Chris Hedges's Blog, page 184

Neoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China

When the Federal Reserve cut interest rates last week, commentators were asking why. According to official data, the economy was rebounding, unemployment was below 4% and gross domestic product growth was above 3%. If anything, by the Fed’s own reasoning, it should have been raising rates.

Market pundits explained that we’re in a trade war and a currency war. Other central banks were cutting their rates, and the Fed had to follow suit in order to prevent the dollar from becoming overvalued relative to other currencies. The theory is that a cheaper dollar will make American products more attractive in foreign markets, helping our manufacturing and labor bases.

Over the weekend, President Trump followed the rate cuts by threatening to impose, on Sept. 1, a new 10% tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese products. China responded by suspending imports of U.S. agricultural products by state-owned companies and letting the value of the yuan drop. On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 770 points, its worst day in 2019. The war was on.

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Donald Trump Is Lying to You About China



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The problem with a currency war is that it is a war without winners. This was demonstrated in the beggar-thy-neighbor policies of the 1930s, which only deepened the Great Depression. As economist Michael Hudson observed in a June interview with journalist Bonnie Faulkner, making American products cheaper abroad will do little for the American economy, because we no longer have a competitive manufacturing base or products to sell. Today’s workers are largely in the service industries—cab drivers, hospital workers, insurance agents and the like. A cheaper dollar abroad just makes consumer goods at Walmart and imported raw materials for U.S. businesses more expensive.

What is mainly devalued when a currency is devalued, Hudson says, is the price of the country’s labor and the working conditions of its laborers. The reason American workers cannot compete with foreign workers is not that the dollar is overvalued. It is due to their higher costs of housing, education, medical services and transportation. In competitor countries, these costs are typically subsidized by the government.

America’s chief competitor in the trade war is obviously China, which subsidizes not just worker costs but the costs of its businesses. The government owns 80% of the banks, which make loans on favorable terms to domestic businesses, especially state-owned businesses. If the businesses cannot repay the loans, neither the banks nor the businesses are typically put into bankruptcy, since that would mean losing jobs and factories. The nonperforming loans are just carried on the books or written off. No private creditors are hurt, since the creditor is the government and the loans were created on the banks’ books in the first place (following standard banking practice globally). As observed by Jeff Spross in a May 2018 Reuters article titled “Chinese Banks Are Big. Too Big?”:

[B]ecause the Chinese government owns most of the banks, and it prints the currency, it can technically keep those banks alive and lending forever. …

It may sound weird to say that China’s banks will never collapse, no matter how absurd their lending positions get. But banking systems are just about the flow of money.

Spross quoted former bank CEO Richard Vague, chair of The Governor’s Woods Foundation, who explained, “China has committed itself to a high level of growth. And growth, very simply, is contingent on financing.” Beijing will “come in and fix the profitability, fix the capital, fix the bad debt, of the state-owned banks … by any number of means that you and I would not see happen in the United States.”

Political and labor unrest is a major problem in China. Spross wrote that the government keeps everyone happy by keeping economic growth high and spreading the proceeds to the citizenry. About two-thirds of Chinese debt is owed just by the corporations, which are also largely state-owned. Corporate lending is thus a roundabout form of government-financed industrial policy—a policy financed not through taxes but through the unique privilege of banks to create money on their books.

China thinks this is a better banking model than the private Western system focused on short-term profits for private shareholders. But U.S. policymakers consider China’s subsidies to its businesses and workers to be “unfair trade practices.” They want China to forgo state subsidization and its other protectionist policies in order to level the playing field. But Beijing contends that the demanded reforms amount to “economic regime change.” As Hudson puts it: “This is the fight that Trump has against China. He wants to tell it to let the banks run China and have a free market. He says that China has grown rich over the last fifty years by unfair means, with government help and public enterprise. In effect, he wants the Chinese to be as threatened and insecure as American workers. They should get rid of their public transportation. They should get rid of their subsidies. They should let a lot of their companies go bankrupt so that Americans can buy them. They should have the same kind of free market that has wrecked the US economy. [Emphasis added.]”

Kurt Campbell and Jake Sullivan, writing on Aug. 1 in Foreign Affairs (the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations), call it “an emerging contest of models.”

An Economic Cold War

To understand what is happening here, it is useful to review some history. The free market model hollowed out America’s manufacturing base beginning in the Thatcher/Reagan era of the 1970s and ’80s, when neoliberal economic policies took hold. Meanwhile, emerging Asian economies, led by Japan, were exploding on the scene with a new economic model called “state-guided market capitalism.” The state determined the priorities and commissioned the work, then hired private enterprise to carry it out. The model overcame the defects of the communist system, which put ownership and control in the hands of the state.

The Japanese state-guided market system was effective and efficient—so effective that it was regarded as an existential threat to the neoliberal model of debt-based money and “free markets” promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to author William Engdahl in “A Century of War,” by the end of the 1980s, Japan was considered the leading economic and banking power in the world. Its state-guided model was also proving to be highly successful in South Korea and the other “Asian Tiger” economies. When the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of the Cold War, Japan proposed its model to the former communist countries, and many began looking to it and to South Korea’s example as viable alternatives to the U.S. free-market system. State-guided capitalism provided for the general welfare without destroying capitalist incentive. Engdahl wrote:

The Tiger economies were a major embarrassment to the IMF free-market model. Their very success in blending private enterprise with a strong state economic role was a threat to the IMF free-market agenda. So long as the Tigers appeared to succeed with a model based on a strong state role, the former communist states and others could argue against taking the extreme IMF course. In east Asia during the 1980s, economic growth rates of 7-8 per cent per year, rising social security, universal education and a high worker productivity were all backed by state guidance and planning, albeit in a market economy — an Asian form of benevolent paternalism.

Just as the U.S. had engaged in a Cold War to destroy the Soviet communist model, so Western financial interests set out to destroy this emerging Asian threat. It was defused when Western neoliberal economists persuaded Japan and the Asian Tigers to adopt a free-market system and open their economies and companies to foreign investors. Western speculators then took down the vulnerable countries one by one in the “Asian crisis” of 1997-8. China alone was left as an economic threat to the Western neoliberal model, and it is this existential threat that is the target of the trade and currency wars today.

If You Can’t Beat Them …

In their Aug. 1 Foreign Affairs article titled “Competition without Catastrophe,” Campbell and Sullivan write that the temptation is to compare these economic trade wars with the Cold War with Russia; but the analogy is inapt:

China today is a peer competitor that is more formidable economically, more sophisticated diplomatically, and more flexible ideologically than the Soviet Union ever was. And unlike the Soviet Union, China is deeply integrated into the world and intertwined with the U.S. economy.

Unlike the Soviet communist system, the Chinese system cannot be expected to “crumble under its own weight.” The U.S. cannot expect, and should not even want, to destroy China, Campbell and Sullivan say. Rather, we should aim for a state of “coexistence on terms favorable to U.S. interests and values.”

The implication is that China, being too strong to be knocked out of the game as the Soviet Union was, needs to be coerced or cajoled into adopting the neoliberal model and abandoning state support of its industries and ownership of its banks. But the Chinese system, while obviously not perfect, has an impressive track record for sustaining long-term growth and development. While the U.S. manufacturing base was being hollowed out under the free-market model, China was systematically building up its own manufacturing base and investing heavily in infrastructure and emerging technologies, and it was doing this with credit generated by its state-owned banks. Rather than trying to destroy China’s economic system, it might be more “favorable to U.S. interests and values” for us to adopt its more effective industrial and banking practices.

We cannot win a currency war through the use of competitive currency devaluations that trigger a “race to the bottom,” and we cannot win a trade war by installing competitive trade barriers that simply cut us off from the benefits of cooperative trade. More favorable to our interests and values than warring with our trading partners would be to cooperate in sharing solutions, including banking and credit solutions. The Chinese have proven the effectiveness of their public banking system in supporting their industries and their workers. Rather than seeing it as an existential threat, we could thank them for test-driving the model and take a spin in it ourselves.

680 Arrested in Largest Immigration Raid in a Decade

MORTON, Miss.—U.S. immigration officials raided seven Mississippi chicken processing plants Wednesday, arresting 680 mostly Latino workers in the largest workplace sting in at least a decade.

The raids, planned months ago, happened just hours before President Donald Trump was scheduled to visit El Paso, Texas, the majority-Latino border city where a man linked to an online screed about a “Hispanic invasion” was charged in a shooting that left 22 people dead.

About 600 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents fanned out across the plants operated by five companies, surrounding the perimeters to prevent workers from fleeing.

In Morton, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of the capital of Jackson, workers filled three buses — two for men and one for women — at a Koch Foods Inc. plant.

Those arrested were taken to a military hangar to be processed for immigration violations. About 70 family, friends and residents waved goodbye and shouted, “Let them go! Let them go!” Later, two more buses arrived.

A tearful 13-year-old boy whose parents are from Guatemala waved goodbye to his mother, a Koch worker, as he stood beside his father. Some employees tried to flee on foot but were captured in the parking lot.

Workers, including Domingo Candelaria, who could show they were in the country legally were allowed to leave the plant after agents searched the trunks of their vehicles.

“It was a sad situation inside,” Candelaria said.

Mississippi is the nation’s fifth-largest chicken producing state and the plants’ tough processing jobs have mainly been filled by Latino immigrants eager to take whatever work they can get. Chicken plants dominate the economies of Morton and other small towns east of Jackson.

Based in Park Ridge, Illinois, Koch is one of the largest poultry producers in the U.S, with operations in Mississippi and five other states. The company didn’t respond to telephone calls and emails seeking comment.

Matthew Albence, ICE’s acting director, told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday in Pearl, just down the road from the Koch plant, that the raids could be the largest-ever workplace operation in any single state. Asked about their coinciding with Trump’s visit to El Paso, Albence responded, “This is a long-term operation that’s been going on.” He said raids are “racially neutral” and based on evidence of illegal residency.

The companies involved could be charged with knowingly hiring workers who are in the county illegally and will be scrutinized for tax, document and wage fraud, Albence said.

Bill Chandler, executive director of the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, called the “terrible” raids “another effort to drive Latinos out of Mississippi,” and he blamed Trump for fanning racism with his past incendiary comments about immigrants.

“This is the same thing that Trump is doing at the border with the Border Patrol,” he said, referring to the increased crackdown on migrants coming into the U.S.

Major immigration raids were common under President George W. Bush, including one at a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, in 2008 that resulted in about 400 arrests. President Barack Obama avoided them, limiting workplace immigration efforts to low-profile audits.

Trump resumed workplace raids, but the months of preparation and hefty resources they require make them rare. Last year, the administration targeted a landscaping company near Toledo, Ohio, and a meatpacking plant in eastern Tennessee. The former owner of the Tennessee plant was sentenced to 18 months in prison last month.

On Wednesday, a hangar at a Mississippi Air National Guard base in Flowood, adjoining the Jackson airport, was set up to process those who were detained. Employees formed seven lines, one for each workplace raided, with fingerprint scanners and document printers at each interview station.

Cooling misters blew in front of fans, and 2,000 catered meals were ordered.

Agents who arrived at the Morton plant passed a chain-link fence with a sign that said the company was hiring. Workers’ wrists were tied with plastic bands and they deposited personal belongings in clear plastic bags.

“This will affect the economy,” Maria Isabel Ayala, a child care worker for plant employees, said as the buses left. “Without them here, how will you get your chicken?”

Other companies targeted in the raids included Peco Foods Inc., which has plants in Bay Springs, Canton and Sebastopol; PH Food Inc. in Morton; MP Food Inc. in Pelahatchie and Pearl River Foods Inc. in Carthage.

“We are fully cooperating with the authorities in their investigation and are navigating a potential disruption of operations,” Peco, based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, said in a statement. The company added that it participates in E-Verify, a government program to screen new hires for immigration status.

No one answered the phone at Pearl River Foods. A woman who answered the phone at PH Food declined to comment or identify herself. A telephone listing could not be found for MP Food.

___

Amy reported from Pearl, Mississippi. Associated Press reporter Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

House Committee Sues to Force Don McGahn to Testify

WASHINGTON—The House Judiciary Committee took another step toward possible impeachment proceedings, filing a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday aimed at forcing former White House counsel Donald McGahn to testify about his interactions with President Donald Trump.

McGahn was a star witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation who — under Trump’s orders — has refused to testify before the panel. The Democratic lawsuit challenges the White House rationale that McGahn and other witnesses have “absolute immunity” from appearing and can defy subpoenas.

The legal action comes at a time when more than half of House Democrats have said they support beginning an impeachment inquiry.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has so far resisted that step, saying she wants to wait to see what happens in court. The McGahn lawsuit is a central part of Pelosi’s strategy of “legislate, investigate, litigate,” but could delay any final decisions on impeachment for several months.

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The lawsuit says the committee has reached a deal with the White House to review documents from McGahn, but it is still seeking his testimony in person. It says the Judiciary panel is “now determining whether to recommend articles of impeachment” based on Mueller’s report, and McGahn is “the most important witness, other than the president, to the key events that are the focus of the Judiciary committee’s investigation.”

The complaint adds: “Every day that the Judiciary committee is without McGahn’s testimony further delays its ability to pursue its inquiries on issues of national importance before the current Congress ends.”

McGahn’s lawyer, William A. Burck, in a statement said “McGahn is a lawyer and has an ethical obligation to protect client confidences” and does not believe he witnessed any violation of law.

“When faced with competing demands from co-equal branches of government, Don will follow his former client’s instruction, absent a contrary decision from the federal judiciary,” Burck said.

McGahn was a vital witness for Mueller, who detailed the president’s outrage over the investigation and his efforts to curtail it in his April report.

In interviews with Mueller’s team, McGahn described being called at home by the president on the night of June 17, 2017, and being directed to call the Justice Department and say that Mueller had conflicts of interest and should be removed. McGahn declined the command, deciding that he would resign rather than carry it out, the report said.

Once that episode became public in the news media, the report said the president demanded that McGahn dispute the reports and asked him why he had told Mueller about it and why he had taken notes of their conversations. McGahn refused to back down.

It’s unclear if McGahn’s testimony, should Democrats succeed in court, would include any new revelations beyond what Mueller has already released. Mueller concluded that he could not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice, but also that there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

An aide for the Judiciary panel said the committee believes there is more to McGahn’s story. The aide, who discussed the thinking of committee officials on condition of anonymity, did not elaborate.

The committee has struggled in its efforts to highlight Mueller’s report, as McGahn and other officials have defied subpoenas and as a highly anticipated hearing with Mueller himself failed to produce new revelations. Some Democrats — almost 120 so far — hope to speed up the pace of investigations by starting an impeachment inquiry.

In a contrast to Pelosi, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler insists that the committee is essentially already doing the work of impeachment, with or without a formal House vote to begin an inquiry. Nadler has also made it clear that he’d favor beginning official proceedings, saying last month that Trump “richly deserves” impeachment.

Nadler laid out an aggressive timeline this week, saying he hopes to be able to have resolution in court by the end of October.

“If we decide to report articles of impeachment we could get to that in the late fall, perhaps in the latter part of the year,” Nadler said Monday on MSNBC.

The Judiciary panel has also filed a petition in federal court to obtain secret grand jury material underlying Mueller’s report. The request, filed on July 26, argues the panel needs the information as it weighs whether to pursue impeachment. The committee and the Justice Department agreed to file arguments by the end of September, pushing any resolution until October.

The lawsuits come after Mueller’s testimony in July, when he told the panel he had not “exculpated” Trump. Nadler said the grand jury information “is critically important for our ability to examine witnesses” like McGahn and investigate the president. He said the Mueller report is not all of the evidence, but “a summary of the evidence.”

The top Republican on the panel, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, said Democrats are “only interested in the fight and public spectacle of an investigation, but not actually in obtaining any real information.”

Democrats are fighting the Trump administration in court on several other fronts. The House Ways and Means Committee sued the Treasury Department and IRS officials this summer in an attempt to obtain the president’s tax returns. And in two other cases, the administration has tried to stop financial institutions from turning over Trump’s personal records to Congress.

Trump is trying to block most every request from Congress, saying he will fight “all of the subpoenas.” But Democrats think they have firm legal standing to win against him in court, and Nadler said he believes the McGahn case could break the logjam.

“Once we win that we’ll win all the other subpoenas because they are basically the same legal questions,” Nadler said Monday.

White Nationalist Shootings Should Make Us Rethink ‘National Security’

After the El Paso massacre, the idea that white nationalist terrorism is a threat to U.S. national security is the new normal. Even President Trump felt obliged to mouth a bromide about white supremacy.

Outside of Trumpland, a new sort of consensus is taking hold. Bernie Sanders calls for “redirecting federal resources to address this threat to our national security.” So do six former directors of counterterrorism at the National Security Council who served under Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump.

“[We] need to enhance efforts to address what is often called ‘domestic terrorism,’ meaning terrorism on U.S. soil not linked to international groups such as ISIS or al-Qaeda,” said the statement of NSC veterans. “[I]t has become abundantly clear over many months now that more must be done to address acts of violence driven by extremist views of all types, including acts of domestic terrorism. We call on our government to make addressing this form of terrorism as high a priority as countering international terrorism has become since 9/11.”

When the national security establishment speaks the same language as the Vermont socialist, things are changing. But no small part of the reason that resources have not been redirected and more has not been done is because of blinders imposed by the very idea of “national security” and its post-9/11 cousin “homeland security.” These terms—and the nationalistic and racial concepts baked into them—have served to define the problem of white terrorism out of existence. With the FBI now saying that “a majority of domestic terrorism cases” under investigation “are motivated by white supremacy,” the problem is too bloody to ignore.

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“America is under attack,” said South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. “I’m not sure if this is fully understood. America is under attack by lethal, violent, white nationalist terrorism. And if we’re serious about confronting it, that means we have to have a different conversation… This is a national security emergency.”

That “different conversation” begins with unpacking the concept of “national security.” The term entered the American vocabulary in July 1947 with the passage of the National Security Act. The law created the Defense Department, the National Security Council, and the CIA, as well as the secrecy system that still insulates the secret agencies from the voters and Congress. “National security” justified the creation of a fourth branch of government endowed with the mission of protecting America from the alien ideology of a nuclear-armed foe.

This ideology animated American power until the dissolution of the Soviet Union 44 years later. Any communist party anywhere—and any political force with communist allies—was defined as a danger to Americans. So “national security” justified expeditionary wars (from Korea to Vietnam), interference in democratic elections (from Italy in 1948 to Honduras in 2009) and the massacre of democratic movements that included communist partners (from Indonesia in 1965 to El Salvador in the 1980s).

The violence of white supremacists directed against Americans was a different—and lesser—danger. As America fought the Cold War, violence against the civil rights movement was not considered a national security threat because it was an indigenous American phenomenon, widely supported by white people, at least in the South.

When Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people in 1995, Newt Gingrich had just been elected Speaker of the House on the strength of his boast to Republican colleagues that he was “a bomb-thrower” who could thwart the menace of Washington embodied by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Because McVeigh’s nationalist ideology was homegrown, the bomb he detonated was not felt as an existential threat. Under the reign of “national security,” white terrorism did not belong in the same threat category as communism.

The notion persisted long after Jim Crow and communism were gone. After 9/11, the USA Patriot Act updated and expanded the doctrine of national security with the notion of “homeland security.” America mobilized to protect its territory from another alien ideology—radical Islam. The imperative of repelling the jihadist threat was used to justify expeditionary wars (and massacres) in Afghanistan and Iraq and drone wars in Pakistan and Somalia, as well as torture and mass surveillance regimes. The notion that a white American might pose a comparable threat was dismissed as inconceivable.

Now the data don’t lie. You’re much more likely to be killed by a white nationalist terrorist than by a jihadist (much less an Iranian). The post-El Paso conversation about how to make America safe begins with identifying the racialized thinking built into national security policy.

“Dear white national security practitioners and colleagues,” tweeted Naveed Jamali, a former naval intelligence officer, “Many of you have spent the last decade looking for terrorists in MY community. Will you do the same for yours?” National security professionals are falling over themselves to say yes. Former NSC staffer Sam Vinograd says, “Fighting white nationalist terrorism will require sustained strategy, resources, and leadership.”

It will also require realism about the malign influence of endless wars on American democracy. To four generations of white Americans imbued with the norms of “national security” and “homeland security,” a foreign threat is inherently more dangerous and illegitimate than a domestic threat. The suddenly fashionable notion that white nationalist terrorism is a threat on par with communism or jihadism is sure to strike some white Americans as an alien ideology. It certainly diverges from the concepts that have guided American thinking about national and security for the past 72 years.

Trump’s lip service notwithstanding, there is no reason to think Washington rhetoric about white supremacy reflects anything like a national consensus. Indeed, by explicitly targeting (some) white people and their “patriotic” feelings, any government campaign against armed white nationalism is sure to be depicted as an un-American cause that must be resisted, like communism and jihadism, with armed action. Only a new vision of American security can protect us.

This article was produced by the Deep State, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Jefferson Morley is a writing fellow and the editor and chief correspondent of the Deep State, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He has been a reporter and editor in Washington, D.C., since 1980. He spent 15 years as an editor and reporter at the Washington Post. He was a staff writer at Arms Control Today and Washington editor of Salon. He is the editor and co-founder of JFK Facts, a blog about the assassination of JFK. His latest book is The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster, James Jesus Angleton.

McConnell Resists Pressure to Address Gun Violence

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is resisting pressure to bring senators back from recess to address gun violence, taking a more measured approach that could very likely result in no legislation, despite wrenching calls to “do something” in the aftermath of back-to-back mass shootings.

President Donald Trump is privately calling up senators — and publicly pushing for an expansion of background checks for firearms purchases — but McConnell knows those ideas have little Republican support. In fact, the White House threatened to veto a House-passed background checks bill earlier this year. As the nation reels from the frequency of shootings and their grave toll, McConnell’s slow-walk is coming under criticism from those who want Congress to act.

On Wednesday, Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown made a plea to Trump during the president’s visit to Dayton, where one of the mass shooting occurred, to “call on Sen. McConnell to bring the Senate back in session this week, to tell the Senate he wants the background checks bill that has already passed the House.”

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Trump Vows Action After Shootings but Gives Few Details



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A group of House Democrats urged McConnell to immediately call the Senate back into session to consider the House-passed legislation. In Kentucky, where McConnell is recuperating from a weekend fall that left his shoulder fractured, activists have been demonstrating at his home and protesting at his downtown Louisville office.

“We are aggressively moving forward in pressing Leader Mitch McConnell to call the Senate back into session,” wrote Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a letter this week to Democratic colleagues.

But none of it has moved the Republican Senate to act more swiftly after the shootings in Ohio and Texas over the weekend, which left 31 people dead and scores injured.

McConnell’s office is declining comment, referring back to a short statement he issued late Monday saying he was tasking three GOP committee chairmen “to engage in bipartisan discussions of potential solutions.”

In the meantime, Trump has been dialing up Senate Republicans about what is possible. He spoke at least three times with Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., about his bipartisan background check bill with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., the GOP senator said.

Republican senators have been engaging in almost daily conference calls, and talking among themselves and the White House, as they try to figure out next steps, according to a Republican aide familiar with calls who discussed the private talks on condition of anonymity.

Trump continues to say there’s “great appetite” for a background checks bill. “I think we can bring up background checks like we’ve never had before,” he said before departing Washington.

But that is not the case, for now.

Even though one background checks bill was passed overwhelmingly by the Democratic-held House in February, it has scant support in the Senate.

The Toomey-Manchin bill had its greatest backing during a 2013 Senate vote, in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting, but it failed to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to advance.

Since then, Toomey and Maine Sen. Susan Collins are the only two Republicans who voted for the background checks bill in 2015 — the last time it was brought to the floor in the Senate.

But Toomey said he thinks sentiment in the Senate has moved toward the bill in recent years and he was heartened by Trump’s “encouraging remarks,” he tweeted Wednesday.

Instead, Republicans are trying to build support for more modest measures, including so-called red-flag bills from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., that would allow friends and family to petition authorities to keep guns away from some people, as well as adjustments to the existing background checks system. But those efforts are also running into trouble from conservatives, who worry about due process and infringing on gun owners’ rights.

They’re also considering changes to the existing federal background checks system, modeled off the so-called fix-NICS bill that made improvements in the last session of Congress, as well as strengthening penalties for hate crimes, Republicans said.

While those efforts have bipartisan support, Democrats are unlikely to agree to them without consideration of the background checks bill.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday, “We Democrats are not going to settle for half-measures so Republicans can feel better and try to push the issue of gun violence off to the side.”

___

Associated Press writer Bruce Schreiner reported from Louisville.

Texas Police Captured Leading Black Man Through Streets on Rope

A photo of two mounted Texas police leading a handcuffed black man by a rope through the streets of Galveston, Texas went viral this week, provoking anger and accusations of racism.

“It is hard to understand why these officers felt this young man required a leash, as he was handcuffed and walking between two mounted officers,” said Adrienne Bell, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Texas’ 14th district.

We have verified with law enforcement officials in Galveston, that the photograph taken in Galveston is real. It is hard to understand why these officers felt this young man required a leash, as he was handcuffed and walking between two mounted officers. pic.twitter.com/bEFZnn4qmH

— Adrienne Bell (@AdrBell) August 5, 2019

The victim of the racist display, Donald Neely, 48, has mental illness, his sister Christin Neely said in a Facebook post.

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“Imagine scrolling [Facebook] and seeing said loved one being escorted to jail on foot by 2 officers on horses, hands cuffed behind his back with a rope attached,” she said. “In 2019???? He was treated like an animal paraded through the streets by two incompetent assholes!”

Neely received an apology for the officers’ behavior from Galveston Police Chief Vernon L. Hale III.

“First and foremost, I must apologize to Mr. Neely for this unnecessary embarrassment,” Hale said in a statement posted to Facebook. “Although this is a trained technique and best practice in some scenarios, I believe our officers showed poor judgment in this instance and could have waited for a transport unit at the location of arrest.”

But that apology wasn’t enough for many Texas-based advocates for racial justice.

Houston NAACP chapter president James Douglas said in an email to the Chronicle that the officers acted as if they believed it were still the early days of the American republic.

“This is 2019 and not 1819,” sad Douglas. “I am happy to know that Chief Vernon [Hale] issued an apology and indicated that the act showed poor judgement, but it also shows poor training. Even though the chief indicated that the technique would be discontinued he failed to address the lack of respect demonstrated by the officers in the episode.”

Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, a Texas Democrat, said in a tweet that Neely’s treatment was indicative of a broader problem in American society that needed to be faced head on.

“This moment demands accountability, justice, and [honesty],” said O’Rourke, “because we need to call this out for what it is: racism at work.”

Leon Phillips, the president of the Galveston Coalition for Justice, told The New York Times that Neely’s treatment was a reminder of the oppression still faced by African Americans in the U.S.

“If it was a white man, he wouldn’t have been treated that way,” said Phillips. “I guarantee there’s nothing in their rules that you can put a leash on a guy while you ride down the street on a horse.”

Has Trump’s Trade War Put Us on a Crash Course With Recession?

What follows is a conversation between economist Bill Black and Sharmini Peries of The Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.

GREG WILPERT: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert in Baltimore.

The trade war between the United States and China continues to heat up. On Monday, stocks dropped globally with the S&P 500 Index dropping by nearly 3%. Also on Monday, China allowed its currency, the yuan, to drop to an 11-year low of less than seven yuan to the dollar. Trump reacted by calling China a currency manipulator and saying that the US will ask the International Monetary Fund to take unspecified corrective measures. President Trump tweeted the following on Monday morning, “China dropped the price of their currency to an almost historic low. It’s called ‘currency manipulation.’ Are you listening Federal Reserve? This is a major violation which will greatly weaken China over time!” A few hours later, Trump treated the following, “China is intent on continuing to receive the hundreds of Billions of Dollars they have been taking from the US with unfair trade practices and currency manipulation. So one-sided, it should have been stopped many years ago!”

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U.S.-China Talks Are About Much More Than Trade



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China’s reaction to the accusations was swift too, saying that it will stop purchasing US agricultural goods. China is the fourth largest purchaser of US agricultural products after Mexico, Canada, and Japan. All of this is happening in the wake of a 10% tariff that the Trump administration slapped on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports last week because no agreement could be reached with China on how to reduce the trade deficit that the US has with China. Also, China did not want to comply with US demands for changing its intellectual property policies. The new tariff is in addition to a 25% tariff that Trump already had in place since April on $250 billion worth of goods.

Joining me now to discuss the implications of these latest developments in the US-China trade war is Bill Black. Bill is a white-collar criminologist, former financial regulator and Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He’s also the author of the book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Thanks for joining us again, Bill. So let’s start with the accusation that China is manipulating its currency. Would you agree with that assessment? It seems that for most reports, China actually temporarily stopped propping up the value of its currency and let it drop to more or less market value. What do you think about all of this?

BILL BLACK: Yeah, so when Trump says someone should have done something about currency manipulation years ago, guess what? They did. And the US actually brought this as a designation as a currency manipulator. And that was when China was actually probably manipulating its currency and it largely ceased to do so. To the extent it was involved at all in doing things, it wasn’t reducing the value of the currency. It was keeping it, as you say, slightly artificially high. They removed that support and it sank closer to what people think is probably a market rate. Indeed China promptly indicated that it would prevent further significant fall. So as Krugman says, Trump has managed to find the one area of trade abuse that China is not doing and claiming that that’s what their abuse is.

GREG WILPERT: So how would the value—How would lowering the value of the Chinese yuan help China? And why is Trump actually even upset about it?

BILL BLACK: Okay, so of course Trump says it will hurt China to devalue its currency. You should keep that in mind because in another tweet the same day he said that Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, had failed us again by failing to— wait for it— manipulate the US dollar by lowering interest rates so that we would lower the value of the dollar. And this is the competitive race of devaluation to see who can export more, which Trump says will hurt you. So why we would want to engage in a long-term race to hurt ourselves is beyond me. Why China would want to do it, if it really was going to hurt it, is beyond me.

And to cut through all of this, this is all the general Trump insanity. You recall his quotation, “Trump trade wars are easy to win.” Well, no, particularly if you take on somebody kind of like your own size, like China, which has a very proud, very nationalistic record as you would expect. And they say, “You know, f-you” to all of this. And say, you want to hit us, we’ll hit you back. And we’ll get you back harder and we’ll hit you back in ways that hurt you politically. And so Trump is in the middle of this infinite loop that periodically screws up the markets.

GREG WILPERT: I guess that the key is though that lowering the value of the yuan makes it easier for China to continue exporting to the United States because then the tariffs don’t hurt as much. Is that correct?

BILL BLACK: The tariffs hurt us, right? So when we put a tariff on, again, Trump can’t get the most basic things right. That’s a tax. When we put a tax on ourselves, that hurts our consumers. That’s A. But B, simultaneously what’s happening in the markets, the reason they’re so upset is not just the trade war, but because the yield curve is inverted. There’s a past show where I explained what all of that meant. But for now what’s important is that’s the not certain, but best indicator that a recession might be coming. And so, one of the things that increases the risk of a recession is a tax increase, which is precisely what Trump is doing.

GREG WILPERT: And according to this analysis that you’re presenting, how far off would a possible recession be? I mean, how long does it take to take effect, especially in light of the consideration that we’re facing a presidential election in 2020? And of course, Trump’s possible reelection will, to a large extent, depend on how the well the economy is doing.

BILL BLACK: Right. And the answer is, we don’t know. How soon an inverted yield curve produces a recession can vary. We can tell you this: the yield curve is now the widest it’s been since spring 2007. Anybody remember when that recession started? Officially it started in 2007. So that’s Trump’s concern because there’s inverted yield curves not just in the United States, but in Japan and through most of Europe. And a number of European economies have slowed greatly. The US has slowed. Japan has slowed. These are many of the world’s largest economies slowing. Who’s left? China, the one he’s getting into a fight with and raising taxes. So that actually increases the risk of recession instead of the other way around. He is—This is literally a case where there is one economist in the world that agrees with Trump and, of course, Trump hired him. He’s Peter Navarro and everybody else thinks he’s an absolute kook.

GREG WILPERT: Explain though for our viewers very briefly if you can, what an inverted yield curve is exactly.

BILL BLACK: Okay. So an inverted yield curve is when you have longer term government securities, like 10 years in this example. Normally the government has to pay us a higher interest rate to induce us to buy those 10-year bonds than say 90-day treasuries. And the reason is there’s increased risk over the 10-year period of inflation. And bonds fall in market value when inflation goes up. So that’s normally why a yield curve is positively sloped. The longer the maturity, 10 years versus 90 days, the higher the interest rates. When a yield curve inverts, the opposite occurs. Short-term interest rates are actually higher. Long-term interest rates are lower. Why would that be? The rational reason that would be is because people are anticipating a recession and recessions lead to sharp falls in interest rates in those circumstances. So in the long run, they’re anticipating not inflation because we’ll have a long, strong, greatest economy ever, but because we’re near the precipice and more likely to go into recession.

GREG WILPERT: Now, returning to the US-China trade conflict, China announced also, as I mentioned in the introduction, that it will no longer purchase US agricultural goods. Now, the federal government is already providing billions of dollars to US farmers to make up for the lost markets in China. Now, if this complete stop of US agricultural exports to China happens now, does that mean that these expenditures would have to increase and what does it mean long-term? I mean, could the US be losing Chinese agricultural market forever if China ends up finding providers elsewhere?

BILL BLACK: Forever is a long time, of course. So, but in the intermediate-term? Absolutely. If you start trade relationships with—Hey, guess who else produces soybeans Canada, right? Then it can be very hard to get those back for the US producers. On top of that, this is connecting with global climate change. So I’m in Minnesota and I teach in the fall in Kansas City and my wife works here. So I do a lot of driving on I-30 between Kansas City and Minneapolis, which is to say the grain belt of Iowa, Missouri and Minnesota. And the catastrophic flooding combined with China banning US imports – you have massive amounts of grain, soybeans in particular, that is rotting in the fields. And so it’s a huge loss.

And the Trump’s strategy is first we stab the farmers in the back, and then we say, “But not to worry, we’ll give you transfusions. But of course we won’t restore anywhere near as much as we’re taking away from you.” So farmers are going to be weakened. Some of them obviously will blame it on whatever Trump claims is the problem. But farmers are, actually in the modern era, quite good business people and a number of them understand that they’re the ones absolutely getting screwed in the United States by the Trump tariffs.

GREG WILPERT: Okay. Well, we’re going to leave it there for now. I’m speaking to Bill Black, Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Thanks again, Bill, for having joined us today.

BILL BLACK: Thank you.

GREG WILPERT: And thank you for joining The Real News Network.

Where Would We Be Without the Green New Deal?

When it comes to heat, extreme weather, wildfires, and melting glaciers, the planet is now in what the media increasingly refers to as “record” territory, as climate change’s momentum outpaces predictions. In such a situation, in a country whose president and administration seem hell-bent on doing everything they conceivably can to make matters worse, the Green New Deal (GND) seems to offer at least a modest opening to a path forward.

You know, the resolution introduced this February in the House of Representatives by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Edward Markey (D-MA). Unsurprisingly, the proposal has been roundly attacked by the right. But it’s stirred up some controversy on the left as well. You might imagine that labor unions and environmental organizations would be wholeheartedly for a massive federal investment in good jobs and a just transition away from fossil fuels. But does organized labor actually support or oppose the Green New Deal? What about environmental organizations? If you’re not even sure how to answer such questions, you’re not alone.

That 14-page resolution calls for “a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era.” Its purpose: to reduce U.S. carbon emissions to net zero within a decade, while guaranteeing significant numbers of new jobs and social welfare to American workers. Read it and you’ll find that it actually attempts to overcome historical divisions between the American labor and environmental movements by linking a call for good jobs and worker protection to obvious and much-needed environmental goals.

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In the process, the GND proposal goes impressively far beyond the modest goals of the Paris Climate Accords and other international agreements. It supports specific, enforceable targets for bringing climate change under control, while drawing clear connections between social, labor, and environmental rights. Acknowledging in blunt terms the urgency of making systemic change on a rapidly warming planet, it calls for the kind of national mobilization Americans haven’t experienced since the end of the Second World War. Described that way, it sounds like something both the labor and environmental movements would naturally support without a second thought. There is, however, both a history of mistrust and real disagreement over issues, which both movements are now grappling with. And the media is doing its part by exaggerating labor’s opposition to the proposal, while ignoring what environmental organizations have to say.

One Green New Deal controversy focuses on the future role of fossil fuels in that plan. A number of environmental organizations believe that such energy sources have no place in our future, that they need to stay in the ground, period. They cite climate science and the urgent need to move rapidly and drastically to eliminate carbon emissions as the basis for such a conclusion. As it happens, the Green New Deal avoids directly challenging the fossil-fuel industry. In fact, it doesn’t even use the term “fossil fuels.”

From another perspective, some unions hope that new technologies like carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) will make those fuels more efficient and far cleaner. If the addition of carbon to the atmosphere could be reduced significantly or offset in some fashion, while humanity still burned natural gas, oil, or even coal, they say, jobs in those sectors could be preserved. And the unions have other concerns as well. They tend, for instance, to look skeptically on the GND’s promises of a “just transition” for displaced fossil-fuel workers like coal miners, given the devastation that has fallen on workers and their communities when industries have shut down in the past. They also fear that, without accompanying trade protections, polluting industries will simply export their emissions rather than reduce them.

Being more of a statement of purpose than an elaborated plan, the Green New Deal is short on both detail and answers when it comes to such issues. The actual roadmap to achieving its goals, the proposal states, “must be developed through transparent and inclusive consultation, collaboration, and partnership with frontline and vulnerable communities, labor unions, worker cooperatives, civil society groups, academia, and businesses.” Both unions and environmental organizations are already mobilizing to make sure their voices are part of the process.

The right wing was quick to mockingly publicize the Green New Deal not just as thoroughly unrealistic but as utterly un-American. Under the circumstances, perhaps it’s not surprising that a recent poll found 69% of Republicans but only 36% of Democrats had heard “a lot” about it. Similarly, 80% of Republicans already “strongly opposed” it, while only 46% of Democrats strongly supported it. And 40% of those polled said that they had heard “mostly negative” things about it, while only 14% had heard “mostly positive” things. One reason for this disparity: Fox News has devoted more time to the topic than any other television news outlet. And President Trump naturally pitched in, tweeting that the GND would eliminate “Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military.” Such claims, however fantastical, have already spread widely. But even the mainstream media has tended to play up the negative.

Both right-wing and mainstream media outlets have promoted the idea that unions are in firm opposition to the Green New Deal, frequently exaggerating and distorting the nature of what opposition there is. As for the concerns of environmentalists, readers would largely have to follow radical online publications or search out the websites of green organizations.

The Media, the Labor Movement, and the Green New Deal

The Washington Examiner, Fox News, and other right-wing outlets have waxed gleeful every time representatives of organized labor, including Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, have critiqued or expressed reservations about the Green New Deal, a topic on which the rest of the mainstream media has also run stories. Labor’s position is, however, significantly more complicated than any of them have acknowledged.

In an hour-long interview at the Economic Club of Washington in April—reported in the Examiner under the headline “AFL-CIO Opposes Green New Deal”—Trumka actually devoted less than 30 seconds to responding to a question on the topic. Asked if he supported the GND, he replied “Not as currently written… We weren’t part of the process, and so the workers’ interest really wasn’t completely figured into it. So we would want a whole lot of changes made so that workers and our jobs are protected in the process.” Not exactly a wholesale rejection.

His brief reaction echoed a March letter from the AFL-CIO Energy Committee to Ocasio-Cortez and Markey signed by the presidents of the United Mine Workers and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Among other things, it protested the absence of a labor voice in drafting the proposal. It also focused on the potential loss of jobs, as well as the fact that the GND was “not rooted in an engineering-based approach” to climate change, reflecting union hopes that improved technologies might allow the U.S. to meet climate goals while still extracting and burning fossil fuels (and so preserving jobs in that sector of the economy).

Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso, a long-time ally of the coal, oil, and gas industries, a climate-change denier, and a reliably anti-union vote in Congress, first noted the existence of the letter in a tweet headlined: “The @AFLCIO, which represents 12.5 million workers & includes 55 labor unions, slams the #GreenNewDeal.” Both the right wing and the mainstream media largely agreed with his interpretation. The Washington Post, for instance, headlined its article “AFL-CIO Criticizes the Green New Deal,” while the Examiner called the federation the “latest opponent” of the resolution.

Two facts were, however, missing in action in this reporting. First, the members of the AFL-CIO Energy Committee come from only eight unions, most of them deeply dependent on the fossil-fuel industry. In that sense, it doesn’t represent the federation as a whole. Second, the letter itself was more nuanced than the media coverage suggested and even its signers were far from unanimous. True, one of them, Terry O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers International Union of North America, claimed to be unalterably opposed to the GND, saying it was “exactly how not to” address infrastructure and climate change. Linking them, he wrote, would cause “social and economic devastation.” In contrast, in an article ignored by the media and headlined “Labor Champions a Green New Deal,” another signer, United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, suggested that the letter actually supported the GND.

The Energy Committee’s letter laid out its own vision of how to address the coming crisis through:

“[the] development and deployment of technologies like solar, wind, nuclear, hydroelectric, carbon capture and utilization, battery storage, and high speed rail that limit or eliminate carbon emissions. We know that the increase in natural gas production has lowered emissions in the power sector and provided a new source of construction and manufacturing jobs. We must invest in energy efficiency in the industrial and commercial sectors, retrofits and upgrades to schools and public buildings, and to make our communities safe and resilient. All of these investments must be paired with strong labor and procurement standards to grow family-sustaining, middle class union jobs.”

Much of this sounds like it’s aligned with the language of the GND, which also calls for increased efficiency, retrofits, upgrades, and labor guarantees. The differences may seem subtle, but are worth mentioning. The Energy Committee emphasizes investment in new carbon capture and storage technology, while the GND advocates only “proven low-tech solutions that increase soil carbon storage, such as land preservation and afforestation.” For obvious reasons, CCUS is the preferred path of the fossil-fuel industry itself: it’s an aspirational technology that will require massive federal investment in big energy and holds out the promise (however illusory) that fossil fuels can continue to be extracted and burned. Many environmental organizations argue that its development is not just a gift to fossil-fuel companies, but a pie-in-the-sky distraction from the real work of ending the use of oil, coal, and natural gas.

The Energy Committee’s letter also advocated increasing the use of natural gas as part of a path to lowering carbon emissions—and it’s true that natural gas does emit less carbon than burning either coal or oil. In fact, until recently, the shift from coal- to natural-gas-fired power plants played a role in slightly lowering U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Still, natural gas is a fossil fuel, and the more we burn, the more we contribute to climate change. It in no way falls into the GND’s category of “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources.” And keep in mind that, even during a decade of reductions, the United States still emitted far more greenhouse gases per capita than most other countries and, in the last two years, its carbon dioxide emissions have begun to rise again. Our per capita emissions are still way above those of, say, Europe or Japan. Shifting to a slightly cleaner fossil fuel while continuing to burn so much carbon does little to avert catastrophic climate change.

These disputes are real. Nevertheless, the right wing caricatured the AFL-CIO response to paint the GND as an outlandish, anti-worker proposal.

From the left, the environmental organization Friends of the Earth also caricatured the AFL-CIO stance, writing: “With the energy committee’s position, the AFL joins climate deniers like the Koch brothers, the Republican Party, and Big Oil. We encourage the AFL and other unions within it to rethink this position.” Such language only exacerbates any labor-environmental divide, while ignoring union concerns that workers in affected industries will be paying the true price for lowering carbon emissions.

Friends of the Earth could have focused instead on Richard Trumka’s words at the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit. The Federation, he insisted, does not question climate science.

“I learned something about science in the mine. When the boss told us to ignore the deadly hazards of the job… that sagging timber over our heads… that Black Lung cough… science told us the truth. And today, again, science tells us the truth: climate change threatens our workers, our jobs, and our economy.”

He then asked one question: “Does your plan for fighting climate change ask more from sick, retired coal miners than it does from you and your family? If it does, then you need to think again.”

Or as Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants and a strong Green New Deal supporter, put it:

“The skepticism really comes from a place of generally being opposed to something that they believe is going to be an attack on their jobs, their livelihoods, and their communities… We have to do things like show communities that have been hurt that we actually mean what we say when we say ‘leave no worker behind.'”

For the unions, an emphasis on trade is also critical from both an environmental and a labor perspective. United Steelworkers President Gerard elaborated:

“The USW has aggressively demanded that climate policies include strong trade measures to ensure American jobs in energy-intensive and trade-exposed industries are not decimated by U.S. corporations evading pollution-control regulations by shipping factories to countries that ignore pollution.”

Why Labor Hesitates: A Tangled History

While a skeptic could read Gerard’s stance on trade as no more than a narrow self-interest in preserving jobs in the face of a planetary crisis, it’s also a crucial issue purely from a climate-change perspective. In addition to the shift from coal to natural gas, another factor in the slight decline in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions until recently was deindustrialization and the outsourcing of industrial production to Mexico, China, or Vietnam, which represents a thoroughly illusory reduction in carbon emissions. The atmosphere, of course, doesn’t care whether a factory is located in the United States or China, since total global emissions are what’s warming our planet.

While the AFL-CIO leadership has been cautious about the Green New Deal proposal, some unions have enthusiastically hailed it, among them public and service sector ones. With its two million members, the Service Employees International Union, not currently affiliated with the AFL-CIO, signed on wholeheartedly at its convention in early June. The 50,000-strong Association of Flight Attendants soon seconded that position as its president, Sara Nelson, explained that, in her industry, “it’s not the solutions to climate change that kill jobs. Climate change itself is the job killer,” since extreme weather and increased turbulence are grounding more flights and making air travel more dangerous.

Maine’s state federation and a number of labor councils followed suit, as have quite a few union locals. While the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, for instance, has been reluctant to endorse the Green New Deal, at least one of its locals has signed on. “We’re all about green jobs,” declared Lou Antonellis, the business manager of local 103 in Boston. “We’ve been promoting green technology for a long time.” (For a fuller list of labor endorsements, click here.)

There is a context—think of it as a deeply tangled history—that lies behind the complexity of labor’s response to the Green New Deal. As a start, labor in the United States has rarely spoken with a unified voice. In addition, the union movement is now distinctly on the defensive. The unionized share of the labor force has fallen from a high of 35% in the 1950s to less than 11% today, thanks to a combination of deindustrialization, automation, cutbacks, attacks on the public sector, and a virulent corporate backlash against unions that began in the 1970s. Mass production powerhouses like the auto workers, steel workers, and miners—all in sectors in which a fossil-fuel-free future is challenging to imagine—have been hit the hardest, a situation that provides some context for their suspicions about climate-change proposals.

The weak position of organized labor in the United States also contributes to the AFL-CIO’s opposition to the notion that the planet’s biggest polluting states need to make the biggest reductions. As a result, its stance on international climate agreements lags well behind the international union movement. The AFL-CIO, for instance, opposed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol because it required greater reductions from the biggest polluters and, since then, has consistently supported the U.S. government position that wealthy countries should not be required to meet emissions reductions standards unless poor countries do, too.

Environmental Organizations and the Green New Deal

You wouldn’t know it from the media coverage, but environmental organizations are also divided on the Green New Deal. Many of them feel the proposal is too weak. Its language, they say, still allows for fossil-fuel extraction, use, and export, and for the expansion of nuclear energy.

The GND, after all, aims not at zero carbon emissions, but at “net-zero.” In translation, that means carbon dioxide emissions could continue as long as some kind of offset system was implemented to compensate for them. Even as the AFL-CIO Energy Committee argues that net-zero goes too far, many environmental organizations critique the GND’s unwillingness to opt for “zero emissions.” In fact, even zero emissions raises red flags for some environmentalists, who point out that nuclear power, despite its non-renewable nature and devastating potential environmental consequences, remains a zero-emissions form of energy production. Instead, many environmental organizations advocate that we move to energy sources that are both 100% renewable and zero emissions.

Like the unions, such radical environmental organizations complained that they were left out of the discussion leading up to the Green New Deal proposal and had no chance to push for moving more quickly to 100% renewables and what they call “100% decarbonization.” While they, like the unions, call for a “just transition,” their focus tends to be on indigenous and other front-line communities affected by fossil-fuel extraction as well as workers in those industries. Unlike the labor critiques, this environmental position has gotten scant attention in the mainstream media.

Many of the 600 signers of a letter outlining the radical environmental critique of the GND were small, local or faith-based organizations. Some of the large mainstream environmental groups like the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council, and the Environmental Defense Fund were conspicuously absent from the signatories. Others like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, 350.org, the Sunrise Movement, the Rainforest Action Network, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and Amazon Watch did, however, sign on. So, notably, did the Labor Network for Sustainability, the most radical voice in the labor movement working in support of climate-change action.

The Indigenous Environmental Network wrote:

“We remain concerned that unless some changes are made to the resolution, the Green New Deal will leave incentives by industries and governments to continue causing harm to Indigenous communities. Furthermore, as our communities who live on the frontline of the climate crisis have been saying for generations, the most impactful and direct way to address the problem is to keep fossil fuels in the ground. We can no longer leave any options for the fossil fuel industry to determine the economic and energy future of this country. And until the Green New Deal can be explicit in this demand as well as closing the loop on harmful incentives, we cannot fully endorse the resolution.”

Other organizations like 350.org signed on to the Green New Deal despite reservations. Greenpeace lauded it, while cautioning that “the oil, gas, and coal industry will fight this tooth and nail while continuing to dump pollution into our atmosphere. In order to get us to the green future we want, federal legislation MUST also halt any major oil, gas, and coal expansion projects like pipelines and new drilling.”

The Future of the GND

Despite challenges from parts of both the labor and the environmental movements, which its sponsors had undoubtedly hoped would be among its strongest supporters, Markey and Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal resolution has gone a remarkably long way toward putting a genuine discussion of what an effective and just climate policy might look like in the public arena for the first time. For grassroots environmental organizations, labor unions, nongovernmental outfits, Congress, and the media, as heat waves multiply, the Arctic burns, and extreme weather of every sort becomes everyday news, the question of what is to be done is finally emerging as a subject to contend with, even in the 2020 presidential election campaign. In policy discussions, the urgency of the climate crisis is being acknowledged for the first time and the question of how to radically lower carbon emissions while prioritizing social justice is coming to the fore. These are exactly the debates that are needed in this all-hands-on-deck moment when human civilization is itself, for the first time in our history, in question.

Cyntoia Brown, Symbol of Unfair Sentencing, Is Freed From Prison

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Cyntoia Brown, championed by celebrities as a symbol of unfair sentencing, was released early Wednesday from the Tennessee Prison for Women, where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a man who had picked her up for sex at 16.

Kim Kardashian West, Rihanna, Snoop Dogg and Lebron James had lobbied for Brown’s release, calling her a sex trafficking victim. She was granted clemency in January by outgoing Gov. Bill Haslam.

Now 31, Brown will remain on parole for 10 years, on the condition she does not violate any state or federal laws, holds a job and participates in regular counseling sessions, Haslam’s commutation says.

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Brown released a statement Monday saying she wants to help other women and girls suffering sexual abuse and exploitation.

“I thank Governor and First Lady Haslam for their vote of confidence in me and with the Lord’s help I will make them as well as the rest of my supporters proud,” she wrote.

Her attorneys said she’s requesting privacy and transition time before she makes herself available to the public.

Brown was convicted in 2006 of murdering 43-year-old Nashville real estate agent Johnny Allen. Police said she shot Allen in the back of the head at close range with a gun she brought to rob him after he picked her up at a drive-in restaurant in Nashville to have sex with her.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against life-without-parole sentences for juveniles. But the state of Tennessee argued successfully in lower courts that Brown’s sentence was not in violation of federal law because she would be eligible for parole after serving at least 51 years.

Haslam said that was too harsh a condition for a crime Brown admitted to committing as a teen, especially given the steps she has taken to rebuild her life. She earned her GED and completed university studies as an inmate.

Brown met with prison counselors to design a plan for her release, which will include time in a transition center and continuing coursework with the Lipscomb University program, the state Department of Correction said in a news release.

Brown plans to have a book published in mid-October and a documentary about her is set to be released this year, the nonprofit documentary film group Odyssey Impact and Daniel H. Birman Productions Inc. said in a news release earlier this year.

Brown ran away from her adoptive family in Nashville in 2004 and began living in a hotel with a man known as “Cut Throat,” who forced her to become a prostitute and verbally, physically and sexually assaulted her, according to court documents.

Brown’s lawyers contended she was a victim of sex trafficking who not only feared for her life but also lacked the mental capacity to be culpable in the slaying because she was impaired by her mother’s alcohol use while she was in the womb.

Robert Reich: The American Dream Is Built on a Myth

The American dream promises that anyone can make it if they work hard enough and play by the rules. Anyone can make it by pulling themselves up by their “bootstraps.”

Baloney.

The truth is: In America today, your life chances depend largely on how you started – where you grew up and how much your parents earned.

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Everything else – whether you attend college, your chances of landing a well-paying job, even your health – hinges on this start.

So as inequality of income and wealth has widened – especially along the lines of race and gender – American children born into poverty have less chance of making it. While 90% of children born in 1940 grew up to earn more than their parents, today only half of all American adults earn more than their parents did.

And children born to the top 10 percent of earners are typically on track to make three times more income as adults than the children of the bottom 10 percent.

The phrase “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps” itself is rubbish. Its origins date back an 18th-century fairy tale, and the phrase was originally intended as a metaphor for an impossible feat of strength.

Other countries understand that the family you’re born into as well as the social safety nets and social springboards you have access to play large roles.

Children born poor in Canada, Denmark or the United Kingdom – nations without America’s degree of inequality, nations which provide strong social safety nets and public investments – have a greater chance of economic success than children born poor in America.

Individuals in those countries are blamed less for their personal failures and credited less for personal successes.

So, why is America still perpetuating the fallacy of the self-made individual? Because those in power want you to believe it. If everyone thinks they’re on their own, it’s easier for the powerful to dismantle unions, unravel safety nets, and slash taxes for the wealthy.

It’s in their interest to keep the American Dream deeply rooted in our psyche – the assumption that you determine your destiny. So we don’t demand reforms that are necessary – paid family and medical leave, for example, or early childhood education, accessible childcare, and policies that lift every family out of poverty.

Let’s stop perpetuating this myth of the self-made individual. And let’s start rebuilding the American dream by creating opportunities for all, not just those who are already wealthy, privileged, and well-connected.