Chris Hedges's Blog, page 331

America’s Long War of Attrition With China Is Just Beginning

In his highly acclaimed 2017 book, Destined for War, Harvard professor Graham Allison assessed the likelihood that the United States and China would one day find themselves at war. Comparing the U.S.-Chinese relationship to great-power rivalries all the way back to the Peloponnesian War of the fifth century BC, he concluded that the future risk of a conflagration was substantial. Like much current analysis of U.S.-Chinese relations, however, he missed a crucial point: for all intents and purposes, the United States and China are already at war with one another. Even if their present slow-burn conflict may not produce the immediate devastation of a conventional hot war, its long-term consequences could prove no less dire.

To suggest this means reassessing our understanding of what constitutes war. From Allison’s perspective (and that of so many others in Washington and elsewhere), “peace” and “war” stand as polar opposites. One day, our soldiers are in their garrisons being trained and cleaning their weapons; the next, they are called into action and sent onto a battlefield. War, in this model, begins when the first shots are fired.

Well, think again in this new era of growing great-power struggle and competition. Today, war means so much more than military combat and can take place even as the leaders of the warring powers meet to negotiate and share dry-aged steak and whipped potatoes (as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping did at Mar-a-Lago in 2017). That is exactly where we are when it comes to Sino-American relations. Consider it war by another name, or perhaps, to bring back a long-retired term, a burning new version of a cold war.

Even before Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, the U.S. military and other branches of government were already gearing up for a long-term quasi-war, involving both growing economic and diplomatic pressure on China and a buildup of military forces along that country’s periphery. Since his arrival, such initiatives have escalated into Cold War-style combat by another name, with his administration committed to defeating China in a struggle for global economic, technological, and military supremacy.

This includes the president’s much-publicized “trade war” with China, aimed at hobbling that country’s future growth; a techno-war designed to prevent it from overtaking the U.S. in key breakthrough areas of technology; a diplomatic war intended to isolate Beijing and frustrate its grandiose plans for global outreach; a cyber war (largely hidden from public scrutiny); and a range of military measures as well. This may not be war in the traditional sense of the term, but for leaders on both sides, it has the feel of one.

Why China?

The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 American presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation. Behind the scenes, however, most senior military and foreign policy officials in Washington view China, not Russia, as the country’s principal adversary. In eastern Ukraine, the Balkans, Syria, cyberspace, and in the area of nuclear weaponry, Russia does indeed pose a variety of threats to Washington’s goals and desires. Still, as an economically hobbled petro-state, it lacks the kind of might that would allow it to truly challenge this country’s status as the world’s dominant power. China is another story altogether. With its vast economy, growing technological prowess, intercontinental “Belt and Road” infrastructure project, and rapidly modernizing military, an emboldened China could someday match or even exceed U.S. power on a global scale, an outcome American elites are determined to prevent at any cost.

Washington’s fears of a rising China were on full display in January with the release of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, a synthesis of the views of the Central Intelligence Agency and other members of that “community.” Its conclusion: “We assess that China’s leaders will try to extend the country’s global economic, political, and military reach while using China’s military capabilities and overseas infrastructure and energy investments under the Belt and Road Initiative to diminish U.S. influence.”

To counter such efforts, every branch of government is now expected to mobilize its capabilities to bolster American — and diminish Chinese — power. In Pentagon documents, this stance is summed up by the term “overmatch,” which translates asthe eternal preservation of American global superiority vis-à-vis China (and all other potential rivals). “The United States must retain overmatch,” the administration’s National Security Strategy insists, and preserve a “combination of capabilities in sufficient scale to prevent enemy success,” while continuing to “shape the international environment to protect our interests.”

In other words, there can never be parity between the two countries. The only acceptable status for China is as a distinctly lesser power. To ensure such an outcome, administration officials insist, the U.S. must take action on a daily basis to contain or impede its rise.

In previous epochs, as Allison makes clear in his book, this equation — a prevailing power seeking to retain its dominant status and a rising power seeking to overcome its subordinate one — has almost always resulted in conventional conflict. In today’s world, however, where great-power armed combat could possibly end in a nuclear exchange and mutual annihilation, direct military conflict is a distinctly unappealing option for all parties. Instead, governing elites have developed other means of warfare — economic, technological, and covert — to achieve such strategic objectives. Viewed this way, the United States is already in close to full combat mode with respect to China.

Trade War

When it comes to the economy, the language betrays the reality all too clearly. The Trump administration’s economic struggle with China is regularly described, openly and without qualification, as a “war.” And there’s no doubt that senior White House officials, beginning with the president and his chief trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, see it just that way: as a means of pulverizing the Chinese economy and so curtailing that country’s ability to compete with the United States in all other measures of power.

Ostensibly, the aim of President Trump’s May 2018 decision to impose $60 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports (increased in September to $200 billion) was to rectify a trade imbalance between the two countries, while protecting the American economy against what is described as China’s malign behavior. Its trade practices “plainly constitute a grave threat to the long-term health and prosperity of the United States economy,” as the president put it when announcing the second round of tariffs.

An examination of the demands submitted to Chinese negotiators by the U.S. trade delegation last May suggests, however, that Washington’s primary intent hasn’t been to rectify that trade imbalance but to impede China’s economic growth. Among the stipulations Beijing must acquiesce to before receiving tariff relief, according to leaked documents from U.S. negotiators that were spread on Chinese social media:

halting all government subsidies to advanced manufacturing industries in its Made in China 2025 program, an endeavor that covers 10 key economic sectors, including aircraft manufacturing, electric cars, robotics, computer microchips, and artificial intelligence;
accepting American restrictions on investments in sensitive technologies without retaliating;
opening up its service and agricultural sectors — areas where Chinese firms have an inherent advantage — to full American competition.

In fact, this should be considered a straightforward declaration of economic war. Acquiescing to such demands would mean accepting a permanent subordinate status vis-à-vis the United States in hopes of continuing a profitable trade relationship with this country. “The list reads like the terms for a surrender rather than a basis for negotiation,” was the way Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University, accurately described these developments.

Technological Warfare

As suggested by America’s trade demands, Washington’s intent is not only to hobble China’s economy today and tomorrow but for decades to come. This has led to an intense, far-ranging campaign to deprive it of access to advanced technologies and to cripple its leading technology firms.

Chinese leaders have long realized that, for their country to achieve economic and military parity with the United States, they must master the cutting-edge technologies that will dominate the twenty-first-century global economy, including artificial intelligence (AI), fifth-generation (5G) telecommunications, electric vehicles, and nanotechnology. Not surprisingly then, the government has invested in a major way in science and technology education, subsidized research in pathbreaking fields, and helped launch promising startups, among other such endeavors — all in the very fashion that the Internet and other American computer and aerospace innovations were originally financed and encouraged by the Department of Defense.

Chinese companies have also demanded technology transfers when investing in or forging industrial partnerships with foreign firms, a common practice in international development. India, to cite a recent example of this phenomenon, expects that significant technology transfers from American firms will be one outcome of its agreed-upon purchases of advanced American weaponry.

In addition, Chinese firms have been accused of stealing American technology through cybertheft, provoking widespread outrage in this country. Realistically speaking, it’s difficult for outside observers to determine to what degree China’s recent technological advances are the product of commonplace and legitimate investments in science and technology and to what degree they’re due to cyberespionage. Given Beijing’s massive investment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education at the graduate and post-graduate level, however, it’s safe to assume that most of that country’s advances are the result of domestic efforts.

Certainly, given what’s publicly known about Chinese cybertheft activities, it’s reasonable for American officials to apply pressure on Beijing to curb the practice. However, the Trump administration’s drive to blunt that country’s technological progress is also aimed at perfectly legitimate activities. For example, the White House seeks to ban Beijing’s government subsidies for progress on artificial intelligence at the same time that the Department of Defense is pouring billions of dollars into AI research at home. The administration is also acting to block the Chinese acquisition of U.S. technology firms and of exports of advanced components and know-how.

In an example of this technology war that’s made the headlines lately, Washington has been actively seeking to sabotage the efforts of Huawei, one of China’s most prominent telecom firms, to gain leadership in the global deployment of 5G wireless communications. Such wireless systems are important in part because they will transmit colossal amounts of electronic data at far faster rates than now conceivable, facilitating the introduction of self-driving cars, widespread robotization, and the universal application of AI.

Second only to Apple as the world’s supplier of smartphones and a major producer of telecommunications equipment, Huawei has sought to take the lead in the race for 5G adaptation around the world. Fearing that this might give China an enormous advantage in the coming decades, the Trump administration has tried to prevent that. In what is widely described as a “tech Cold War,” it has put enormous pressure on both its Asian and European allies to bar the company from conducting business in their countries, even as it sought the arrest in Canada of Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, and her extradition to the U.S. on charges of tricking American banks into aiding Iranian firms (in violation of Washington’s sanctions on that country). Other attacks on Huawei are in the works, including a potential ban on the sales of its products in this country. Such moves are regularly described as focused on boosting the security of both the United States and its allies by preventing the Chinese government from using Huawei’s telecom networks to steal military secrets. The real reason — barely disguised — is simply to block China from gaining technological parity with the United States.

Cyberwarfare

There would be much to write on this subject, if only it weren’t still hidden in the shadows of the growing conflict between the two countries. Not surprisingly, however, little information is available on U.S.-Chinese cyberwarfare. All that can be said with confidence is that an intense war is now being waged between the two countries in cyberspace. American officials accuse China of engaging in a broad-based cyber-assault on this country, involving both outright cyberespionage to obtain military as well as corporate secrets and widespread political meddling. “What the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing,” said Vice President Mike Pence last October in a speech at the Hudson Institute, though — typically on the subject — he provided not a shred of evidence for his claim.

Not disclosed is what this country is doing to combat China in cyberspace. All that can be known from available information is that this is a two-sided war in which the U.S. is conducting its own assaults. “­The United States will impose swift and costly consequences on foreign governments, criminals, and other actors who undertake significant malicious cyber activities,” the 2017 National Security Strategy affirmed. What form these “consequences” have taken has yet to be revealed, but there’s little doubt that America’s cyber warriors have been active in this domain.

Diplomatic and Military Coercion

Completing the picture of America’s ongoing war with China are the fierce pressures being exerted on the diplomatic and military fronts to frustrate Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions. To advance those aspirations, China’s leadership is relying heavily on a much-touted Belt and Road Initiative, a trillion-dollar plan to help fund and encourage the construction of a vast new network of road, rail, port, and pipeline infrastructure across Eurasia and into the Middle East and Africa. By financing — and, in many cases, actually building — such infrastructure, Beijing hopes to bind the economies of a host of far-flung nations ever closer to its own, while increasing its political influence across the Eurasian mainland and Africa. As Beijing’s leadership sees it, at least in terms of orienting the planet’s future economics, its role would be similar to that of the Marshall Plan that cemented U.S. influence in Europe after World War II.

And given exactly that possibility, Washington has begun to actively seek to undermine the Belt and Road wherever it can — discouraging allies from participating, while stirring up unease in countries like Malaysia and Uganda over the enormous debts to China they may end up with and the heavy-handed manner in which that country’s firms often carry out such overseas construction projects. (For example, they typically bring in Chinese laborers to do most of the work, rather than hiring and training locals.)

“China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing’s wishes and demands,” National Security Advisor John Bolton claimed in a December speech on U.S. policy on that continent. “Its investment ventures are riddled with corruption,” he added, “and do not meet the same environmental or ethical standards as U.S. developmental programs.” Bolton promised that the Trump administration would provide a superior alternative for African nations seeking development funds, but — and this is something of a pattern as well — no such assistance has yet materialized.

In addition to diplomatic pushback, the administration has undertaken a series of initiatives intended to isolate China militarily and limit its strategic options. In South Asia, for example, Washington has abandoned its past position of maintaining rough parity in its relations with India and Pakistan. In recent years, it’s swung sharply toward a strategic alliance with New Dehli, attempting to enlist it fully in America’s efforts to contain China and, presumably, in the process punishing Pakistan for its increasingly enthusiastic role in the Belt and Road Initiative.

In the Western Pacific, the U.S. has stepped up its naval patrols and forged new basing arrangements with local powers — all with the aim of confining the Chinese military to areas close to the mainland. In response, Beijing has sought to escape the grip of American power by establishing miniature bases on Chinese-claimed islands in the South China Sea (or even constructing artificial islands to house bases there) — moves widely condemned by the hawks in Washington.

To demonstrate its ire at the effrontery of Beijing in the Pacific (once known as an “American lake”), the White House has ordered an increased pace of so-called freedom-of-navigation operations (FRONOPs). Navy warships regularly sail within shooting range of those very island bases, suggesting a U.S. willingness to employ military force to resist future Chinese moves in the region (and also creating situations in which a misstep could lead to a military incident that could lead… well, anywhere).

In Washington, the warnings about Chinese military encroachment in the region are already reaching a fever pitch. For instance, Admiral Philip Davidson, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, described the situation there in recent congressional testimony this way: “In short, China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.”

A Long War of Attrition

As Admiral Davidson suggests, one possible outcome of the ongoing cold war with China could be armed conflict of the traditional sort. Such an encounter, in turn, could escalate to the nuclear level, resulting in mutual annihilation. A war involving only “conventional” forces would itself undoubtedly be devastating and lead to widespread suffering, not to mention the collapse of the global economy.

Even if a shooting war doesn’t erupt, however, a long-term geopolitical war of attrition between the U.S. and China will, in the end, have debilitating and possibly catastrophic consequences for both sides. Take the trade war, for example. If that’s not resolved soon in a positive manner, continuing high U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will severely curb Chinese economic growth and so weaken the world economy as a whole, punishing every nation on Earth, including this one. High tariffs will also increase costs for American consumers and endanger the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials and components.

This new brand of war will also ensure that already sky-high defense expenditures will continue to rise, diverting funds from vital needs like education, health, infrastructure, and the environment.  Meanwhile, preparations for a future war with China have already become the number one priority at the Pentagon, crowding out all other considerations. “While we’re focused on ongoing operations,” acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan reportedly told his senior staff on his first day in office this January, “remember China, China, China.”

Perhaps the greatest victim of this ongoing conflict will be planet Earth itself and all the creatures, humans included, who inhabit it. As the world’s top two emitters of climate-altering greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China must work together to halt global warming or all of us are doomed to a hellish future. With a war under way, even a non-shooting one, the chance for such collaboration is essentially zero. The only way to save civilization is for the U.S. and China to declare peace and focus together on human salvation.

The Truth About Medicare-for-All Its Opponents Won’t Admit

What follows is a conversation among the Policy of Economic Research Institute’s Robert Pollin, President of Physicians for a National Health Program Adam Gaffney 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.

SHARMINI PERIES: It’s The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore.

As the 2020 presidential race gets underway, one of the main issues being discussed is Medicare for All. Now, Senator Kamala Harris and Senator Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren have all announced their candidacies. And Senator Sanders is expected to do so very soon. They have all, of course, presented versions of Medicare for All. Weighing in recently on all of their proposals were two billionaires who also are considering a run in 2020, and that is the former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz. Now let’s listen to Bloomberg making an argument against Medicare for All, where he says it won’t work.

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: I think you can have Medicare for All for people that are covered, because that’s a smaller group, and a lot of them are taking care of Medicaid already, Medicare. But to replace the entire private system where companies provide health care for their employees would bankrupt us for a very long time. It’s just not a practical thing.

SHARMINI PERIES: Then there was Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, making a slightly different argument on the View.

SPEAKER: Well, I just want to ask quickly, what are the Dems too left on, you think? What issues will [inaudible].

HOWARD SCHULTZ: I don’t know Senator Harris, but listening to her last night say we should abolish the insurance industry as a way to go forward on health care, that alone would wipe out millions of jobs of Americans. And that is the kind of extreme policy that is not a policy that I agree with.

SHARMINI PERIES: Joining me now to discuss these criticisms of Medicare for All are Bob Pollin and Adam Gaffney. Bob Pollin is a Distinguished Professor of Economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Thanks for joining us, Bob.

BOB POLLIN: Great to be on. Thank you, Sharmini.

SHARMINI PERIES: And Dr. Adam Gaffney is president of Physicians for a National Program and is a pulmonary and critical care physician at Harvard Medical School and the Cambridge Health Alliance. Adam, thank you for joining us.

ADAM GAFFNEY: Thanks for having me.

SHARMINI PERIES: Now, before we get into the issue at hand, we should note that Senator Sanders’ health care proposal is actually somewhat different from those that Senator Kamala Harris and Senator Cory Booker have presented, and that is that Sanders’ proposal would put health care completely in the public sector, while Kamala Harris and Cory Booker’s proposal would maintain some sort of a mixed private-public program. But let’s deal with Bloomberg’s argument against all of this first. Let me go to you, Bob. Bloomberg says it would cost just too much, and thus be unpractical. What is your response to him?

BOB POLLIN: Well, Michael Bloomberg’s assertion that Medicare for All would bankrupt the country is a complete non sequitur, as a matter of fact. Medicare for All will save money. We’ll save a lot of money. All we have to do is look at how other countries run their health care systems. If you look at the average for the advanced economies other than the United States, they’re spending between 9 and 11 percent of national income, of GDP. We’re spending about 18 percent of GDP with our private system mixed in with the public Medicare and Medicaid systems.

Now what is the difference if we spent 11 percent of GDP as opposed to 18 percent that we are spending? That’s a difference of about a trillion and a half dollars. So we are basically wasting a trillion and a half dollars. That’s money that’s going primarily to the private health insurance companies, and the pharmaceutical industry that other countries are not spending because we have this incredibly complex, inefficient, unfair healthcare system. Medicare for All would save money. That’s the thrust of our study that was put out at the end of November analyzing Medicare for All for the United States. By moving to a public health insurance system, we think we would be able to provide good coverage for everybody, every resident of the country, including all people who are uninsured, all people who are under-insured, who aren’t able to meet their bills, even though they have health insurance. We think we can cover everybody. And on top of that we can save about 10 percent relative to the $3.3 trillion dollars we are now spending in the United States on health care.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Adam, let me also ask you that question. Bloomberg says it would cost too much, and therefore be unpractical. What’s your response to that?

ADAM GAFFNEY: Well, there’s a couple ways to look at this. I mean, first I would echo what Professor Pollin said about the comparison between the United States and other high income nations that spend a lot less in health care than we do. But the way to look at this is what it actually costs, and why would he even say that it would cost more? Now, the thing is we agree we want to cover everyone in this country, and we agree, or most of us agree, that people are getting a better deal as things are currently. High copayments, high deductibles, high premiums. So we agree that we want to cover everyone and improve coverage for everybody else. If that’s the goal, Medicare for All is unquestionably the most efficient way to get there. If we can’t afford universal health care by way of Medicare for All, then we can’t afford it at all.

Now, we can afford it. OK? We can afford it because Medicare for All produces a number of key efficiencies. First and foremost, and this is in Professor Pollin’s report, is the great administrative waste that the private health insurance imposes on the whole health care system. Hospitals have to basically have armies of billers and coders to go through every chart. This is an enormous amount of money. My colleagues estimated that going to a complete Canadian-style health care system would save $500 billion a year on administrative savings. Professor Pollin also has very significant savings in his report. And then look at pharmaceutical companies and pharmaceutical firms. How much could be saved on that end? Well, we spend about twice as much on drugs. Our drug prices are about twice what they are in other high income nations.

So let’s say we were to have a National Health Insurance Program and bring those down by 50 percent. You’re talking about, you know, another more than $100 billion a year in savings. So yes, there will be new costs to cover everybody. There will be cost to eliminate copayments and deductibles, and to make sure that not one person in this country is uninsured. But there’s huge savings on the other side of the ledger. And the problem with people like Schultz and Bloomberg is they’re not actually aware of the issues, and they don’t actually know what’s on the other side of the ledger.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Bob, let me ask you this question. Now that Kamala Harris and Cory Booker and others are declaring their candidacy, and they are trying to come somewhere down the middle, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Is it worth, perhaps, considering that in order to get more buy-in from, say, corporate Democrats?

BOB POLLIN: The problem with that is that–well, there’s a lot of problems. But the most basic one, since we’re talking about costs, is that you will not get the cost savings that I talked about and Adam just talked about. There was actually a study by the Congressional Budget Office recently that looked at the potential for cost savings through incorporating the so-called public option so that we would maintain the existing private health insurance system. But there would also be a public system like Medicare that would be available to people, if they chose. And their study found that you could get over 10 years about $160 billion in savings. Now, that sounds like a big number, but if you divided by 10, that’s $16 billion a year, whereas according to our study we think we can get $300 billion a year in savings relative to our existing system, even while everyone is well covered.

And I would just reiterate and emphasize again what Dr. Gaffney just said: Where do we get–the biggest source of savings is the massive simplification of the administrative system. And the second one is through dramatically cutting pharmaceutical prices so that they come more in line with other advanced economies.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Now, let’s shift over to the issue of jobs, and the jobs that will be lost according to Schultz. Now, I’ll go to Adam here, first. Now, Adam, the concern which we saw Howard Schultz articulate in the introduction clip we ran that millions of health insurance jobs would be lost if Medicare for All would be implemented the way we are talking about it now–I guess coming from him being the CEO of Starbucks, who is known for providing insurance for all its workers, including the part-time workers, I guess we have to take this very seriously. What do you make of what he’s saying?

ADAM GAFFNEY: Well, I think it is a real issue. You know, unlike the concern about the overall system costs, assuring that there is a just transition from the existing system to the Medicare system does require a just transition of taking care of workers who are displaced. So yes, there are enormous–there are many workers in in the private health insurance industry, as well as who are doing billing and coding activities that add nothing to the system, that just take money out, that are going to not have their current jobs eventually once this system is in place. So how do we deal with that?

Well, it actually is a way to deal with it. It’s contained in both bills in Congress. The Sanders bill, since we’re talking about that, has addressed transition; money set aside, significant money, to help with retraining, to help with salary support for those workers. Let’s also not forget that there’s going to be a lot of new jobs that will have to be created as part of this transition. There’s going to be some new care that’s going to be needed to be provided. Some new caretakers. And so I think there’s going to be no shortage of new employment opportunities. But obviously people will need retraining and other sorts of help to move from one part of the healthcare sector to another. But you know, I don’t really take that as a serious critique. Many billionaires are very happy when jobs get, you know, pushed around, when jobs go overseas. It’s only when we’re talking about moving to a fully universal health care system that they’re suddenly so concerned about transitions of that nature.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Bob, I’ll go to you. How do we address this issue of job loss in the insurance sector?

BOB POLLIN: Thanks, Sharmini. As far as I know, the study that we put out last November is the first one that actually takes a serious look at this. And we did take a very serious look at it. It’s a full chapter in our study. We go into great depth. It’s comparable to the work we’ve done in other areas of the economy on just transition, as Adam just referred to. And Howard Schultz is right. You know, we estimate that there will be contraction in jobs on the order of a total of 1 million. So he says millions. It’s closer to, probably, a million. And these are the jobs that that Adam just talked about; workers that are currently employed in the private health insurance industry, and a good share of the people that are in the provider’s offices, like doctors’ offices, doing the administrative jobs.

So we definitely have to commit to a just transition for all of them. And as Adam said, in the Sanders bill there is a reference to it. I wouldn’t say that they emphasize it. I think that they need to give it much more attention. But I do find, having done a pretty careful analysis on this, that the amount of money that is proposed in the Sanders bill is pretty much on target. It’s a pretty good number relative to what is needed. So we estimate that if you look at the things that are needed–that is, to protect the pension funds of the people who will be moving out of the insurance industry jobs, to retrain, relocate, and give wage insurance–so if you move from the health insurance job to another job where the pay is lower, you get support.

We’re looking at something like $60 billion over the course of the two-year transition. So $120 billion for two years. And that is about 2 percent per year of the overall costs of the health care system under Medicare for all. The way we actually designed the whole health care single payer system, we incorporated a one percent surplus in the revenues that would be coming into finance this system. So we’ve already got 1 percent of the 2 percent needed through the financing. So we would have to have a one year additional surplus of revenue. One year, one percent. And that way I think we can get everybody in the system who will be displaced into another kind of decent situation.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Adam, if the number crunching obviously points to the cost efficiency, then it seems to be a question of political buy-in. So, leading up to the 2020 elections, the campaigns, as well as our new Congress, young Congress we have, all have to be infused with the politics of how to sell this public health care system. What can be done in order for us to be having that more reasonable conversation when it comes to the 2020 campaign?

ADAM GAFFNEY: Well, I think I’d first point out that we already have made a great deal of progress in this regard. I mean, if you look at where we’ve come over the last few years in terms of the discussion on health care, single payer health care has swung from more or less the margins of the discussion to the center of the discussion. So we’ve come a long way. And I think that is a very telling point, because it suggests–it begs the question why. And I think overall what you see is that politicians follow the people. Politicians follow the grassroots. There has been a push from the bottom up for Medicare for All that has been underway for a long time, and is now producing results. You know, there’s already been a lot of success in both houses of Congress. Sanders had a single payer bill for many years that people don’t know about, or many people didn’t. And it was only in 2017 that he got 16 cosponsors. And it wasn’t because, you know, there was all-new senators in Congress, was because the existing senators realize this is where the people were moving. And similarly, we see in the last few years that the House single payer bill attracted a majority of House Democrats. And a new bill is coming out soon, as I’m sure you’ve heard.

So you know, what does this mean? It means we have to continue pushing candidates. We have to hold their feet to the fire. We have to–those of us in sort of the policy community have to continue to provide the best quality evidence, push the soundest science, and not get a lot of the corporate talking heads steal all the air in the room. But the reality is that there is going to be enormous opposition. And we can sugarcoat it all we want, but the corporate opposition is going to be massive. There’s a new organization out there that’s taking money from the pharmaceutical companies and the insurers called Partnership for America’s Healthcare Future that’s already plunging into this debate. You know, it’s going to be taking out ads, and going to be seeing this more and more.

So it’s going to be a huge amount of misleading information that is going to be poured into, sort of, the American media space. And it is going to confuse people. So those of us on the policy side, those of us on the political side, are going to really have our work cut out for us to get out there and to dispel the myths that are going to be jumping up every day. It’s going to be a whack-a-mole kind of scenario. So we need the kind of science, but we also need the politics and the grassroots activism that’s getting these messages out there.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Bob, in 2008-2009 during Obama’s first presidential campaign we were having the same conversation. Yes, it has moved forward. Now we have the Cory Bookers and Kamala Harrises coming forward and saying yes to Medicare for All. But, you know, they’re proposing this please everybody out there, the corporate Democrats as well as the as the progressives. So what is your take on the political pushback that Adam is talking about in terms of the corporate sector? And how do the progressives fight this?

BOB POLLIN: As I said at the beginning, you know, the fact that we run a health care system at 18 percent of national income as opposed to other advanced economies at 9 to 11 percent, we are looking at a difference of a trillion and a half dollars. And that trillion and a half dollars is money funneled into the health insurance industry, primarily, and the pharmaceutical industry. So you can be sure that they are going to be fighting till the bitter end and use every tactic available to them in order to defeat Medicare for All, or anything like it.

The kinds of compromises that have occurred over time with respect to the demands of the people for a decent health care system versus the corporate interests that want to keep making a trillion dollars a year or thereabouts have led–the types of compromises that have occurred have led to the ongoing situation we have now, which is the health insurance–the health care costs of the economy keep going up. And they keep going up because it’s a way to buy off the health insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, some of the providers and hospitals, and at least attempt to expand coverage.

What we have got now is that we still have, even with Obamacare, we have 27 million people were uncovered, and another 30 to 40 million people who are underinsured. And so there is no solution within the framework under which we operate now, a framework dominated by private profit. So what is the answer? Well, the only answer is to keep fighting for a good system, Medicare for All, and be as effective as possible. And I think we have to get Bernie Sanders a lot of credit here. He’s the one that put this into the mainstream of political discourse in the country. Kamala Harris didn’t. Cory Booker certainly didn’t. Jerry Brown in California, when there was a serious chance of getting something passed in California a year ago, he opposed it. You know, he’s supposed to be a liberal Democrat.

So we really have to mobilize. And as Adam said, the types of people that have been engaged are, you know, everybody who cares about a decent healthcare system. The fact that Adam is president of a very important organization of physicians in favor of a single payer healthcare system, they play an important role. The National Nurses union play an important role. Those people are coming together with the people that they’re serving, us, to say that we want to fight for a decent health care system. I never thought we would break through as far as we have so quickly. But as you know, I was involved in the California fight, and it passed the state Senate in May 2017. It passed overwhelmingly. That’s California, that’s the biggest state the country. So we are making progress. And that was connected to the Sanders campaign, which put this on the agenda, the mainstream agenda.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Adam, I’m going to give you the final word. Is there any polling out there where the public support for Medicare for All of the kind that we’re talking about here would convince some of the candidates that are running that it is in their favor to support this because there’s public support for it?

ADAM GAFFNEY: Well, I think that’s precisely what happened. You know, Kaiser Family Foundation polls showed 40 percent support for Medicare for All in the late ’90s, and they now show about 50 percent. There was a Reuters poll last year that actually showed a historic 70 percent support among the public for Medicare for All. So there’s no question that the amount of support that Medicare for All has had from many candidates, that you’ve mentioned, reflects the growing tide of discontent with the health care status quo, and the growing embrace of Medicare for All among the public.

Now, people will push back and say those polls are malleable; when you tell people X, Y, or Z they often are less inclined. But you know what? If you were to also tell people, well, yes, that’s true, your taxes would go up somewhat, but you’d also have no premiums, no copays, no deductibles, no networks, no insurer denials, then the support would go up further.

So the overall gist is that the public supports Medicare for All with a clear majority. But our work is to really help people to understand what this means, what it would do for them, and why we really need all of us to be all in, and have no one out. And that’s the work that’s cut out for us as we move ahead.

SHARMINI PERIES: That was Adam Gaffney, president of Physicians for a National Program. Thanks for joining us, Adam.

ADAM GAFFNEY: Thank you for having me.

SHARMINI PERIES: And also joining us was Bob Pollin, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Thanks for joining us, Bob.

BOB POLLIN: Thanks again for having me on, Sharmini.

SHARMINI PERIES: And thank you all for joining us here on The Real News Network.

Worshipping the Electronic Image

Donald Trump, like much of the American public, is entranced by electronic images. He interprets reality through the distortions of digital media. His decisions, opinions, political positions, prejudices and sense of self are reflected back to him on screens. He views himself and the world around him as a vast television show with himself as the star. His primary concerns as president are his ratings, his popularity and his image. He is a creature—maybe the poster child—of the modern, post-literate culture, a culture that critics such as Marshall McLuhan, Daniel Boorstin, James W. Carey and Neil Postman warned us about.

It is not, as some have suggested, merely that Trump speaks at the level of a seventh-grader or that he harkens back to a preliterate oral culture. He embodies the incoherence of the modern digital age, filled with sudden shifts from subject to subject, a roller-coaster ride of emotional highs and lows punctuated with commercials. There is nonstop stimulation. Seldom does anything occupy our attention for more than a few seconds. Nothing has context. Images overwhelm words. We are perpetually confused, but always entertained. We barely remember what we saw or heard a few minutes earlier. This is by design of the elites who manipulate us.

“It is not merely that on the television screen entertainment is the metaphor for all discourse,” Postman points out. “It is that off the screen the same metaphor prevails.” Americans, because television stages their world, “no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other.” Trump is what is produced when a society severs itself from print, when it pushes art, ethics, classics, philosophy, history and the humanities to the margins of the universities and culture, when its members spend hours sitting inert in front of a screen. Information, ideas and epistemology are, as Postman writes, given form today by electronic images.

It is a mistake to see what is happening as cultural regression. It is worse than that. Oral cultures prized memorization and cultivated the high art of rhetoric. Leaders, playwrights and poets in oral cultures did not speak to their publics in Trump’s crude vernacular. More ominous than the president’s impoverished vocabulary is that he cannot string together sentences that make sense. This replicates not only the shoddy vocabulary of television, but more importantly the incoherence of television. Trump is able to communicate with tens of millions of Americans, also raised in front of screens, because they too have been linguistically and intellectually mutated by digital images. They lack the ability to detect lies or think rationally. They are part of our post-truth culture.

Nearly any tweet or spoken remark by Trump illustrates this incoherence. In a Jan. 31 interview with The New York Times he gave this answer when asked about the gruesome murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul:

Yeah. Khashoggi. I thought it was a terrible crime. But if you look at other countries, many other countries. You look at Iran, not so far away from Saudi Arabia, and take a look at what they’re doing there. So, you know, that’s just the way I feel. Venezuela is very much in flux. We’ve been hearing about it for probably 14 years now, between the two of them. And some terrible things are happening in Venezuela. So, if I can do something to help people. It’s really helping humanity, if we can do something to help people, I’d like to do that.

Electronic images are our modern-day idols. We worship the power and fame they impart. We yearn to become idolized celebrities. We measure our lives against the fantasies these images disseminate. If something does not appear on a screen or is proclaimed on a screen its authenticity is questioned. We fervently build miniature social media platforms where we daily update our “life the movie,” confusing self-presentation with genuine communication and friendship. This yearning to be validated by electronic images and their audiences has made us an isolated, uninformed, alienated and very unhappy people.

“Now the death of God combined with the perfection of the image has brought us to a whole new state of expectation,” John Ralston Saul writes. “We are the image. We are the viewer and the viewed. There is no other distracting presence. And the image has all the Godly powers. It kills at will. Kills effortlessly. Kills beautifully. It dispenses morality. Judges endlessly. The electronic image is man as God and the ritual involved leads us not to a mysterious Holy Trinity but back to ourselves. In the absence of a clear understanding that we are now the only source, these images cannot help but return to the expression of magic and fear proper to idolatrous societies. This in turn facilitates the use of electronic image as propaganda by whoever can control some part of it.”

The fixation on electronic images by Trump means he and millions of other American adults—who, according to a 2018 report by the Nielsen company, on average watch four hours, 46 minutes of TV each day and spend “over 11 hours per day listening to, watching, reading or generally interacting with media”—have severed themselves from complex thought. They have been infantilized. Television, including the news, reduces all reality to a childish, cartoonish simplicity. News as presented on screens “provides degenerate photographs or a pseudo-reality of stereotypes,” James W. Carey writes. “News can approximate truth only when reality is reducible to a statistical table: sport scores, stock exchange reports, births, deaths, marriages, accidents, court decisions, elections, economic transactions such as foreign trade or balance of payments.” News on our screens is incapable of imparting complexity and nuance. It is devoid of historical, social or cultural context. TV news speaks in easily digestible clichés and political and cultural tropes. It is sensational and fragmented. The frenetic pace of TV news means that except when delivering statistics, the programs can trade only in established stereotypes. TV news is, in essence, divorced from the real, mindlessly grounded in the ruling elites’ reigning ideology of neoliberalism, militarism and white supremacy.

Postman, in his book “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” writes that after the development of the telegraph, “News took the form of slogans, to be noted with excitement, to be forgotten with dispatch.” Arguing that the 19th-century invention is the basis for communication in the digital age, he says, “Its language was also entirely discontinuous. One message had no connection to that which preceded or followed it. Each ‘headline’ stood alone as its own context. The receiver of the news had to provide a meaning if he could. The sender was under no obligation to do so. And because of all this, the world as depicted by the telegraph began to appear unmanageable, even undecipherable. The line-by-line, sequential, continuous form of the printed page slowly began to lose its resonance as a metaphor of how knowledge was to be acquired and how the world was to be understood. ‘Knowing’ the facts took on a new meaning, for it did not imply that one understood implications, background, or connections. Telegraphic discourse permitted no time for historical perspectives and gave no priority to the qualitative.”

Those who seek to communicate outside of digital structures to question or challenge the dominant narrative, to deal in ambiguity and nuance, to have discussions rooted in verifiable fact and historical context, are becoming incomprehensible to most of modern society. As soon as they employ a language that is not grounded in the dominant clichés and stereotypes, they are not understood. Television, computers and smartphones have addicted a generation and conditioned it to talk and think in the irrational, incoherent baby talk it is fed day after day. This cultural, historical, economic and social illiteracy delights the ruling elites who design, manage and profit from these sophisticated systems of social control. Armed with our personal data and with knowledge of our proclivities, habits and desires, they adeptly manipulate us as consumers and citizens to accelerate their amassing of wealth and consolidation of power.

“The only people who grasp the distinction between reality and appearance, who grasp the laws of conduct and society, are the ruling groups and those who do their bidding: scientific, technical elites who elucidate the laws of behavior and the function of society so that people might be more effectively, albeit unconsciously, governed,” Carey writes in “Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society.”

Daniel Boorstin in “The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Reality in America” argues that the fabricated, the inauthentic and the theatrical have now displaced the natural, the genuine and the spontaneous. Reality has become stagecraft. We live in a world, he writes, “where fantasy is more real than reality.” He warns:

We risk being the first people in history to have been able to make their illusions so vivid, so persuasive, so ‘realistic,’ that they can live in them. We are the most illusioned people on earth. Yet we dare not become disillusioned, because our illusions are the very house in which we live; they are our news, our heroes, our adventure, our forms of art, our very experience.

Trump is a product of this cultural decay, not an aberration. The way he speaks, acts and thinks is the way many Americans speak, act and think. He will one day disappear, but the cultural degeneracy that produced him will remain. Academic institutions, which should be the repositories of culture and literacy, are transforming themselves, often with corporate money, into adjuncts of the digital age, expanding departments that deal with technology, engineering and computer science—the largest major at universities such as Princeton and Harvard—while diminishing the disciplines that deal with art, philosophy, ethics, history and politics. These disciplines, rooted in print, are the only antidotes to cultural death.

Intellectual historian Perry Miller in his essay “The Duty of Mind in a Civilization of Machines” calls us to build counterweights to communication technology in order “to resist the paralyzing effects upon the intellect of the looming nihilism” that defines the era. In short, the more we turn off our screens and return to the world of print, the more we seek out the transformative power of art and culture, the more we re-establish genuine relationships, conducted face-to-face rather than through a screen, the more we use knowledge to understand and put the world around us in context, the more we will be able to protect ourselves from the digital dystopia.

Smollett Developments Leave Some Baffled, Others Outraged

LOS ANGELES — The national outrage that simmered after actor Jussie Smollett said he was attacked by people shouting racial and anti-gay slurs was fueled in part by celebrities who spoke out loud and strong on social media.

But the outrage has now been replaced by surprise, doubt and bafflement as the singers, actors and politicians who came out in support of the “Empire” star struggle to digest the strange twists the case has taken. Some conservative pundits, meanwhile, have gleefully seized on the moment.

The narrative that just a week ago seemed cut-and-dry has become messy and divisive — and it’s all playing out again on social media.

Smollett, who is black and gay, said he was physically attacked last month by two masked men shouting racial and anti-gay slurs and “This is MAGA country!”— a reference to the Make America Great Again slogan used in President Donald Trump’s election campaign. Smollett said the attackers looped a rope around his neck before running away as he was out getting food at a Subway restaurant.

Celebrities including Ariana Grande, Zendaya, Kerry Washington, Shonda Rhimes and Andy Cohen rallied behind Smollett immediately. They focused on the alleged hate crime as a microcosm for the ills of America in 2019 and how intolerance can lead to violent acts. Smollett’s own celebrity and activism for the rights of the LGBTQ community helped raise the profile of the case even more.

But then published reports emerged that police believe Smollett may have staged the attack — something the actor has vehemently denied through his lawyers — or that a grand jury may hear evidence in the case. The reports cited unidentified police sources.

On Saturday, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the trajectory of the case had “shifted” — that two brothers who had been questioned had been released without charges and investigators wanted to speak to Smollett again . Guglielmi did not elaborate. On Sunday, he issued a statement saying that police “are not in a position to confirm, deny or comment on the validity of what’s been unofficially released.”

Smollett’s attorneys said Saturday that he would continue to cooperate with police but that he felt victimized by the suggestion he played a role in his attack.

Skeptics, including conservative pundits Dinesh D’Souza and Tomi Lahren, seized on the doubts that have arisen.

“And Libs wonder why we don’t believe their BS stories,” Lahren tweeted Saturday. On Sunday, she criticized those who used social media after the attack to push “the narrative (that) Trump supporters are racist homophobes.”

The response from Smollett’s celebrity supporters has ranged from silence to confusion and disbelief.

Author Roxane Gay tweeted Saturday that she doesn’t know what to say, but that the situation is a “mess” and a “travesty.”

“I genuinely thought no one, and especially no one that famous, could make something like that up,” Gay wrote. “The lie is so damaging. The time the CPD has spent/wasted on this. The people who supported him.”

GLAAD, a nongovernmental media-monitoring organization founded by LGBT members of the media, on Thursday reiterated its support for Smollett. The group said in a statement that the actor had been doubly victimized: first by the attack and then by the doubts cast around it.

When Smollett first reported that he was assaulted, Democratic New Jersey senator and presidential candidate Cory Booker called it a “modern-day lynching.” On Sunday, he said he would reserve judgment “until all the information actually comes out from on-the-record sources.”

Filmmaker Ava DuVernay said she is waiting for more information too. She tweeted on Sunday that she “can’t blindly believe” the Chicago Police Department.

But if there is a consensus among those who very vocally supported Smollett from the outset, it’s that no matter what happens in this case, they will still believe victims.

DuVernay said: “Whatever the outcome, this won’t stop me from believing others. It can’t.”

Gay echoed her sentiments, tweeting that she does not regret believing Smollett.

“I’m not going to stop believing people who say they have suffered,” Gay wrote. “Because more often than not they are telling the truth.”

___

Associated Press writer Elana Schor in Washington contributed to this report.

America Has a Lot to Learn From the Roman Empire’s Fall

What dreamers they were! They imagined a kind of global power that would leave even Rome at its Augustan height in the shade. They imagined a world made for one, a planet that could be swallowed by a single great power. No, not just great, but beyond anything ever seen before — one that would build (as its National Security Strategy put it in 2002) a military “beyond challenge.” Let’s be clear on that: no future power, or even bloc of powers, would ever be allowed to challenge it again.

And, in retrospect, can you completely blame them? I mean, it seemed so obvious then that we — the United States of America — were the best and the last. We had, after all, outclassed and outlasted every imperial power since the beginning of time. Even that other menacing superpower of the Cold War era, the Soviet Union, the “Evil Empire” that refused to stand down for almost half a century, had gone up in a puff of smoke.

Imagine that moment so many years later and consider the crew of neoconservatives who, under the aegis of George W. Bush, the son of the man who had “won” the Cold War, came to power in January 2001. Not surprisingly, on viewing the planet, they could see nothing — not a single damn thing — in their way. There was a desperately weakened and impoverished Russia (still with its nuclear arsenal more or less intact) that, as far as they were concerned, had been mollycoddled by President Bill Clinton’s administration. There was a Communist-gone-capitalist China focused on its own growth and little else. And there were a set of other potential enemies, “rogue powers” as they were dubbed, so pathetic that not one of them could, under any circumstances, be called “great.”

In 2002, in fact, three of them — Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — had to be cobbled together into an “axis of evil” to create a faintly adequate enemy, a minimalist excuse for the Bush administration to act preemptively. It couldn’t have been more obvious then that all three of them would go down before the unprecedented military and economic power of us (even if, as it happened, two of them didn’t).

It was as clear as glass that the world — the whole shebang — was there for the taking.  And it couldn’t have been headier, even after a tiny Islamist terror outfit hijacked four American jets and took out New York’s World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. As President Bush would put it in an address at West Point in 2002, “America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge, thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace.” In other words, jihadists aside, it was all over. From now on, there would be an arms race of one and it was obvious who that one would be. The National Security Strategy of that year put the same thought this way: “Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.” Again, anywhere on the planet ever.

Look at more or less any document from the period and you’ll sense that they weren’t shy about touting the unprecedented greatness of a future global Pax Americana. Take, for instance, columnist Charles Krauthammer who, in February 2001, six months before the terror attacks of September 11th, wrote a piece swooning over the new Bush administration’s “unilateralism” to come and the “Bush Doctrine” which would go with it. In the process, he gave that administration a green light to put the pathetic Russians in their nuclear place and summed the situation up this way: “America is no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome. Accordingly, America is in a position to reshape norms, alter expectations, and create new realities. How? By unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will.

“How Did USA’s Oil Get Under Iraq’s Sand?”

And soon enough after September 11th, those unapologetic, implacable demonstrations of will did, in fact, begin — first in Afghanistan and then, a year and a half later, in Iraq. Goadedby Osama bin Laden, the new Rome went into action.

Of course, in 2019 we have the benefit of hindsight, which Charles Krauthammer, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and the rest of that crew didn’t have as they applied their Roman-style vision of an imperial America to the actual world. It should be added, however, that the millions of people who hit the streets globally to protest the coming invasion of Iraq in the winter of 2003 — “How did USA’s oil get under Iraq’s sand?” said a typical protest sign(which Donald Trump would have understood in his own way) — had a far better sense of the world than did their American rulers-to-be. Like the Soviets before them, in fact, they would grievously confuse military power with power on this planet.

More than 17 years later, the U.S. military remains stuck in Afghanistan, bedeviled in Iraq, and floundering across much of the Greater Middle East and Africa on a planet with a resurgent Russia, and an impressively rising China. One-third of the former axis of evil, Iran, is, remarkably enough, still in Washington’s gunsights, while another third (North Korea) sits uncomfortably in a presidential bear hug. It’s no exaggeration to say that none of the dreams of a new Rome were ever faintly fulfilled. In fact, if you want to think about what’s been truly exceptional in these years, it might be this: never in history has such a great power, at its height, seemed quite so incapable of effectively applying force, military or otherwise, to achieve its imperial ends or bring its targets to heel.

And yet, wrong as they may have been on such subjects, don’t sell Krauthammer and the rest of that neocon crew short. They were, in their own way, also prophets, at least domestically speaking. After all, Rome, like the United States, had been an imperial republic. That republic was replaced, as its empire grew, by autocratic rule, first by the self-anointed emperor Augustus and then by his successors. Arguably, 18 years after Krauthammer wrote that column, the American republic might be heading down the same path. After all, so many years later, the neocons, triumphantly risen yet again in Washington (both in the administration and as its critics), finally have their Caesar.

Hail, Donald J. Trump, we who are about to read your latest tweet salute you!

A Rogue State of One

Let’s note some other passing parallels between the new Rome and the old one. As a start, it’s certainly accurate to say that our new American Caesar has much gall (divided into at least three parts). Admittedly, he’s no Augustus, the first of a line of emperors, but more likely a Nero, fiddling while, in his case, the world quite literally burns. Still, he could certainly say of campaign 2016 and what followed: Veni, Vidi, Tweeti (I came, I saw, I tweeted). And don’t forget the classic line that might someday be applied to his presidency, “Et tu, Mueller?” — or depending on who turns on him, you can fill in your name of choice.

One day, it might also be said that, in a country in which executive power has become ever more imperial (as has the power of the Senate’s majority leader), blowback from imperial acts abroad has had a significant, if largely hidden, hand in crippling the American republic, as was once true of Rome. In fact, it seems clear enough that the first republican institution to go was the citizen’s army. In the wake of the Vietnam War, the draft was thrown out and replaced by an “all-volunteer” force, one which would, as it came to fight on ever more distant battlefields, morph into a home-grown version of an imperial police force or foreign legion. With it went the staggering sums that, in this century, would be invested — if that’s even the word for it — in what’s still called “defense,” as well as in a vast empire of basesabroad and the national security state, a rising locus of power at home. And then, of course, there were the never-ending wars across much of the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa that went with all of that. Meanwhile, so much else, domestically speaking, was put on the equivalent of austerity rations. And all of that, in turn, helped provoke the crisis that brought Donald Trump to power and might, in the end, even sink the American system as we’ve known it.

The Donald’s victory in the 2016 election was always a sign of a deep disturbance at the heart of an increasingly unequal and unfair system of wealth and power. But it was those trillions of dollars — The Donald claims seven trillion of them — that the neocons began sinking into America’s “infinite” wars, which cost Americans big time in ways they hardly tracked or noticed. Those trillions didn’t go into shoring up American infrastructure or health care or education or job-training programs or anything else that might have mattered to most people here, even as untold tax dollars — one estimate: $15,000per middle-class family per year — went into the pockets of the rich. And some of those dollars, in turn, poured back into the American political system (with a helping hand from the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision) and, in the end, helped put the first billionaire in the Oval Office. By the 2020 election campaign, we may achieve another all-American first: two or even three of the candidates could be billionaires.

All of this not only gave Americans a visibly unhinged president — think of him, in axis-of-evil terms, as a rogue state of one — but an increasingly unhinged country. You can feel so much of this in President Trump’s confused and confusing attempts to both end American wars and ratchet them up, 17-and-a-half — he always claims “almost 19” — years after the invasion of Afghanistan. You can feel it in his gut-level urge to attack the “deep state” and yet fund it beyond its wildest dreams. You can feel it in his attempts to create a corps of “my generals” and then fire them all. You can feel the unhinged nature of events in a world in which, after so many years of war, America’s enemies still seem to have the formula for staying afloat, no matter what Washington does. The Taliban in Afghanistan is on the rise; al-Shabaab in Somalia, is still going strong; the Houthis in Yemen remain functional in a sea of horror and starvation; ISIS, now without its caliphate, has from Syria to the Philippines, Africa to Afghanistan, become a distinctly global brand; al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula thrives, while terror groups more generally continue to spread.

You can feel it in the president’s confused and confusing explanations for his urges to withdraw American troops in days or four months or whenever from Syria and do the same or maybe not exactly in Afghanistan. (As he said in his State of the Union address, American troops would both withdraw and “focus” on “counterterrorism” in that country.) You can feel it in the way, after so many years of visible failure, the neocons are once again riding high in Washington, ascendant both in his administration and as critics of its global and military policies.

These days, who even remembers that classic early Cold War question — who lost China? — that rattled American domestic politics for years, or later, the similar one about Vietnam? Still, if Donald Trump ever truly does withdraw American forces from Afghanistan (undoubtedly leaving this country’s allies in a Vietnam-style ditch), count on foreign policy establishmentarians in Washington and pundits around the country to ask an updated version of the same question: Did Donald Trump lose Afghanistan?

But no matter what happens, don’t make the mistake of blaming him. It’s true that he tweeted endlessly while the world burned, but he won’t be the one who “lost” Afghanistan. It was “lost” in the grisly dreams of the neocons as the century began and it’s never truly been found again.

Of course, we no more know what’s going to happen in the years ahead than the neocons did in 2001. If history has taught us anything, it’s that prediction is the diciest of human predilections. Still, think of this piece as an obituary of sorts. You know, the kind major newspapers write about those still living and then continually update until death finally occurs.

Think of it not as an obituary for a single loopy president, a man who, with his “great, great wall,” has indeed been an opiate of the masses (for his famed base, at least) in the midst of an opioid crisis hitting them hard. Yes, Donald J. Trump, reality TV star and bankruptee, he of the golden letters, was elevated to a strange version of power by a troubled republic showing signs of wear and tear. It was a republic feeling the pressure of all that money flowing into only half-noticed distant wars and into the pockets of billionaires and corporate entities in a way that turned the very idea of democracy into a bad joke.

Someday, if people ask the obvious question — not who lost Afghanistan, but who lost America? — keep all those failed imperial wars and the national security state that went with them in mind when you try to answer. Cumulatively, they had a far more disruptive role than is now imagined in toppling the dominos that sent us all careening on a path to nowhere here at home. And keep in mind that, whatever Donald Trump does, the Caesarian die was castearly in this century as the neocons crossed their own Rubicon.

Hail, Caesar, we who are about to die salute you!

The Reason Election Season Feels More Unbearable Than Ever

Amy Klobuchar could’ve waited for the temperature to rise above 15 degrees before launching her 2020 presidential bid. Instead, she chose to risk frostbite and make her pitch in the middle of a snowstorm — all for an election more than 600 days away.

The Minnesota senator is just one of around a dozen Democrats who’ve already thrown their hats into the presidential ring or hinted they intend to soon.

What’s the big rush?

People in other countries think we’re insane for having such long political races. By one count, in the timeframe of the 2016 U.S. election, you could’ve fit about four elections in Mexico, seven in Canada, 14 in the UK, and 41 in France.

If lengthy campaigns boosted voter education and turnout, I’d be all for them. But there’s scarce evidence of that. The United States ranks 26th out of 32 industrialized countries in the share of the voting age population that shows up at the polls.

So what can we do to avoid contests that shift politicians’ focus away from governing to endless campaigning?

We could try to compress our interminable primary process. But that wouldn’t make much difference when candidates are launching their bids a full year before the Iowa caucus.

A more effective step would be to slash the cost of competing for higher office. Candidates bolt out of the gates because they know it takes a long time to raise the mega-millions required for a White House run.

Imagine how many phone calls and fundraisers went into amassing the $6.5 billion spent on the 2016 election. A quarter of that huge sum came from donors who contributed at least $100,000.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that it was unconstitutional to place overall limits on federal campaign contributions. But we’re seeing a rise in candidates who voluntarily rebuff deep-pocketed donors.

“We need to end the unwritten rule of politics that says that anyone who wants to run for office has to start by sucking up to a bunch of rich donors on Wall Street and powerful insiders,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren told the crowd at her own frigid campaign launch. She won’t be taking a dime from political action committees (PACs).

Senator Bernie Sanders showed in 2016 that it’s possible to raise large sums from individual donors. His total haul: $228 million.

A proposal by House Democrats would go a long way towards boosting small contributions as a counter to the mega-donors.

As part of a sweeping anti-corruption initiative, H.R. 1 would grant tax credits for contributions of no more than $50. Candidates could also volunteer for a public financing option through which the federal government would put $6 into their coffers for every $1 raised in small donations (of no more than $200).

The Democratic proposal would also force Super PACs, which can raise unlimited sums to advocate for or against candidates, to make their donors public. This might discourage some of the shadiest forces from attempting to buy elections.

The bill includes a number of other important pro-democracy proposals. It would crack down on partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts and corrupt lobbying practices. It would also make Election Day a holiday for federal employees, hoping private sector businesses would also give their workers the day off.

None of these changes, I’m afraid, would have an immediate impact on the duration of U.S. election campaigns. But by making the process more equitable, these reforms might make the 600-plus days at least seem shorter.

CBS News’ Economic Fearmongering Is Based on Unreliable Sources

CBS News (2/14/19)

CBS News had a piece warning its audience about the problems of large government debt. It noted projections of rising US government debt, commenting:

The only countries with a higher debt load than the US are Portugal, Italy, Greece and Japan. The first three have become synonymous with profligate spending and economic woes post–Great Recession, while Japan’s “lost decade” of economic stagnation is a mainstay of economic textbooks.

The first three countries are all in the euro zone. They do not have their own currency, but rather must adhere to rules set by the European Central Bank and the European Commission. Their situation is comparable to that of a state in the United States. No one disputes that it would be a big problem for Utah or California to run up very large debts.

Japan is the country most comparable, but the textbooks CBS refers to seem not to be very reliable. According to the IMF, Japan’s per capita GDP has increased by an average rate of 0.9 percent annually between 1990 and 2018; while this is somewhat less than the 1.5 percent rate in the United States, it is hardly a disaster. In addition, average hours per worker fell 15.8 percent in Japan over this period, compared to a decline of just 2.9 percent in the United States.

In spite of having a debt to GDP ratio that is more than twice as large as the US, Japan does not provide evidence to support the warnings CBS gives about large deficits. Its long-term interest rates are near zero, meaning the debt is not crowding out investment. Its interest payments on its debt are roughly 0.5 percent of GDP ($100 billion in the United States), indicating that they are not crowding out other spending priorities. And its inflation rate is just over 1.0 percent, indicating that profligate spending has not led to a problem with inflation.

Former Congressman Anthony Weiner Released From Prison

AYER, Mass. — Disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner has been released from federal prison after being convicted of having illicit online contact with a 15-year-old girl in 2017.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons website shows the 54-year-old New York Democrat is currently in the custody of its Residential Re-entry Management office in Brooklyn, N.Y.

It’s not immediately clear when Weiner was transferred and where he’s staying now, but Weiner will have to register as a sex-offender and spend three years on supervised release under the terms of his sentence.

The prison bureau, federal prosecutors in New York and Weiner’s lawyer didn’t respond to emails seeking comment Sunday.

Weiner began serving a 21-month prison sentence at the Federal Medical Center Devens, located about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Boston in Ayer, Mass., in November 2017.

The bureau website shows Weiner is slated to complete his sentence May 14, a few months earlier than scheduled because of good conduct in prison.

A once-rising star in the Democratic Party who served nearly 12 years in Congress, Weiner had a dramatic and sordid fall from grace after he sent a lewd picture of himself to a college student over Twitter in 2011.

Weiner initially claimed his account had been hacked, then admitted he’d had inappropriate online interactions with at least six other women while married to top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

Weiner resigned from Congress that year but mounted a campaign for New York City mayor in 2013.

But his personal behavior was again his undoing after it was disclosed he sent explicit photos under the alias “Carlos Danger” to at least one woman after resigning from Congress.

Weiner ultimately garnered less than 5 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary.

His final fall came in 2017 after prosecutors say he sent a series of sexually explicit messages to a North Carolina high school student. Weiner pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor.

At his sentencing, he said he’d been a “very sick man for a very long time” because of his sex addiction.

Weiner’s attorney said the ex-lawmaker likely exchanged thousands of messages with hundreds of women over the years and was communicating with up to 19 women when he encountered the teenager.

Abedin also filed for divorce from Weiner in 2017. But the two, who have a young son together, later agreed to discontinue the case in order to negotiate their separation privately.

White House Indicates Trump to Veto Resolution to Disapprove Emergency

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump is prepared to issue the first veto of his term if Congress votes to disapprove his declaration of a national emergency along the U.S.-Mexico border, a top White House adviser said on Sunday.

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller told “Fox News Sunday” that “the president is going to protect his national emergency declaration.” Asked if that meant Trump was ready to veto a resolution of disapproval, Miller added, “He’s going to protect his national emergency declaration, guaranteed.”

The West Wing is digging in for fights on multiple fronts as the president’s effort to go around Congress to fund his long-promised border wall faces bipartisan criticism and multiple legal challenges. After lawmakers in both parties blocked his requests for billions of dollars to fulfill his signature campaign pledge, Trump’s declared national emergency Friday shifts billions of federal dollars earmarked for military construction to the border.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra told ABC’s “This Week” that his state would sue “imminently” to block the order, after the American Civil Liberties Union and the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen announced Friday they were taking legal action.

Democrats are planning to introduce a resolution disapproving of the declaration once Congress returns to session and it is likely to pass both chambers. Several Republican senators are already indicating they would vote against Trump — though there do not yet appear to be enough votes to override a veto by the president.

The White House’s Miller insisted that Congress granted the president wide berth under the National Emergencies Act to take action. But Trump’s declaration goes beyond previous emergencies in shifting money after Congress blocked his funding request for the wall, which will likely factor in legal challenges.

Trump aides acknowledge that Trump cannot meet his pledge to build the wall by the time voters decide whether to grant him another term next year, but insist his base will remain by his side as long as he is not perceived to have given up the fight on the barrier.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he believes Congress needs to act to “defend” its powers of the purse.

“I do think that we should not set the terrible precedent of letting a president declare a national emergency simply as a way of getting around the congressional appropriations process,” he said.

Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, a critic of Trump’s border policies, said he would support legislation to review Trump’s emergency declaration, saying, “It sets a dangerous precedent.”

“My concern is our government wasn’t designed to operate by national emergency,” he told CBS.

Trump ally Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told ABC that he believes there are enough GOP votes to prevent the supermajorities required to override a veto.

“I think there are plenty of votes in the House to make sure that there’s no override of the president’s veto,” he said. “So it’s going to be settled in court, we’ll have to wait and see.”

Brett Kavanaugh’s War on Roe v. Wade

This article was originally published at The Progressive.

On September 4, at the outset of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Brett Kavanaugh pledged that if he became the 114th Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, he would serve as a fair decider of the law.

“A good judge must be an umpire—a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no litigant or policy,” Kavanaugh told the committee. “I don’t decide cases based on personal or policy preferences. I am not a pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant judge.”

Even before Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified in late September that Kavanaugh had tried to rape her in 1982, when he was a seventeen-year-old high school student, Kavanaugh’s critics weren’t buying the umpire metaphor. They believed that Kavanaugh, if confirmed, would operate as a conservative judicial activist bent on moving the high tribunal hard to the right. Women’s groups, in particular, feared that Kavanaugh would provide a fifth and decisive vote to gut, and eventually overturn, Roe v. Wade.

It hasn’t taken Kavanaugh long to reveal his true ideological colors. He took his seat as an Associate Justice in October, and the big reveal came on February 7. That’s when the court voted 5-4 in the case of June Medical Services, LLC v. Gee to “stay” (i.e., block) a draconian Louisiana abortion law from taking effect.

Enacted in 2014, the Louisiana law would require that state’s abortion doctors to have active admitting privileges at a hospital within thirty miles of any clinic where they provide abortion services. Currently, there are only three abortion clinics in Louisiana. Just four doctors staff the clinics, and only one has the requisite admitting credentials. If allowed to take effect, abortion-rights proponents charge, the law would put at least one and possibly two of the clinics out of business due to the location of licensed hospitals, especially in rural areas.

On its face, the Louisiana statute is clearly unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, in which the court struck down a nearly identical Texas law that required physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. By a 5-3 margin reached after the death of Antonin Scalia, the court held that the Texas law placed an undue burden on women seeking abortion access in violation of both Roe and the court’s 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which affirmed Roe’s validity.

Although a federal district court judge declared the Louisiana law unconstitutional, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the judge last year in a thinly veiled challenge to the Whole Woman’s Health decision. The circuit’s ruling allowed the statute to be implemented as the state’s abortion providers petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case on its merits.

Unwilling to wait months for the Supreme Court to decide whether to grant their petition, the providers asked the court in late January to stay the Fifth Circuit’s decision for the duration of the appeals process.

Under the Supreme Court’s rules, it takes five votes to stay a lower-court action. But with Chief Justice Roberts joining the court’s four liberal members, the court granted the requested stay in a brief unsigned order.

Kavanaugh, along with Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch, dissented from the stay. Only Kavanaugh, however, wrote a separate signed opinion, setting forth his opposition.

Kavanaugh’s reasoning, according to Slate magazine’s legal-affairs columnist Mark Joseph Stern, is nothing less than “a declaration of war on Roe v. Wade.” While Kavanaugh’s dissent acknowledges that Whole Woman’s Health is controlling precedent, he nonetheless asserts that the abortion doctors who lack current hospital admitting privileges should be required to prove they cannot obtain those privileges.

Implicit in Kavanaugh’s opinion is the position, rejected in Whole Woman’s Health, that mandating abortion doctors to have active hospital-admitting privileges would confer a medical benefit on women rather than burden women with diminished access to abortion services.

Kavanaugh’s opinion stands sharply at odds with a March 2018 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which found that the vast majority of abortions can be, and are, provided safely in office-based settings.

For the time being, Kavanaugh has been held in check, thanks to Roberts’s intervention. But for abortion-rights advocates, any celebrations are premature. The Louisiana litigation isn’t over, but has merely been put on hold temporarily, pending review by the Supreme Court of the underlying merits of the law.

Unfortunately, if the Supreme Court opts to review the case, it is by no means certain that Roberts will vote to follow Whole Woman’s Health and strike down the Louisiana law. Roberts was one of the three dissenters in Whole Woman’s Health. Voting to stay the Fifth Circuit’s ruling on Louisiana’s new abortion law is a procedural act that in no way precludes Roberts from switching sides and joining Kavanaugh in a decision on the merits.

Despite all that has been written lately about Roberts as the court’s new swing vote, the Chief Justice is still a staunch conservative. He also has a history of rightwing activism, having joined with conservative majorities in such sea-changing landmarks as District of Columbia v. Heller on the Second Amendment, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on campaign finance, and authoring the majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the Voting Rights Act. Last year, Roberts wrote the 5-4 majority opinion in Trump v. Hawaii, upholding the President’s Muslim travel ban.

So when the dust finally settles on the Louisiana law, Kavanaugh’s views may yet prevail, undermining abortion rights and bringing us one step closer to a final legal showdown on Roe v. Wade.