modern synthesis. This fused Gregor Mendel’s theory that organisms inherit discrete particles (what we now call genes) with Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Darwin suggested that environmental conditions weed out heritable traits which are unhelpful and promote those which offer organisms an advantage.

The modern synthesis aimed to unify biology, but it was dominated by a few subfields, particularly genetics and paleontology, and focused on how populations change their genetic make-up over time. From this perspective, organisms are objects and the raw material for natural selection.

Notably, the modern synthesis did not incorporate all fields. The study of how embryos develop and how organisms interact with each other and their environment (ecology) were largely left out.

Organisms are not, critics of the modern synthesis argue, passive objects of natural selection. Instead, they say, organisms are agents that change those environments.

A famous example is the beaver, which builds dams to survive and reproduce, changing its surroundings in the process. This tinkering in turn influences natural selection on itself and other species, thereby changing the beaver’s long-term evolution.

Organisms also inherit more than DNA. This challenges the modern synthesis’s assumption that traits an organism acquires during a single lifetime cannot be passed down.

There is cultural transmission: killer whales teach their children and grandchildren hunting skills and food preferences. Songbirds transfer nutrients to new generations in eggs just as humans give their offspring antibodies through breast milk. Some biologists say that these endowments can revitalise the study of evolutionary biology, diverting our attention from strict genetic inheritance.


The transmission of information between generations can influence a species’ evolution. Monika Wieland Shields/Shutterstock

Diversity is a strength

As an evolutionary ecologist with an interest in how organisms adapt to their environments, I am not as worried as some that the current version of evolutionary biology is incomplete. Neither am I particularly concerned about the limitations of population genetics.

Evolution can clearly be described as changing gene frequencies between generations. But this does not mean that population genetics is the only useful way to study evolution.

Biologists might disagree on what constitutes an evolutionary process, with natural selection and random changes in DNA being the two best studied processes. Evolutionary processes are not the only interesting aspect of evolution, though.

Evolutionary outcomes and the products of evolution – organisms and how they develop – also keep biologists busy. We have come to understand more about how genes and environments interact to shape the development of organisms. These insights from evolutionary developmental biology have clearly enriched our field.

That evolutionary biology is increasingly fractured does not worry me either, as long as we recognize that a plurality of approaches is not a weakness, but a strength. If physicists cannot agree upon a grand unified theory of the universe, why should biologists expect to agree on one beyond what we have already achieved? After all, organisms are much more complex than physical particles and processes.

To take another example from physics, light can be viewed either as a particle or a wave. This duality reflects how a single descriptor is not enough to fully describe the complex phenomenon of light.

If this works for physicists, why could evolutionary biologists not also use multiple ways of studying a process as complex as evolution, and things as complex as organisms? Why can we not see organisms as either agents capable of modifying their environments or objects subject to natural selection, depending on the context? These are two valuable and complementary perspectives.


Organisms influence – and are influenced by – natural selection. 

Erik Svensson, Author provided

Evolutionary biology today is a messy patchwork of several loosely connected subfields. This reflects the enormous diversity of phenomena that we study and the many interests of biologists.

We are united in accepting that natural selection on inheritance and random factors have jointly shaped organisms – but not by much more. Maintaining a coherent overview, either the modern synthesis or some extension to it, seems increasingly hopeless.

Giving up the search for a grand unified evolutionary theory will not hurt our field, but rather, liberate us. It will enable biologists to think more freely about the endless forms most beautiful that are constantly evolving and will continue to do so.

Erik Svensson, Professor (Evolutionary Ecology Unit, Department of Biology), Lund University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

CRADLES IN SPACE: THE CHANGELING IN FOLK NARRATIVE AND MODERN SCIENCE FICTION 

by © Adam Lawrence 

A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies

 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 

Department of English Language and Literature, 

School of Graduate Studies,

 Faculty of Arts Memorial University of Newfoundland 

March 2010 

St. John's, Newfoundland 

ABSTRACT

 This dissertation considers how modem science fiction (SF) has continually employed elements of European folk narrative to explore subaltern and subterranean culture meaning, both the politically disenfranchised and biologically deformed figures who threaten to emerge from their underground habitations and infiltrate the most cherished institutions of the upper world. According to legends deriving from England, Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia, it was common practice for the fairies, also called the "Good People" or the "little people," to abduct human children and leave withered and cantankerous fairies, known as "changelings," in their place. 

I argue that the changeling emerges as a "conceptual persona" in the nineteenth century when folklorists and scientists alike began to interpret changeling tales as unsophisticated diagnoses of congenital diseases-before the medical lexicon of "congenital malformation" was even available. 

The changeling provided the absent lexicon, which was specifically adopted by Victorian British society as an explanation of insubordinate behaviour among children, women, the lower classes, and the non-white races. 

My five chapters discuss the figure of the fairy changeling as it appears in British and other European legends and as it is adapted in several SF novels of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

To begin, I suggest that these European folk legends describe a "fairy economy," in which two species engage in various forms of trade and exchange (Chapter 1). Through detailed readings of such folktales as "The Fairy Wife" and "The Speckled Bull" and such legends as "The Caerlaverock Changeling" and "Johnnie in the Cradle," I argue that the changeling enunciates a particular set of issues that surface in the Victorian period, concerning childcare, reproduction, cross-cultural and cross-species relations, and hybridity, and which are further explored in the realm of modem SF. 

Both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde re-imagine the changeling as a representative of the lower-class mob, the atavistic criminal population, and the Gothic underworld (Chapter 2). Shelley's and Stevenson's monsters are also clearly prototypical SF creations, related as they are to early speculations on the biologically engineered human. In both The Time Machine and The Island of Dr. Moreau, H. G. Wells modifies these gothic/scientific fictions and their folkloric antecedents by exploring, on the one hand, the future devolution of the species into a two-nation world consisting of fey-like "little people" and monstrous underlings and, on the other hand, a near future hybridization of the species through the radical vivisection of various animal types (Chapter 3). Wells's two works present vivid attempts to conceptualize a "symbiotic" community, clearly hinted at in the legends involving human-fairy interactions.

 As I argue through these first three chapters, the changeling narrative presents a fictional narrative that explores human origins through the interaction and exchange with a nonhuman species. Viewed through the lens of SF, the changeling legend conceptualizes species evolution and speculates on the utopian possibilities of cross-breeding cultures and species. 

Providing an Eastern European perspective, Karel Capek explores the folkloric-cum-evolutionary notions of hybridity and symbiosis, first, in R. U R., a craftily disguised melodrama about artificially grown workers called "Robots" and, second, in War with the Newts, a satirical scientific parable about salamanders conditioned and bred to function as a labour force (Chapter 4). In both 11 scenarios, the engineered entities possess the "changeling" instinct to infiltrate and undermine human authority but also present the nightmarish results of co-opting monsters for profit and war. 

Olaf Stapledon develops this twentieth-century folkloric-cum evolutionary exploration, first, in two "cosmological" fictions, Last and First Men and Star Maker, which contemplate the future development of the human species and the potential function of symbiotic communities. Adapting these original far-future visions, Odd John and Sirius return us to the quaint environment of folk narrative, conceptualizing new changelings in the form of a mutant superman and a hybrid man-dog. Together, Stapledon' s "composite" fictional world testifies to the resilience of the folkloric tradition and the religious or supernatural fascination with the fearful symmetry of the human organism. Such science-fictional speculations enable us to discover that legends contain within them subversive undercurrents associated with both a rural underclass as well as a "little folk" driven underground by colonization and industrialization. 

From this perspective, there are some fascinating intersections between folklore and SF, including the crossover between the "alien" and the "fairy," the abduction motif itself, and the cultural significance of physical metamorphosis as it is consistently presented in changeling narratives and in "alien encounter" SF.

Pseudoscience and Science Fiction 

Andrew May

 Crewkerne, United Kingdom ISSN 2197-1188 ISSN 2197-1196 (electronic) Science and Fiction ISBN 978-3-319-42604-4 ISBN 978-3-319-42605-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42605-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016952248 

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 

Contents 

1 Charles Fort and the Forteans ................................. 1 

2 Anomalous Phenomena ..................................... 21 

3 High-Tech Paranoia ........................................ 41 

4 Flying Saucers ............................................ 61 

5 Mind Power .............................................. 87

 6 Space Drives and Anti-gravity ................................. 111

 7 Technology of the Ancients ................................... 133

 8 Conspiracy Theories ........................................ 155

 Index ....................................................... 179

Introduction 

Any large bookstore today will have a shelf labelled “Science Fiction”. The term hardly needs explaining. It encompasses any work of fiction that stretches the reader’s imagination beyond the current limits of science: extrasensory perception, time-slips, space aliens, faster-than-light travel and other dimensions. Yet elsewhere in the same store, there is likely to be another shelf with a selection of non-fiction books on exactly the same subjects. How this shelf is labelled— “Paranormal” or “Alternative Beliefs” or “Unexplained Phenomena”—will vary from store to store.

 It will rarely be labelled “Pseudoscience” ... but that is exactly what it is. The prefix “pseudo-” comes from a Greek word meaning false. “Science” itself comes from the Latin for knowledge, but the defining feature of modern science is the method by which this knowledge is arrived at. 

Pseudoscience is “false science”, not because its assertions are false (although they often are), but because they are arrived at by a non-scientific method.

Real science can be thought of as a four-step process:

 1. Pose a question 

2. Formulate a hypothesis to answer that question

 3. Analyse the hypothesis to determine its testable consequences

 4. Carry out the tests, and accept/modify/reject the hypothesis accordingly 

Pseudoscience is only really concerned with the first two of these steps. It is all about making hypotheses, not putting them to the test. In fact, pseudoscientific hypotheses are often constructed so as to be untestable—and hence incapable of disproof. 

Science and pseudoscience may address the same questions, but they approach them in completely different ways. For a scientist, the aim is to get as close to the truth as possible—even if that truth is not an appealing or easily understandable one. 

For this reason, science can often come across as overly complex, boring and irrelevant to the non-scientist. Pseudoscience, on the other hand, is largely geared towards telling people what they want to hear. 

 As a specific example, consider the question of life on other planets. Most people would agree this is an exciting question, and there is a branch of science called astrobiology that deals with it. Unfortunately, it is not a question that can be answered by direct observation, even with the most powerful telescopes. 

The best astrobiologists can do is to determine the most extreme conditions under which life (usually in microscopic form) can survive on Earth and then search for similar environments on other planets. This may strike the non-specialist as a disappointingly dull answer to what started out as an exciting question.

 A pseudoscientific approach to the same question might be as follows. Start from the “exciting” premise that extraterrestrials are intelligent humanoids, similar to ourselves but technologically more advanced by several centuries. They visit Earth frequently, but their technology allows them to remain virtually undetectable and to tamper with the perceptions and memories of any inadvertent witnesses. The aliens may even be conspiring with Earth governments to conceal their existence from the public.

Not only is this hypothesis more appealing than anything real science has to offer, but it is literally impossible to disprove.

In terms of audience appeal, pseudoscience beats mainstream science hands down. The term pseudoscience is a pejorative, and many of the people who use it—usually professional scientists—denigrate it as “bad science”. This misses the point that there is no significant overlap between the “consumers” of pseudoscience and those of real science. 

The latter is an essentially practical discipline: its main role is as an enabler of technological advancement. In contrast, pseudoscience is a creative undertaking—effectively a branch of the entertainment industry. Its end users read books ... and for a book to be successful, it needs to say something large swathes of the public want to read. 

Pseudoscience is much better than real science at giving the audience what it wants. People want to believe there is intelligent, anthropomorphic life elsewhere in the universe. They want to believe in strange powers and mysterious events. They want to believe there is a meaningful pattern behind today’s headlines— even if that pattern is a sinister government conspiracy. 

The phrase “I want to believe” was popularized in the 1990s by the TV series The X-Files. While much traditional science fiction is set on other planets, or in the far future, The X-Files was rooted firmly in its own present. Yet it managed to deal with all the major SF tropes—time travel, aliens, ESP and antigravity—and it dealt with them in the here and now. That is essentially what pseudoscience does—except that it is presented as “fact” rather than fiction. 

Besides its overlapping subject matter, pseudoscience resembles science fiction in other ways. Both are products of the imagination, and both are aimed at a broad, general readership. The most obvious difference is one of purpose.

 Most science fiction writers only want to tell a good story, not to make a didactic point. If they do set out to make a point, they are more likely to satirize some aspect of present-day politics than—to give a common example from the world of pseudoscience—highlight a flaw in Einstein’s theory of relativity. Fiction writers may draw on popular pseudoscientific theories to add verisimilitude to their stories. The best-selling novelist Dan Brown is a master of this technique. 

More surprisingly, the process sometimes works the other way around, with pseudoscience taking its cue from science fiction. The symbiotic relationship between ufology and Hollywood is a prime example of this. A number of SF authors also produced non-fiction works about pseudoscience. Some of them, like John Sladek and John Brunner, took a deeply sceptical view, while people like Arthur C. Clarke and Lionel Fanthorpe approached the subject in a more open-minded way. At the other extreme, writers like John W. Campbell and Whitley Strieber, who started their careers in fiction, went on to become outspoken advocates of pseudoscientific topics. 

For the most part, this book takes a non-judgmental attitude to the pseudoscientific topics it deals with. Whether they are right or wrong is irrelevant to the book’s main purpose, which is to highlight some of the more interesting examples of cross-fertilization between pseudoscience and science fiction.

 The first person to make a systematic study of anomalous phenomena was Charles Fort. His writings coincided with the emergence of science fiction as a distinct genre in the 1920s and 30s, and Fort’s influence on early SF writers was huge. 

This is the subject of the first chapter, “Charles Fort and the Forteans”. 

The next chapter, “Anomalous Phenomena”, discusses a number of Fortean phenomena that have crossed the boundaries between fact and fiction, including the Philadelphia Experiment and the Bermuda Triangle. 

The “High-Tech Paranoia” chapter examines the blurring of fact and fiction in the bizarrely paranoid worlds of writers like Richard Shaver and Philip K. Dick. 

It is followed by a chapter on UFOs—and the intriguing two-way interaction between fact and fiction that has continued from the first “flying saucer” sightings of the 1940s to the present day. 

Between them, the next two chapters span some of the most ubiquitous topics of both pseudoscience and science fiction: ESP and other powers of the mind in “Mind Power”, followed by a range of physics-defying hardware— Introduction ix space drives, antigravity and perpetual motion machines—in “Space Drives and Anti-gravity”. 

A speculative idea that has cropped up time and again over the last hundred years, both in fiction and non-fiction, is that of ancient technology—whether of human or extraterrestrial origin. This is examined in “Technology of the Ancients”. 

To round the book off, the final chapter on “Conspiracy Theories” ventures into the ever-popular realm of conspiracy theories—including the strange notion of “predictive programming”, whereby science fiction itself is used as a medium for the indoctrination of an unsuspecting public

‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ continues the series’ quest to recover and celebrate lost cultures

Julian C. Chambliss,
The Conversation
November 11, 2022


As someone who teaches and writes about Afrofuturism, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” I’m particularly excited about the introduction of Namor and the hidden kingdom of Talokan, which he leads.

The first “Black Panther” film adhered to a longstanding practice in Afrofuturist stories and art by engaging in what I call “acts of recovery” – the process of reviving and celebrating elements of Black culture that were destroyed or suppressed by colonization. This practice is often linked to “Sankofa,” an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana that roughly translates to “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.”

“Wakanda Forever” pulls from the past in the same way, but with a twist: Talokan is inspired not by African cultures, but by Mesoamerica, a vast area that covers most of Central America and part of Mexico.


The trailer for ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.’

A theory of time

The idea that African knowledge and contributions to science and culture have been erased and must be recovered is central to Afrofuturism. The term, which was coined in 1994, describes a cultural movement that pulls from elements of science fiction, magical realism, speculative fiction and African history.

On its home page, the Afrofurist listserv, an email list organized by social scientist Alondra Nelson in 1998, pointed to this process of recovery as a central tenet of the genre:
“Once upon a time, in the not-so-distant past, cultural producers of the African diaspora composed unique visions on the world at hand and the world to come. This speculation has been called AfroFuturism – cultural production that simultaneously references a past of abduction, displacement and alien-nation; celebrates the unique aesthetic perspectives inspired by these fractured histories; and imagines the possible futures of black life and ever-widening definitions of ‘blackness.’”

This fascination with uncovering the ways in which Black contributions have been erased and suppressed means that Afrofuturist works often mine the past as a first step toward creating visions of the future.

Afrofuturist scholars such as Kinitra Brooks even describe Afrofuturism as a theory of time. For her, the “present, past, and future” exist together, creating the opportunity to push against the systemic devaluation of Black people that occurred during slavery and Jim Crow segregation, and persists in contemporary anti-Black violence.
Looking back to see tomorrow

This recovery can take many forms.

Several Black writers published serialized novels of speculative fiction, such as Martin R. Delany’s “Blake: Or the Huts of America,” a slave revolt story written between 1859 and 1861. Pauline Hopkins’ “Of One Blood: Or, the Hidden Self,” published in 1903, tells the story of mixed-race Harvard medical students who discover Telassar, a hidden city in Ethiopia, home to an advanced society possessing technology and mystical powers.

Both narratives refuse to depict Black culture as backwards or impotent, and instead celebrate Black empowerment and the rich cultural legacies of Black people.

Curator Ingrid Lafleur has long talked about how Afrofuturist visual aesthetics relies on recovering ancient African cosmology. You can see this practice in the work of musical artists such as Sun Ra, who used Egyptian symbolism throughout his work, and visual artists such as Kevin Sipp, who remixes and reimagines African cultural symbolism to create sculptures and visual work that fuse past styles and symbols with contemporary practices.

Simply put, a reverence for ancestral knowledge and culture is the beating heart of Afrofuturism, and has become an integral part of Afrofuturism’s mission to forge a better future.
Mesoamerica takes center stage

The first “Black Panther” film celebrated an array of African cultures.

Costume designer Ruth Carter deliberately infused elements from across the continent in every scene. For example, the headdress worn by Queen Ramonda, played by Angela Bassett, was inspired by the isicholo, a South African hat traditionally associated with married women. And Lupita Nyong'o’s Nakia wore clothing inspired by the Suri tribe.

And so the film highlighted African cultures not by depicting them as fragile or foundering, but as paragons of artistry and sophistication.

In “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” these themes are explored both in the way the mantle of Black Panther presumably passes to Princess Shuri, and in the depiction of Namor and the kingdom of Talokan.

While Talokan is an underwater society inspired by the myth of Atlantis, Marvel Studios has signaled that the people of Talokan sought refuge underwater in response to colonial invasion.

By invoking the complexities of this history – and seemingly leaning heavily on parallels to Mayan culture – the film celebrates a society that scholarship has long noted for its achievements in architecture, mathematics, astronomy and language.

History books reference these accomplishments. But in popular culture, there’s little attention given to this cultural landscape.

Namor and the kingdom he leads are poised to remind a global audience of the rich world of Mesoamerica that thrived – until European contact beginning in 1502 led to conquest, decline and eradication.

Today, immigration, trade and drug trafficking dominate discussions of Central America and Mexico in the U.S. media. This film, on the other hand, invites the viewer to appreciate the profound cultural legacy of Mexican and Central American civilizations.

Julian C. Chambliss, Professor of English, Michigan State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Right-wing organization pushing states to shield companies from political boycotts
David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
November 11, 2022

Image (Shutterstock)

For decades ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council quietly drafted right-wing legislation, pushing it to conservative state lawmakers who only had to change a few words here or there and, viola!, become a sponsor of a bill that would further the conservative corporate agenda.

According to a 2012 Bloomberg BusinessWeek investigation (archived), about 200 of ALEC's model bills became law every year.

While most of the bills don't garner public attention, many Americans are familiar with the rash of so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws that effectively allow the use of deadly force in the name of self defense by people who would claim they felt threatened by another person. Trayvon Martin's killer successfully used a "Stand Your Ground" defense to avoid conviction.

ALEC, which is supported by corporations, is now "pushing states to adopt a new law shielding all US businesses from 'political boycotts,'" according to The Guardian, in response to what some are calling “woke capitalism.”

How?

By drafting model legislation that states would pass which would require any government entity to include a clause in all their contracts banning any company they do business with from supporting political or economic boycotts. Those government entities could include a state government or a local police dept., school district, or perhaps a county clerk's office.

"According to the text of the proposed law, which is written by Alec’s lawyers so that all a legislature has to do is fill in the name of its state, it is a response to banks, investment funds and corporations refusing to invest in or do business with industries that damage the environment or are aligned with oppressive laws," The Guardian reports.

One line from the model legislation reads: “The collusion of corporations, and institutions to boycott, divest from, or sanction any industry may violate existing antitrust and fiduciary laws and harms consumers, shareholders, and states.”

The Guardian adds that "Some corporations are increasingly concerned that consumer pressure will cause other companies to boycott them over their funding of rightwing politicians and causes, or social positions."

Brazil sets new Amazon deforestation record for October

Agence France-Presse
November 11, 2022

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest increased 75 percent under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro MICHAEL DANTAS AFP/File

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest broke the monthly record for October, with the destruction of 904 square kilometers (350 square miles), official figures showed Friday.

The grim news comes less than two months before far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's four-year term ends.

The former army captain is a climate change skeptic and has been heavily criticized over policies seen as encouraging deforestation.

The DETER satellite observation system detected a three percent increase in the deforested area of the world's largest tropical rainforest compared to October 2021, making it a record for that month, according to the INPE space research institute.

The newly deforested section stretches an area just over half the size of Sao Paulo.

With two months still to go, 2022 is already the worst year for Amazon deforestation since DETER began monitoring it in 2015.

However, far higher figures of deforestation were recorded in the early 2000s.

So far this year almost 9,500 square kilometers have been destroyed, compared to the total 9,200 square kilometers deforested in 2021.

The Brazilian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said deforestation and wildfires had "exploded" since last month's presidential election, in which Bolsonaro was defeated by leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Lula, who was also president from 2003-2010, has pledged to eliminate deforestation.

"The increase in deforestation (in October) was expected, but even so, the numbers for the first days of November are frightening, they show an unbridled race for destruction" before the change of government on January 1, said the WWF.

Under Bolsonaro, average annual deforestation increased 75 percent compared to the previous decade.

Lula confirmed on Thursday he would attend the COP27 climate summit in Egypt next week.

"The new government will have its work cut out to repair the situation, to end the perception that the Amazon is a lawless land," said WWF specialist Raul do Valle in a statement.

However, Bolsonaro's environmental policies will keep "causing damage for some time yet," said Andre Freitas from Greenpeace in Brazil.

© 2022 AFP

West Coast Blue Wall still intact after close race for governor in Oregon

Michael Kohn
November 11, 2022

Betsy Johnson's campaign website www.RunBetsyRun.com

BEND, OR — Outside the Kevista Coffeeshop in this Central Oregon city on the morning after the election, a fresh layer of snow covered the ground, the drifts building around a row of political yard signs supporting Republican candidates.

Inside the cozy shop, voter Matt Bryant bucks the majority voter sentiment in this part of the state, declaring his relief that the Red Wave ended up being more of a ripple in Oregon.

“I am happy to see some of the Democrats have won,” said Bryant, who describes himself as a progressive. “Republicans in my opinion don’t have any policies that try to help actual people.”

Bryant, 44, lives in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, which may go red as Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer is leading Democrat Jaime McLeod-Skinner in a tight race. But he’s glad the Governor’s Mansion will remain occupied by a Democrat. Tina Kotek beat Republican Christine Drazan in a close race for governor, the Associated Press declaring her the winner late on Thursday.

As of Thursday evening, Kotek had 47.1% of the vote compared to Drazan’s 43.5%, with 86% of the votes counted. Unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson, a former Democrat who tried to run a middle-of-the-road campaign, saying she would take the best ideas from both parties, won 8.6% of the vote.

The results have been somewhat slow to come this year because ballots can still be counted if they were postmarked by 8 p.m. on election day, per the state’s vote-by-mail system. In previous elections, ballots had to be received on election day.

Although not all races have been finalized, the results in Oregon and nationwide were surprising, said David Bernell, an Oregon State University professor of political science.

“The Democrats outperformed expectations,” said Bernell. “They bucked what is one of the few solid predictions people can make in politics — the law of political gravity that says that the party in the White House tends to lose pretty significantly in the midterm elections, especially in the second year of a new president.”

In the Oregon gubernatorial race, it was Johnson’s campaign, and her surprisingly high poll numbers during the race, that attracted attention over the summer and into late fall.

A month before the election, Johnson held 20% voter support, according to polls. Democrats worried she would play the role of the spoiler, pulling votes away from Kotek, who was in a dead heat with Drazan. For much of the past month, it looked like Drazan — a former leader of the Republican minority in the Oregon House — had a chance to be the first Republican elected governor of Oregon in 40 years.

The tie going into November prompted President Biden to make a campaign appearance with Kotek in Portland.

All three candidates had amassed large war chests to sway voters on hot button issues, which in Oregon focussed squarely on inflation, crime, homelessness, abortion rights, and access to guns.

The total funds spent reached nearly $69 million, a record for an Oregon governor’s race. Kotek led the funding spree, raising $29.4 million, followed by Drazan’s $22.5 million and Johnson’s $17.5 million. Their coffers overflowing, voters were subjected to relentless political attack ads, which painted Drazen as a far right extremist and Kotek as a reason for Oregon crime and housing woes.

The dynamics of the race changed in the final few weeks, said Jim Moore, a political science professor at Pacific University, as voters gravitated toward the mainstream candidates.

“Betsy Johnson turned into a regular third-party candidate, taking a bit more from Kotek than Drazan, but not having a tremendous impact at less than 9% of the vote,” said Moore.

Kotek’s victory keeps the West Coast “Big Blue Wall” intact. She takes the reins from Kate Brown, who served since 2015 but could not run again due to term limits.


During her term in office, Brown had forged an alliance with fellow West Coast Democrat governors – including California’s Gavin Newsom, and Washington’s Jay Inslee – to cooperate on COVID lockdowns, climate change regulations, abortion access, and other issues of regional and national importance.

On Tuesday Newsom beat back a challenge from Republican challenger Brian Dahle. Inslee’s term as Washington governor ends in 2025.

Kotek, the longest-serving Speaker of the House in the Oregon state legislature, is eager to show that she is different from Kate Brown, ranked in some polls as America’s least popular governor. She campaigned on a platform of distancing herself from Brown and has vowed to deal with Oregon’s homeless crisis and rising urban crime, two problems that festered under Brown’s leadership.


She has also promised to address the state’s housing shortage and affordability. As Speaker, she helped pass legislation that allowed some cities to increase their housing stock by building more duplexes and triplexes. She also passed statewide bills on rent control.

And while it hasn’t figured as a talking point in Oregon, Kotek makes history as America’s first out lesbian elected governor along with Maura Healey, the newly elected governor in Massachusettes. Kotek is married to Aimee Wilson, a social worker.

Down the road from the Kevista coffee shop, at a McDonald’s restaurant, 34-year-old Michael Hagert was having breakfast alone during the chilly post-election morning. Hagert, a Walmart greeter in Bend, does not belong to a political party and said he votes for whoever he thinks will do the best job. This time he gave his vote to Drazan.

“I didn’t really care for Kotek, I think (Drazan) was a better person,” said Hagert, a native of Medford in southern Oregon.

But Hagert isn’t surprised that Kotek won, he’s lived in Oregon most his life and watched the state change, getting bluer each election cycle. While saying “hello” to folks walking through the door at Walmart he can tell there is a demographic shift going on in the Beaver State.

“A lot of people are moving here from California and other states, the East Coast, everywhere, they bring their politics. It’s becoming more Democrat, it’s not surprising it’s Kotek (winning).”

Beyond the governor’s race, slavery was also on the ballot in Oregon, with Measure 112 asking voters if they want to remove constitutional language allowing for slavery and involuntary servitude when used as a punishment for a crime. While the measure passed 56% to 44%, Moore was surprised more than 740,000 people voted against the measure.

“In other states where this passed, it was not even close, 80-20 or 70-30. I fear the result will just contribute to the narrative about deep-seated and unacknowledged racism in Oregon,” said Moore.

Measure 114, which calls for stricter firearms regulations, is too close to call but was leaning “yes” with 51% wanting to adopt the measure, and 86% of the votes counted as of Thursday. If passed, the measure will make Oregon one of the most difficult places to purchase a firearm, an unusual twist in a state where “Ore-gun” bumper stickers are a common sight in rural areas.

The new rules for buying a gun include submitting fingerprints, taking a safety course, passing a background check, and paying a fee before the individual can obtain a five-year permit for all gun purchases. In addition, the sale of high-capacity magazines, which contain 10 or more rounds, is banned. Bryant at the coffee shop voted to support the measure.

“Go to a gun range if you want to shoot off a large clip. But you don’t need a 30-round clip to defend your house, there is no army coming to get you,” he said.

NRA supporters call it the nation’s most extreme gun control initiative. Supporters say it will save lives. Political watchers say both sides could politicize the issue.

“Measure 114 will probably give a shot in the arm to advocates of greater gun control, showing them a pathway to get stronger restrictions in place,” said Bernell, the OSU political science professor.

“It will certainly galvanize the pro-gun advocates and the GOP to strengthen their efforts, as they have a real example of the quote-unquote, liberals coming to take your guns away,” he added.

Controversy over the law is unlikely to go away. At least one sheriff in Oregon has already declared she will not enforce at least one part of the law.

Linn County Sheriff Michelle Duncan declared on Facebook the day after the election that the measure was “poorly written” and “a terrible law for gun owners, crime victims, and public safety." She declared that she would not enforce the limit on magazine capacity. Passage of the law will result in a lawsuit, she added.

In other key Oregon races, the state’s senior U.S. senator, Democrat Ron Wyden easily defeated Jo Rae Perkins, 56% to 41%. Perkins has a background in the financial services industry but had never held an elected office.

Perkins denies the 2020 election results, has voiced support for QAnon conspiracy theorists, opposes abortion for any reason, and opposed mask and vaccine mandates during the pandemic. But she received little backing from her own party, raising just $92,000, a fraction compared to Wyden's $13.8 million war chest.

In congressional races. Democrat Andrea Salinas is leading her Republican rival Mike Erickson in a close race in Oregon’s newly created 6th Congressional District, awarded to Oregon because of population growth reflected in the 2020 census. The new district is one of the most diverse in the state, including both rural areas that support agriculture and timber, as well as urban areas with mixed demographics.

In the 5th Congressional District race, current leader Lori Chavez-DeRemer is a former mayor of Happy Valley, a Portland suburb with a population of around 24,000. If she hangs on to win, Chavez-DeRemer will have flipped the seat out of Democrat’s hands — it had been held by Democrat Congressman Kurt Schrader since 2009 until he was ousted by McLeod-Skinner in the May primary.

If DeRemer and Salinas are declared winners, they will be the first Latinx community members to represent Oregon in Congress.

Moore says that the proportion of registered Democrats to Republicans in Oregon is around 60% to 40% and the state’s congressional delegation should vaguely reflect that. The results of this year’s election could make the delegation go from 80% Democrat and 20% Republican to 67% Democrat and 33% Republican.

“Pretty close to the partisan breakdown in the entire state,” said Moore.

The closeness of the gubernatorial race and the 5th and 6th congressional district races shows that Oregon is more purple than most people realize, he said.

“It has always been purple but that is now more obvious to national observers who have not really looked carefully at Oregon politics as we reliably voted for Democrats for statewide office and our congressional delegation,” said Moore.

Other states could take a close look at the results of the election in Oregon to get a clear read on the direction the country is taking.

“We will simply be part of the tea leaves that prognosticators use to look at the 2024 presidential election,” said Moore. “Democrats hanging onto overwhelming control gives them hope that the 2024 battles will take place in Republican states, not defensively in Democratic states.”

Back at the Kevista Coffee Shop in Bend, the progressive voter Bryant takes another sip of coffee and laments that he could not withhold his vote from Democrats as a way to protest both mainstream parties.

In the end, he supported Kotek and other Democrats to try to prevent any Republican candidate from winning. “The majority of them believe in complete and utter nonsense,” he said of Republican candidates. He believes that most people who vote Republican have been misled by politicians and “crazy” election deniers.

“Republican leaders are not looking out for people’s best interests, they are looking out for corporate interests, for their own interests,” said Byant. “Democrats can be the same sometimes but for the most part they are going to try to help people.”

DEMOCRATS HAVE HISTORIC MIDTERM WIN OVER GOP

Voices: In Alaska, things look surprisingly bad for Sarah Palin — and for Republicans in general

Opinion by Summer Koester - TODAY - Anchorage Daily News

This week, the day after a full moon, lunar eclipse, and even a showing of aurora borealis, Alaskans went to the polls to rank their choices for the US House of Representatives. By Wednesday morning, Congresswoman Mary Peltola, the incumbent Democrat, was leading Alaska’s US House race by a wide margin in a red state that hasn’t elected a Democratic presidential nominee since 1964.


Election 2022 House Alaska

Peltola had already garnered 47% of first-choice votes. Her opponents — former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin and Nick Begich, both Republicans — placed at 27% and 24%, respectively. Mail-in ballots are still being counted in the 49th State, and if Mary Peltola reaches 50% of the vote, she automatically wins reelection. If that doesn’t happen, she will have to wait until November 23rd, when tabulation of ranked-choice ballots are finalized. As of Friday morning, Peltola is at 47.3% (and Palin has dropped a little lower, to 26.6%.)

Steve Jennette teaches English Language Arts in Russian Mission, Alaska, a Native Yup’ik village of 323 souls on the banks of the Yukon River. “Bethel, Ms. Peltola’s hometown,” he tells me, “is our ‘urban hub,’ and some of my students have family there who know Mary.” Steve’s students organized their government class around the 2022 election and conducted a mock election in which students gave speeches supporting either Mary or her opponent. “Needless to say,” Steve says, “no one wanted to campaign for the opposition.”

In the days leading up to Election Day, various groups around Alaska ran ads online and on the radio encouraging Alaskans to vote. Without explicitly reminding them who to vote for, the NEA sent home mailers reminding citizens to vote for the candidate that will advocate for students. On the radio, a woman representing the Alaska Federation of Native Alaskans reminded listeners to vote for candidates that will defend Alaskan Native rights. Social media filled up with “I VOTED” stickers, many of which were created by artists commissioned by the Peltola campaign.

As I wrote earlier, Peltola branded herself as a true Alaskan undefined by a political party. And few people here were surprised that the first Alaskan Native in Congress out-ranked her opponents by a wide margin, placing even better in the preliminary round than her first round in the special election. Peltola ran a positive, pro-labor campaign, running on fish, family, freedom of choice, and Second Amendment rights. Even staff members of former Representative Don Young — a Republican and the longest-serving member of Congress — rallied behind the congresswoman and fundraised for her.

Peltola received endorsements from electrical workers with IBEW, postal workers with APWU National, laborers in AKAFLCIO, educators in AFT Union, service workers with SEIU, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, and Santa Claus, who originally ran against her for Don Young’s vacated seat. As of Wednesday, Peltola was ranking higher than Murkowski herself, a Republican Senator who has held the position since 2002. Meanwhile, Palin’s campaign seemed confused on its issues and settled on the oil-centric slogan “Drill, baby, drill!”

“Mary Peltola is the best-performing Alaska Democrat in a decade or more,” Robby Hockema of Anchorage tells me. “She did it by proving you can run for statewide office by uniting Alaskans by our values instead of our party affiliation. Filling the shoes of Don Young seemed nearly impossible just nine months ago. Now, Alaska will be better off if we have Mary for even half the time we had Don.”

Chelsea Foster, also in Anchorage, adds, “As Peltola continues to gain votes for our congressional seat, it appears that Alaskan voters chose nuance and action over political party and lip service. Mary Peltola is the beginning of much-needed healing in our great state of Alaska; she represents all of Alaska and does not make decisions based on a political party. She leads from the middle, and her actions in Congress thus far affirm that to be the case.”

Libby Bakalar, a Juneau resident, humor blogger, and city attorney of Bethel, an area that Peltola represented for ten years, agrees that Mary was always the standout candidate. “She represents the best of Alaska’s past, present, and future,” she says. “She was the only person in the race with any experience in elective legislative office, and it shows. Her kindness and warmth are contagious, but she’s also powerfully effective — much more than people realize just yet, I think.”

One Twitter user wrote: “We struck political gold with Peltola. She’s the Alaskan GOAT.” Another called her “THE QUEEN IN THE NORTH.”

On the conservative MustReadAlaska website, commenters mused that after this election, Alaska seems to lean more Democratic than Florida, and some predict that Alaska will vote to the left of Florida in 2024. One user wrote: “Alaska’s voting population is no longer blood-red. Hate to be a negative Nancy, but I really think Alaska is going the way of Washington and California. The conservative ship has sailed.” Others blamed the “selfishness” and “blind ambition” of Palin and Begich, and “the stupidness of the Republican party” in recent years for this phenomenon.

“Palin was the spoiler,” wrote another user in the MustReadAlaska comments. “She sucked away from Begich, handing the race to a leftist who will basically have no clout in the new Congress anyway. Silly Palin-bots! You [Palin voters] blew your chance to elect a true conservative representative who would have had clout, and gave your votes to a woman who has no loyalty to you.”

On Friday morning, the “Last Frontier” still did not have an official representative to the US House, but most agree that Mary Peltola is likely to win after ranked-choice votes are tabulated. Palin, realizing her defeat must be imminent, went nuclear on the Republican party itself and blamed “the dark, dysfunctional GOP machine” for her loss before telling supporters they should stop making donations to the party. “They opposed me every step of the way in my congressional bid, which is par for the course,” she said.

On Wednesday, Steve’s class of Yup’ik students went over the initial election results. “Then we had free time and cake,” he reports, “to celebrate the first Yup’ik Native to serve in the United States Congress!”

'A searing indictment of the Republican Party': Fox News host calls GOP midterm performance a disappointment

Tiffany Terrell
November 09, 2022

Donald Trump (Photo via AFP)

When Election Night arrived on Tuesday, November 8, Republican strategists were hoping for a massive red wave like the ones the GOP enjoyed under Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1994 and Democratic President Barack Obama in 2010. But on Wednesday morning, November 9, with votes still being counted, it was up in the air which party will control a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in 2023.

One conservative Republican who was willing to admit that the red tsunami didn’t materialize in the 2022 midterms was Marc Thiessen. Some pundits on Fox News have insisted that November 8 was a great night for Republicans, but Thiessen, on the right-wing cable news channel, candidly described the 2022 midterms as a disappointment for Republicans, watch below:

Some of Thiessen’s GOP talking points about Biden can easily be fact-checked and debunked. For example, calling Biden “the least popular president since Harry Truman” is hard to back up in light of what Pew Research’s Amina Dunn reported on October 20, 2022: “Biden’s job rating is fairly comparable to Ronald Reagan’s (42%) and Bill Clinton’s (41%) at this stage of their presidencies, but lower than Barack Obama’s (46%). Those three presidents lost ground over their first two years in office.”

President Joe Biden publicly savored the results of the midterm elections on Wednesday after Democrats defied expectations and held off a Republican “red wave” that pollsters and analysts had been forecasting for weeks.

With several races still too close to call, Biden said at a White House news conference that voters spoke clearly. They're still frustrated about the economy, but they like the progress Democrats have made. They voted "to preserve our democracy and protect the right to chose."

"It was a good day for America,” he said.

Regardless of which party ends up controlling Congress, Biden said, he’s “ready to compromise with Republicans where it makes sense." He said he will invite the leaders of both parties to the White House after he returns from a multi-nation foreign trip.

But Biden also made clear he's not looking for a course correction.

"I’m not going to change anything in any fundamental way," he said.

Even a small Republican majority in either chamber would prevent President Biden and Democrats from passing sweeping legislation along party lines. Bipartisan standoffs over government funding and the debt ceiling could be common, but major legislative breakthroughs will be rare.

A GOP takeover of the Senate would also force Biden to find Republican support for his next slate of administration nominees.

 

GOP on 'the cusp of an internal war' and Trump is 'willing to burn it all down': Maggie Haberman

Travis Gettys
November 11, 2022

Donald Trump (Photo of Trump via Agence France-Presse)

Former President Donald Trump is more vulnerable than he has been since shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection, but he survived that to remain the undisputed leader of the Republican Party, and he seems to think he can do it again.

The former president's hand-picked candidates fared poorly in Tuesday's midterm election, and the GOP stands poised to win narrow majorities, at best, in the House and Senate, and New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman examined Trump's position as party leader.

"The party," Haberman tweeted, "is in the cusp of a broader internal war and not clear how that plays out."

The Department of Justice continues to investigate Trumps role in the insurrection and his handling of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago, and the pause leading up to the election could be over.

READ MORE: 'Welcome to Republicans in disarray': GOP tearing itself apart after Trump tanks another election

"Trump has extremely few major donors who want to do anything for him right now and a number of them are having active conversations about the best way to stop him," Haberman said. "But. Again…sound familiar? Trump has made clear he’s willing to burn it all down if he doesn’t get what he wants, which is maintaining his grip on the product line he’s been developing for six years: The Republican Party."

GOP lawmakers and other elected officials will be forced to choose sides, she said, but some of Trump's strongest allies in Congress aren't particularly influential.

"Anyone not a [prosecutor] who claims to know definitively what DOJ is going to do on either J6 or documents case is pushing a line," Haberman wrote. "The special master was the only play Trump had, and it’s brought some short term embarrassment. But also bought him time."

Some Republicans love losing as much as they love Trump

by Zachary Faria, Commentary Writer |
November 11, 2022 

After the GOP’s underperformance in the midterm elections, the question remains whether Republicans will learn their lesson or be content as year-in, year-out losers.

Former President Donald Trump showed in 2020 and 2018 — and probably also in 2016 — that he is a drag on GOP candidates down the ballot. He oversaw a loss of 40 House seats in the 2018 midterm elections, and he went on to lose to bumbling old “Sleepy Joe” Biden in 2020 even as Republicans outperformed him. In both his 2020 loss and his 2016 win, Trump was a drag on GOP candidates in tight races, who consistently finished with higher vote totals. He probably only won the presidency because Hillary Clinton managed to be more unlikable and incompetent than he was.

REPUBLICAN WHO SCORED UPSET NY VICTORY PRODS PARTY TO MOVE ON FROM TRUMP

Trump showed that he was a loser once again on Tuesday, costing Republicans several races thanks to the terrible candidates he backed in party primaries or candidates who crafted their campaigns in his image. Trump’s terrible candidates in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire cost Republicans down-ballot House races as well as definitive control of the Senate. In fact, Republicans may lose the Senate outright thanks to Trump’s picks in Arizona and Georgia.

But some Republicans are content to just keep losing. Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, who wants to become the House GOP whip, declared he supported Trump. Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz unsurprisingly wants Trump to be the nominee in 2024.

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the Republican conference chairwoman who oversaw the disappointing midterm results, outright endorsed Trump for 2024 to the New York Times. “I am proud to endorse Donald Trump for president in 2024,” Stefanik said in a statement. “It is time for Republicans to unite around the most popular Republican in America who has a proven track record of conservative governance.”

Trump left office with an approval rating of 34%. He is nowhere near being “the most popular Republican in America.” He isn’t even the most popular Republican in the state of Florida.

It is an utterly embarrassing commentary on the Republican Party that Stefanik is “proud” to endorse this level of mediocrity. Republicans such as Stefanik seem content with losing the House, Senate, and White House in a span of three years while falling on their face time and time again trying to win them back. Trump gave away the Senate in 2021, gleefully, and was cheerleading the demise of some Republican candidates who were trying to win it back.

Trump enjoys losing. Stefanik, Banks, and Gaetz apparently do, too.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Republicans can learn the lesson from the midterm elections and move on to candidates who aren’t electorally toxic. They can run popular conservatives for president in 2024 who aren’t 76 years old and lost to Joe Biden. Or they can learn nothing and continue to be the party of losers, and continue to give Democrats everything they want in election after election.

A chilling view of Afghanistan War's end

Sophia A. McClennen, Salon
November 11, 2022

People are evacuated at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan

 on August 24, 2021(AFP)

On the first episode of "The Problem with Jon Stewart" on Apple TV+, he covered the horrifying realities of the U.S. military's use of burn pits. Burn pits are enormous craters that get filled with all kinds of garbage and debris, then set on fire, leaving a trail of toxic waste and often exposing military personnel to carcinogen-laden smoke. For Stewart, the problem with burn pits is that they show a deep disregard not only for the territory in which the U.S. military is operating but also for our troops.

Imagine, though, what happens when the burn pit isn't just filled with garbage; it is also filled with care packages, printers and maps as part of a military retrograde operation. Imagine what happens when the military is destroying valuable materials it doesn't want landing in the hands of its enemy because it doesn't trust its allies enough to protect them. Imagine burning all of those things, because you have been ordered to, even when you think it's a really bad idea.

This is the context of Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning Mathew Heineman's new film, "Retrograde," which captures the final nine months of the U.S. war in Afghanistan when President Biden announced that all U.S. troops would quickly retreat from Afghanistan. Covering the story from the perspective of a team of Green Berets supporting the Afghan National Army, a young Afghan general fighting desperately to defend his country, Afghan interpreters working with the U.S. military and civilians terrified of a return to Taliban rule, the film offers an intimate, chilling portrait of the colossal failures, human costs and destructive consequences of the abrupt end to America's longest war.

The film isn't questioning whether the war should have ended. Instead, it focuses on how it ended; it is the hasty retreat of the military, the retrograde operation, that offers the film's central tension. Heineman's original plan was to offer viewers a close-up view of the operation of a Green Beret unit after almost two decades of war. Arriving in Afghanistan in 2020 around the time Joe Biden was elected, he and his crew soon learned all U.S. troops were to leave Afghanistan. What had been planned as a film about an ongoing operation now had to pivot to a film about the end of the longest war for both the United States and Afghanistan.

The Army describes retrograde as "a defensive task that involves organized movement away from the enemy." The catch, though, in this film is that as the U.S. military is engaging in organized movement away from an enemy, they are also attempting to leave their allies in the Afghan National Army prepared to defend themselves against the Taliban — and that sort of bifurcated strategy is impossible to carry out. As one of the Green Berets in the film explains to a younger soldier as he looks at computer equipment about to go up in flames, conducting a retrograde operation like this is like "s**tting in a trench."

An entirely different approach to the story of Afghanistan

At the center of the film is General Sami Sadat, the unlikely hero of a documentary that was originally about the Green Berets. As the Green Berets were organizing their retreat, Heineman and his team decided to follow their storytelling instincts and stay behind to cover Sadat, who was responsible for an army of around 15,000 Afghan fighters, as he faces the increasing encroachment of the Taliban while the U.S. sets all its equipment on fire and leaves.

If you are looking for a film that explains the background of the war, a historical critique of U.S. imperialism, or a deep dive into the complex realities of Afghan culture, this isn't it.

Unlike most coverage of the war, the focus of the film is not on the larger geopolitical dynamics, but rather on the people affected by them.

Heineman shoots most of the film in Helmand province, for example. Helmand, a stronghold for the Taliban, has notoriously been one of the most complex and volatile regions in Afghanistan, a region that has repeatedly vexed U.S. efforts. Yet viewers only learn when Sadat moves his troops to defend the city of Lashkargah that the city is considered strategically essential to resisting a Taliban takeover of the nation as a whole.

Lashkargah fell to the Taliban on August 13, 2001. Two days later Kabul fell as well. The film covers these strategic losses, but backs away from placing them in a larger context.

But if viewers are looking for a unique, intimate portrait of Afghan resilience, tenacity, camaraderie and resolve, this film is it. Unlike most coverage of the war, the focus of the film is not on the larger geopolitical dynamics, but rather on the people affected by them.

Without question, "Retrograde" is the one film that will chip away at the myriad Afghan stereotypes that have flooded the U.S. imagination since the attacks of September 11, 2011. It refuses to portray Afghans as frightening terrorists, pathetic victims, corrupt leaders or hapless opioid addicts.

Documenting the tremendous losses of the war and the risk that any gains might soon be lost, one of the Green Berets bluntly states as he packs up, "This isn't a win." While the film doesn't offer a lot of finger-pointing, it does make clear that the war on Afghanistan was a colossal tragedy for the Afghan people. And even more important, the film exposes the hypocrisy and hubris of U.S. leadership. In a series of voiceovers opening the film, we hear George W. Bush deploy the name "Operation Enduring Freedom," Barack Obama speak about how Afghans will "see the light" and Joe Biden explain how doesn't want to "repeat mistakes."

This film also completely rewrites the traditional script about U.S. military support in Afghanistan. While some might rightly find fault with the fact that it sidesteps the realities of U.S. disdain for Afghans, both systemically and individually, the film offers a rare view of a collaboration between the U.S. military and the Afghans that is built on mutual respect.

The film documents, for example, the deep fondness between Sadat, his leadership team and the Green Berets. The bonds here are not those of master and apprentice or victim and savior, though it is clear that Sadat values their guidance and leadership. Instead, the film goes to great lengths to show there were real alliances built between the U.S forces and the Afghans. The depth of these ties is underscored as the film ends and we learn that current and retired Green Berets are working along with Sadat to get Afghans they once worked with safely out of the country since the U.S. government isn't adequately coming to the rescue.

Heineman redefines the power of the documentary close-up

He has an uncanny ability to capture his subjects at precisely the moment we think they will break.

Heineman has become famous for a cinéma vérité approach that avoids both interviews and voiceovers, but this film takes that signature style to an entirely new level of art. Framing shots with extreme close-ups of his subjects in profile, Heineman manages to let the characters simply speak for themselves: frustrated, exhausted, worried yet resolved. He has an uncanny ability to capture his subjects at precisely the moment we think they will break, at exactly their tipping point, and film their quiet decision to keep on.

The fact that we see these same moments among the Afghans fighting to defend their country from a Taliban takeover and the Green Berets, who knew that their abrupt leaving would end badly, shows the complex ways these communities became intertwined.

In the final scenes, Heineman captures the devastating images of Afghans at the Kabul airport desperately trying to flee a country that fell almost immediately to the Taliban. Heineman's interest, though, isn't to interrogate whether the failure was the fault of the Afghan army or the Ghani government or the U.S. military. One of the last scenes shows a meeting among the Taliban senior officials and signals there is far more to the story of what drives Afghan history and identity than this film intends to cover.

At its heart, the film asks whether the grand narratives of history really ever tell the story, since the moving story of General Sadat and the relationship he built with his Green Beret allies doesn't fit any predictable mold. Following a similar theme to many of Heineman's films, "Retrograde" shows that if you look really closely at the people embroiled in a conflict, they won't conform to stereotypes or stark notions of good or evil, winner or loser, hero or villain. If the traditional headlines, narratives, and sound bites that have been used to understand the conflict in Afghanistan miss the point, then the film suggests that maybe they are what is truly retrograde.

"Retrograde" opens in select theaters November 11, 2022, and will stream on National Geographic Channel Dec. 8, on Disney+ Dec. 9, and Hulu Dec. 11.