Chris Hedges's Blog, page 161

Ralph Nader: Chuck Todd Is Everything Wrong With U.S. Media

Labor Day has come and gone. To most people it’s a day off and a splash of sales. The symbolism and meaning that inspired this national holiday back in 1894 has long since dissipated. Labor Day parades are affairs of the past, with very few exceptions, and those that still exist are facing dwindling participation – in the era of Donald the corporatist, no less.

Part of this neglect stems from major unions and their large locals. Labor leaders, year after year, miss the opportunity to speak through the local and national media about what’s on their mind regarding the state of workers today. I have urged labor leaders to develop a media strategy for Labor Day, since it is their one big day to give interviews and submit op-eds. Having major events or demonstrations on the needs of working families would invite coverage.

Even the usual excuse that the corporate press is not that interested goes away on Labor Day. The major labor chiefs just don’t take advantage of this yearly opportunity. That is one reason why over the years, raising the minimum wage; adopting card checks for union-desiring workers; pressing for full Medicare for All; and repealing the notorious, anti-union Taft Hartley Act of 1947 have remained at such low visibility.

On the other hand, the editors and reporters are not exactly reaching out for, say, interviews of Richard Trumka, the former coal miner who rose through the ranks and became the head of the AFL-CIO labor federation in Washington, DC. Trumka vs. Trump has a nice ring to it, but someone has to hit the bell.

There was little space devoted to labor policies, labor reforms, worker safety, the persistent private pension crisis, and the huge power imbalance in labor/management relations.

This Labor Day, The Washington Post and the New York Times had touching stories of workers in various jobs from a human interest point of view. There was little space devoted to labor policies, labor reforms, worker safety, the persistent private pension crisis, and the huge power imbalance in labor/management relations.

NBC’s Meet the Press, anchored by Chuck Todd, is symptomatic of the media’s indifference to showcasing Labor leaders on Labor Day.

Chuck Todd, the quick witted former citizen organizer, has lost control of his show to his corporate masters in New York City. He cannot even stop them from replacing his show entirely on the few Sundays when the NBC profiteers think there are more profits showing a major tennis, golf, or soccer tournament. My repeated complaints about this blackout to NBC chief, Andrew Lack, or to the corporatist chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, have received no reply.

Obviously, Chuck is working in a tough environment for any self-respecting journalist. But this past Sunday, Meet the Press reached a new low from its beginnings under the news-savvy Lawrence Spivak over 70 years ago. Meet the Press has become a ditto-head to the regular news shows’ saturation coverage. Todd covered Hurricane Dorian and the shootout in Texas, along with whether Joe Biden is too old for the Presidency. Repetitious and dull – he added nothing new for the audience.

The shrinking range of Meet the Press has been going on for some years. It focuses, with other network shows, on questioning politicians or their surrogates – sometimes the same guests on multiple shows – about inconsistencies, gaffes, thoughtless statements, or current political controversies. We don’t need to see yet another round with Trump’s Kellyanne Conway, who plays with Todd’s sharp questions.

The NBC corporate masters tell or signal to Todd who he can invite for his roundtable. He should never have corporatists from the American Enterprise Institute without having people from the Economic Policy Institute, Public Citizen, or Common Cause.

Brit Hume, before he went over to Fox, once told me that the real purpose of the Sunday shows was to let the Washington politicians have their say so they stay off the back of the networks. That was his way of explaining why the questions put to them were not as tough or deep as they could be.

Todd can be a tough questioner, but he is trapped in a cul-de-sac of predictability, trivia, and redundancy that demeans his talents.

Along with the other Sunday morning network news shows, Todd stays away from the all-important civic community – historically and presently the fountainhead for our democratic society. It is hard to name any blessing of America, great or small, that did not start with the work or demands of citizens. Improved civil rights and liberties, safer consumer products, workplace conditions and environments, nuclear arms treaties, and much more began this way. Citizen groups continue as watchdogs, documenting, litigating, lobbying, and pushing the powers that be on behalf of the American people.

In 1966, I was invited on Meet the Press by the legendary Lawrence Spivak to first highlight, on Sunday national TV, what needs to be done about unsafe cars. That helped auto safety action to move faster in Congress. The civic leaders of today are largely shut out from these forums. Civic startups cannot reach larger audiences and shape the politics of the day.

None of this is unknown to Chuck Todd. He has allowed his hands to be tied with golden handcuffs. One can almost sense his impatience with his roundtable guests spouting guarded opinions or conventional speculations suited to their current careers. But Chuck is very polite with them and his interviewees. As he has said, if you really go after these guests, they won’t come back next time. But why such a small pool? There are plenty of other fresh, courageous, accurate voices he can invite “next time.”  It’s that his corporate bosses won’t let him.

Todd has much more potential than to continue his increasingly trivialized, though sometimes temporarily sensationalized, role as an anchor of a withering show “brought to you by Boeing.” He should request reassignment or resign for more significant journalistic challenges. He really doesn’t need the money anymore.

U.S., Chinese Envoys to Meet in October for Tariff War Talks

BEIJING—U.S. and Chinese envoys will meet in early October for more talks aimed at ending a tariff war that threatens global economic growth.

Stock markets rose on Thursday’s announcement but there has been no sign of progress since Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping agreed in June to resume deadlocked negotiations about trade and technology.

The agreement on timing came in a phone call conducted by the chief Chinese envoy, Vice Premier Liu He, with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement.

Officials will “conduct conscientious consultations” in mid-September to prepare, the ministry said. It gave no details but said the two sides want to create “favorable conditions.”

China’s main stock market index closed up 1% following the announcement. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gained 2.1% and South Korea’s main index rose 0.8%.

Beijing is balking at U.S. pressure to roll back plans for government-led creation of global competitors in robotics and other industries.

The U.S., Europe, Japan and other trading partners say those plans violate China’s market-opening commitments and are based on stealing or pressuring companies to hand over technology.

The U.S. and China have raised tariffs on billions of dollars of each other’s imports, disrupting trade in goods from soybeans to medical equipment and battering traders on both sides.

In their latest escalation, Washington imposed 15% tariffs on $112 billion of Chinese imports Sunday and is planning to hit another $160 billion Dec. 15 — moves that would extend penalties to almost everything the United States buys from China. Beijing responded by imposing duties of 10% and 5% on a range of American imports.

U.S. tariffs of 25% imposed previously on $250 billion of Chinese goods are due to rise to 30% on Oct. 1.

Asked whether Washington might postpone that increase, a Commerce Ministry spokesman, Gao Feng, said he had no additional details.

China has imposed or announced penalties on a total of about $120 billion of U.S. imports, economists estimate. Some have been hit with increases more than once, while about $50 billion of U.S. goods is unaffected, possibly to avoid disrupting Chinese industries.

Beijing also has retaliated by canceling purchases of soybeans, the biggest single U.S. export to China.

The Chinese government has agreed to narrow its politically sensitive trade surplus with the U.S. but is reluctant to give up development strategies it sees as a path to prosperity and global influence.

The trade war is taking a toll on both economies.

“Logically, it makes sense from economic and political standpoints for both Trump and Xi to put an end to the trade war,” said Daniel Ikenson, director of the center for trade policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “The U.S. manufacturing sector appears to be contracting and signs point to a broadening U.S. economic slowdown… Meanwhile, the trade war is worsening troubles in the Chinese economy.”

Ikenson said Xi is getting pushback from other Chinese officials who “are unhappy with the trajectory and tenor of the U.S.-China relationship under his leadership, (believing) that Xi has been unnecessarily provocative.”

As a result, “there may be a window for striking a deal, which is far less significant than has been advertised, but which Trump and Xi can spin as respective wins to the domestic audiences they need to assuage,” Ikenson said.

Talks broke down in May over how to enforce any agreement.

China insists Trump’s punitive tariffs must be lifted once a deal takes effect. Washington says at least some must stay to make sure Beijing carries out any promises.

The last round of talks in July in Shanghai ended with no indication of progress. Neither government has given any indication it is ready to break the deadlock by offering concessions.

Some analysts suggest Beijing is holding out in hopes Trump will feel pressure to make a more favorable deal as his campaign for the 2020 presidential election picks up. Trump has warned that if he is re-elected, China will face a tougher U.S. negotiating stance.

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AP Economics Writer Paul Wiseman in Washington contributed to this story.

Progressives Can’t Play Nice With Democrats Anymore

Progressive activists often see a frustrating pattern. Many Democrats in office are good at liberal platitudes but don’t really fight for what we need. Even when constituents organize to lobby or protest, they have little leverage compared to big campaign donors, party leaders and corporate media spin. Activist efforts routinely fall short because—while propelled by facts and passion—they lack power.

Right now, in dozens of Democratic congressional districts, the most effective way for progressives to “lobby” their inadequate representatives would be to “primary” them. Activists may flatter themselves into believing that they have the most influence by seeking warm personal relationships with a Democratic lawmaker. But a credible primary campaign is likely to change an elected official’s behavior far more quickly and extensively.

In short, all too often, progressive activists are routinely just too frigging nice—without galvanizing major grassroots power.

With rare exceptions, it doesn’t do much good to concentrate on appealing to the hearts of people who run a heartless system. It may be tempting to tout some sort of politics of love as the antidote to the horrors of the status quo. But, as Martin Luther King Jr. wrote shortly before he was murdered, “love without power is sentimental and anemic.” Beyond speaking truth to power, it’s crucial to take power away from those abusing or squandering it.

In the long run, constituents’ deference to officeholders is a barrier to effectiveness—much to the satisfaction of people who reap massive profits from the status quo of corporate power, rampant social injustice, systemic racism, vast economic inequities, environmental destruction, and the war machinery.

If activists in New York’s 14th Congressional District had been content to rely on lobbying instead of primarying, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would still be tending bar—and power broker Joe Crowley would still be serving his corporate clients as a Democratic leader in Congress.

The Bad Blues report issued in early summer (written by Jeff Cohen, Pia Gallegos, Sam McCann and myself for RootsAction.org) zeroed in on 15 House Democrats who deserve to be primaried in 2020. The report acknowledges that it is “by no means exhaustive—only illustrative,” adding: “There may well be a Democratic member of Congress near you not included here who serves corporate interests more than majority interests, or has simply grown tired or complacent in the never-ending struggles for social, racial and economic justice as well as environmental sanity and peace.”

A few words of caution: Running a primary campaign should be well-planned, far in advance. It should not be an impulse item. And it’s best to field only one progressive challenger; otherwise, the chances of ousting or jolting the incumbent are apt to be greatly diminished.

“It isn’t easy to defeat a Democratic incumbent in a primary,” the Bad Blues report noted. “Typically, the worse the Congress member, the more (corporate) funding they get. While most insurgent primary campaigns will not win, they’re often very worthwhile—helping progressive constituencies to get better organized and to win elections later. And a grassroots primary campaign can put a scare into the Democratic incumbent to pay more attention to voters and less to big donors.”

An example of a promising campaign to defeat a powerful corporate Democrat is emerging in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, where six-term incumbent Kurt Schrader is facing a challenge in a slightly blue district that includes much of the Willamette Valley and the coast. The challenger is the mayor of the 20,000-population city of Milwaukee, Mark Gamba, who told us that Schrader “likes to pretend that he’s reaching across the aisle to get things done, but it almost always goes back to the corporations that back him financially.”

Schrader—a longtime member of the Blue Dog Coalition—gets a lot of money from corporate interests, including from the Koch Industries PAC. Last year, only one House Democrat was ranked higher on “key issues” by the anti-union, anti-environment U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Gamba intends to make climate a central issue of the campaign to unseat Schrader—who, he says, “has been notably absent on any substantive climate policy.” (Only four House Democrats have a lower lifetime environmental score than Schrader.)

Gamba also supports Medicare for All, while he says his opponent “is quietly but actively opposing Medicare for All or any law that actually cuts into the profits of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.” A coalition of groups—including National Nurses United, Health Care for All Oregon-Action and Democratic Socialists of America—has scheduled a rally in front of Schrader’s Oregon City office on September 6. The organizers say: “We should convince him how affordable and equitable Medicare for All will be.”

In the few months since Gamba announced his primary challenge to Schrader, voices of opposition to the incumbent have become more significant. “I have called out Congressman Kurt Schrader for his continuing record of voting against the needs of workers,” the retiring Oregon AFL-CIO president, Tom Chamberlain, recently wrote. “On July 15, 2019, Schrader once again showed his corporate colors and voted against raising the federal minimum wage. I am always hopeful that a strong pro-worker candidate will emerge from Oregon’s 5th Congressional District so we can show Schrader the door to retirement.”

Among the top targets of the pathbreaking group Justice Democrats is corporate-tied Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar—a Democrat in name only. No Democrat voted more frequently with Trump in 2017-18, and none had a higher ranking in 2018 from the Chamber of Commerce. One of the rare Democrats backed by the Koch Industries PAC, Cuellar is  and disliked by pro-choice groups and environmentalists. Although representing a predominantly Latino district with many immigrants and children of immigrants, he won praise from Fox News for his “hardline talk” on deporting immigrant youths.

The good news is that Justice Democrats—which was instrumental in Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning 2018 victory—is backing a primary challenge to Cuellar in the person of Jessica Cisneros, a young human rights lawyer with a history of defending immigrants. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she was born and raised in Laredo, the main population center in the strongly Democratic South Texas district. If Cisneros defeats the well-funded Cuellar in the primary, “the Squad” of House progressives would gain an exciting new member.

Insurgent progressives need a lot more allies elected to Congress as well as colleagues who feel rising heat from the left in their districts. That will require social movements strong enough to sway mainstream entrenched Democrats—with the capacity to “primary” them when necessary.

Hurricane Dorian Batters the Carolinas as It Pushes Northward

CHARLESTON, S.C.—Hurricane Dorian raked the coastal Carolinas with howling, window-rattling winds and sideways rain Thursday, spinning off tornadoes and knocking out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it pushed northward toward the dangerously exposed Outer Banks.

Leaving at least 20 people dead in its wake in the devastated Bahamas, Dorian made its way up the Eastern Seaboard, sweeping past Florida on Wednesday at a relatively safe distance. From there, the storm apparently grazed Georgia overnight, then hugged the South Carolina coast with more serious effects.

It strengthened briefly to a Category 3 hurricane, then dropped back to a Category 2, with winds of 110 mph, still a threat to hundreds of miles of coastline.

“Get to safety and stay there,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said. “This won’t be a brush-by. Whether it comes ashore or not, the eye of the storm will be close enough to cause extensive damage in North Carolina.”

An estimated 3 million people in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas were warned to evacuate as the storm closed in. Navy ships were ordered to ride it out at sea, and military aircraft were moved inland.

At least two deaths were reported on the U.S. mainland, in Florida and North Carolina, both involving men who fell while getting ready for the storm.

The National Hurricane Center’s projected track showed Dorian passing near or over North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Friday, lashing the thin line of islands that stick out from the U.S. coast like a boxer’s chin. Dorian was then expected to peel away from the shoreline.

“I think we’re in for a great big mess,” said Leslie Lanier, who decided to stay behind and boarded up her home and bookstore on Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks, making sure to move the volumes 5 to 6 feet off the ground.

“We are thinking maybe we should have moved the books higher because of storm surge,” Lanier said. “But we’re kind of to the point where we can’t do much more.”

In an assault that began over Labor Day weekend, Dorian pounded the Bahamas with Category 5 winds up to 185 mph (295 kph), obliterating entire neighborhoods and triggering a humanitarian crisis.

About 830,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders on the South Carolina coast alone.

The National Hurricane Center forecast as much as 15 inches of rain for the coastal Carolinas, with flash-flooding likely.

In Charleston, South Carolina, a historic port city of handsome antebellum homes on a peninsula that is prone to flooding even from ordinary storms, the wind sent sheets of rain sideways, thunder boomed in the night sky, and power flickered on and off as the storm closed in. More than two dozen blocks were closed by flooding in the city, where stores and restaurants downtown were boarded up with wood and corrugated metal.

The hurricane’s approach coincided with a rising tide in the afternoon that forecasters said could worsen flooding in the city.

Dorian also apparently spun off at least one tornado in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, damaging several homes, city spokesman Patrick Dowling said. The beach town of Emerald Isle, North Carolina, said a tornado touched there, too, and it posted pictures of smashed homes and RVs. No injuries were reported.

By late morning, in coastal Wilmington, North Carolina, just above the South Carolina line, heavy rain fell sideways, trees bent in the wind and traffic lights swayed.

At 11 a.m. EDT Thursday, the hurricane was centered about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Charleston, moving north at 8 mph (13 kph) with winds of 110 mph (175 kph) extending about 60 miles (95 kilometers) outward.

Hundreds of shelter animals from coastal South Carolina arrived in Delaware ahead of the storm. The News Journal of Wilmington, Delaware, said 200 were airlifted early Tuesday from shelters in danger of flooding. About 150 more were expected to arrive via land.

In Georgia, evacuation orders covering hundreds of thousands of people along the coast were lifted Thursday morning after the shoreline was largely spared by Dorian overnight.

Mayor Jason Buelterman of Tybee Island, Georgia, said the beach community of 3,000 people came through it without flooding, and the lone highway linking the island to Savannah on the mainland remained open throughout the night.

“If the worst that comes out of this is people blame others for calling evacuations, then that’s wonderful,” he said.

Tybee Islander Bruce Pevey went outside to take photos of unscathed homes to text to neighbors who evacuated. The storm, he said, turned out to be “a bunch of nothing.”

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Associated Press reporters Russ Bynum in Tybee Island, Georgia; Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; Jeffrey Collins in Carolina Beach, North Carolina; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.

Hong Kong’s Mass Movement Isn’t Controlled by the U.S.

For the 13th weekend in a row, protesters took to the streets of Hong Kong last weekend, marching in the rain. Some tossed Molotov cocktails at police and faced water cannons and tear gas from law enforcement authorities. Their fight against Chinese domination has continued, surpassing most expectations, and has weathered multiple storms, including the arrest Friday of several prominent activist leaders, including Joshua Wong and Agnew Chow. On Sunday, protesters tried for a second time to shut down the busy international airport of the cosmopolitan trade hub, and on Monday, thousands of students boycotted the first day of school.

At the same time the actions were unfolding, Reuters reported that Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam had made remarks, captured on a recording, to business leaders behind closed doors expressing deep remorse for her role in the protests. Lam said, “For a chief executive to have caused this huge havoc in Hong Kong is unforgiveable. It’s just unforgiveable.” She added, “If I have a choice, the first thing [I would do] is to quit.” Lam’s introduction of an extradition treaty with China in June, that would potentially turn over dissidents to the Chinese government, had triggered the mass activism in the first place. Three months later, Hong Kong remains crippled by relentless opposition to the bill—which Lam suspended but had until recently refused to fully withdraw.  In a testament to the power of the movement’s persistence, Lam finally caved in and announced she will fully withdraw the extradition bill.

But a recent U.S.-based report on the Hong Kong protests has sowed doubt among American leftists as to the legitimacy of the Hong Kong protests. Writing in The Grayzone, Dan Cohen claims Hong Kong’s protesters are backed by the U.S. and marked by “nativism and mob violence.” Francis Yip, an associate professor of Christian theology at the Divinity School of Chung Chi College in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has been closely following the protests. Yup told me in an interview that he was “appalled in reading this article,” which he says “has misunderstood the whole movement.” Yip contends there is a wide spectrum of political beliefs within the movement and that attempts to label it as left-wing or right-wing are futile. He maintains there is not the “kind of far-right people like the white supremacists in the United States,” to be found among Hong Kong’s activists.

Two million of Hong Kong’s seven million people have shown up to march in the streets. That’s the rough equivalent of about 93 million Americans marching on a single day in the U.S. As a comparison, if such a thing were to ever happen in this nation, it is likely that most parts of the American political spectrum would be represented among activists. Hong Kong’s mass movement may not be left-wing but neither is it right-wing, and attempts to force it to fit an American lens of “progressives versus conservatives” are shortsighted.

It is true that some prominent activists have met with American politicians in the United States. Jimmy Lai, who owns the prominent media outlet Next Digital and who is active in the movement, has met U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. According to Yip, the reason is likely a simple one: Lai was interested in making the case for Hong Kong’s protesters to whomever was in power in the U.S. The Chinese response to Lai’s meetings was swift and harsh, with a foreign office spokesperson condemning both Lai and the Trump administration, saying, “These national scum and Hong Kong sinners will always be nailed to the pillar of shame in our history.”

Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has also met U.S. House Speaker and Democratic Party leader Nancy Pelosi, seeking international support for the movement. Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida have introduced a The Hong Kong Free Press says the bill seeks to “impose penalties upon Hong Kong and mainland China officials who suppress basic freedoms in Hong Kong.” Clearly there are elements in both major parties in the U.S. that are eager to undermine China’s global standing and support the Hong Kong protests to that end. But does that mean the millions of Hong Kongers who have been mobilizing for months are pawns in a nefarious U.S. plot against China? Yip is adamant that is not the case. In fact, the assertion that the U.S. is behind Hong Kong’s protests—echoed in Cohen’s article—is exactly the case China has made to try to discredit the activists.

Hong Kong’s activists have reached out to anyone who will listen for support of their movement. Wong this week traveled to Taiwan to call on its people to show their support. Indeed, this is exactly what China fears.  China is worried that Hong Kong’s activism might inspire  dissidents in Taiwan, or even worse, those in mainland China. In fact, there are already reports that some mainland Chinese citizens have sneaked into Hong Kong to “support a society that offers freedoms unavailable back home.”

Perhaps that is why China has gone to such great lengths to control information about the protests, especially on social media platforms. Yip says, “China has been quite active in influencing public opinion through all kinds of propaganda.” Recently Twitter discovered nearly 1,000 fake accounts that originate in China and that, the tech company said in a statement “were deliberately and specifically attempting to sow political discord in Hong Kong, including undermining the legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement on the ground.” Facebook found a smaller number of accounts it says were linked to the Chinese government focusing on the Hong Kong protests. And Google said it “disabled 210 channels on YouTube” that were behaving in “a coordinated manner while uploading videos related to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong.”

There is no mention in Cohen’s article about the many documented instances of police brutality (here, here, here and here) aimed at Hong Kong’s protesters—only of the attacks that police have faced from activists. But it is precisely the acts of violence by law enforcement authorities symbolizing the Chinese government’s overreach that Hong Kongers are resisting. Documenting the police violence would offer a counternarrative to the idea that the millions of Hong Kong protesters have no real reason to march day after day.

When I asked Yip whether the Hong Kong police answer to local authorities or the Chinese government, he answered, “This is a very good question.” He added, “The police seems to be a force that is not in complete control under the local government.” According to Yip, this may be the reason why the chief executive has so far refused to set up an independent commission to investigate police brutality for fear of discovering who is giving the police their marching orders.

Hong Kong’s relative autonomy is now under question as China reevaluates the idea of “one country, two systems.” It is precisely because Hong Kong has been a freer society compared to mainland China that these protests are taking place. And because China cannot fully control international media coverage of Hong Kong, global scrutiny has held the authoritarian government at bay. Supporters of democracy ought to be cheering the efforts of any group fighting for their civil and human rights, whether or not the U.S. government has an interest in the outcome.

Watch Kolhatkar’s interview with Yip in the video below (via Rising Up With Sonali):

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro Praises Pinochet in Chile

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro criticized on Wednesday U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, who is from Chile, by praising that country’s 1973 military coup.

Bachelet “forgets that her country is not Cuba only thanks to the courage of those who stopped the left in 1973,” Bolsonaro wrote on his Facebook page, adding that among the communists that were defeated then was her father.

Bachelet’s father Alberto, an air force officer who opposed Gen. Augusto Pinochet during the coup, was imprisoned and tortured. He died in captivity in 1974.

The president’s comments came as the U.N. official and former Chilean president raised concerns about an increasing rate of killings by police in Brazil as well as alleged restrictions on civil liberties.

Speaking in Geneva, Bachelet condemned a rise in police executions “amidst a public discourse legitimizing summary executions” and the “absence of accountability”.

Without naming the Brazilian president, Bachelet criticized his wish to celebrate Brazil’s 1964 military coup as well as the denial of past state crimes. An attitude, she said, that resulted in state agents feeling “above the law and effectively able to kill without being held accountable”.

Bolsonaro says Brazil is democratic and Bachelet’s remarks amount to meddling in Brazil’s affairs.

He compared her intrusion into “Brazilian sovereignty” to those recently made by French President Emmanuel Macron, who criticized Brazil for its handling of the Amazon fires and the country’s wider approach to climate change and the environment.

A former army captain, Bolsonaro has repeatedly praised Brazil’s 1964-1985 military regime.

Brazil’s national truth commission concluded in 2014 that at least 434 people were killed or disappeared in the hands of the state during the dictatorship. It is estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 people were illegally arrested and tortured.

In 2016, when voting to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, a victim of torture by the Brazilian military regime, Bolsonaro dedicated his vote to a colonel in charge of the torture unit. “In memory of Col. Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, the terror of Dilma Rousseff, I vote yes,” Bolsonaro said.

In Chile, several politicians came out in support of Bachelet, who was elected president twice. Sen. Isabel Allende, daughter of former president Salvador Allende, ousted by the 1973 military coup, said that French President Macron was right when saying that “the people of Brazil do not deserve the President who has”.

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Associated Press reporter Eva Vergara in Chile contributed to this report.

Trump’s Trade Wars Are Taking a Toll on America’s Pastime

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Since 1983, Kim Karsh has helped baseball teams deal with an inconvenient fact of the modern economy: Almost everything you need to play America’s homegrown sport is now made in China, from cleats to batting helmets.

Lately, supplying the game’s amateurs and fans has gotten more difficult. Karsh owns California Pro Sports in Harbor City, California, where invoices for big customers now include a caveat: Prices are up due to the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese imports, and they could rise further on short notice.

“We have to explain to our customers that the trade war affects them as it does us,” Karsh said. “We can pass on pretty much everything to the consumer. The problem is, now they will shop lower-quality items. Some understand, and other people don’t.”

Although duties set to kick in soon will affect all manner of sports equipment that hasn’t been made in America for decades, baseball enthusiasts are perhaps affected most because so many items are needed to play the game.

Baseball caps were hit first by the third round of China tariffs that went into effect at 10% last September and rose to 25% in January, on top of the 7.5% base tariff. Those added about a dollar to the cost of a hat, Karsh said. Trump’s tariff will rise to 30% in October, bringing the total to 37.5%, and possibly causing another price increase.

Retail prices for metal bats have already risen $5 to $10 each, Karsh said, even though a 10% hike on bats and other sporting goods was put off until Dec. 15 as the Trump administration made a concession to the Christmas shopping season. On Aug. 23, President Donald Trump said he would jack up the levy to 15%.

Baseballs themselves faced tariffs starting Sept. 1, and although Karsh said prices haven’t increased yet, he’s expecting to add between $3 and $5 per dozen. “If you can buy now that would be a plus,” Karsh told customers in August, figuring the only direction the tariffs will go is up.

Since the sporting goods industry has become so dominated by Chinese imports, teams have little ability to shop around. Meanwhile, equipment is not the only mounting cost, with rising fees at municipal fields and less volunteer labor from parents. That raises the barrier to entry for a game that’s supposed to be accessible to everyone.

“Baseball is struggling. The expense of playing the game has gone up sky high,” said Charles Blackburn, executive director of the National Amateur Baseball Federation, a 105-year-old volunteer group that organizes teams and tournaments. “It’s a tax on top of a tax. They’re discouraging people from playing the game of baseball.”

The story of how baseball gear became a product of China is the tale of globalization, writ small.

In the 1800s, when baseball consisted of loosely organized leagues with few uniform standards, balls were made in a factory in Natick, Massachusetts, and sewn together by women who worked out of their homes. The manufacturer, Harwood, developed the iconic figure-eight seam design involving 108 stitches and horsehide tanned on the outskirts of town.

As baseball developed, the major leagues standardized their balls and cut exclusive sourcing deals, first with Spalding and then with St. Louis-based Rawlings. Partly owned by Major League Baseball, Rawlings is now the nation’s largest supplier of baseball gear, and also a heavy importer from China.

Even slight alterations in baseball materials and construction can lead to heated debates, fueled most recently by a rise in home runs that some have theorized may have to do with the 5-ounce spheres having less drag. But the physical ball hasn’t changed much since 1977, when Rawlings officially started producing them for both the National and American Leagues. A cork center is coated with rubber, wound with hundreds of yards of wool and cotton yarn, and finished with hand-sewn leather. Since it remains a labor-intensive process — with no machine yet able to navigate those 108 stitches — manufacturers have moved around the world in search of lower wages and higher-volume suppliers of raw materials with less toxic production processes.

“We had the facilities and the know-how,” said Bill Sells, senior vice president for government affairs at the Sports and Fitness Industry Association. “And as the market developed, others became proficient at making balls, and it went overseas.”

While the major leagues won’t be affected much by tariffs on Chinese imports, everyone from Double A players down through the office softball team will be.

Rawlings made its balls in Puerto Rico until the 1960s, when it moved to Haiti — along with other ball manufacturers, like Wilson — in search of lower labor costs. As workers in Haiti agitated for higher pay and the political situation destabilized, Rawlings then moved production to Costa Rica, where balls are still produced for the major leagues and Triple A teams.

But in 1994, Rawlings started sourcing lower-end balls for mass consumption in China. Now, America imports $69.5 million worth of baseballs and softballs from China annually, compared with $18.5 million from the next-largest supplier, Costa Rica.

Only one company still produces baseball gloves in America — Texas-based Nokona, which sells mitts for hundreds of dollars each. Wooden bats are still produced in the U.S., which is rich in lumber. But metal and composite bats are largely made in China, and those are the ones used by club and school leagues with the tightest budgets.

Although U.S.-based sporting goods companies now produce almost none of their own gear, increasing the cost of imports from China could still jeopardize thousands of U.S. white collar jobs in design, product development, and sales and marketing.

Rawlings, which declined to comment, argued against tariffs in a June letter to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. It said that if tariffs were imposed, “entire product lines” could be eliminated, and job losses within its 670-person domestic workforce would be “inevitable.”

So far, no major manufacturers have responded to Trump’s tariffs by saying they will move their supply chains out of China. Baden Sports, a family-owned sporting goods manufacturer based in Renton, Washington, tried to rush its orders to get inventory through customs before new duties take effect. After that, CEO Michael Schindler says they’ll try to distribute increased costs.

“We’re working hard with our suppliers to help alleviate the hit,” Schindler said. “The Chinese government changes the currency to account for about 2%. Then you pass a couple percent on to your customers, and you might eat a percent or two. Everybody participates in the pain. It’s in everybody’s best interest to keep the thing going.”

But Schindler acknowledged China may not be his company’s last stop. As China moves on to higher-tech products like electric cars, Schindler said, the painstaking work of ball manufacturing may migrate to nations earlier on in their industrial evolution, like Bangladesh and Malaysia — just as his company shifted from Taiwan and South Korea in the 1980s to Japan and on to China. For his next move, Schindler is thinking about someplace closer to his customers, like Mexico or the Dominican Republic.

The problem is, other countries don’t have the labor force or the port capacity yet to handle a total exodus from China. Also, relationships with suppliers are hard to build: Baden has worked with the same Taiwanese-owned company since 1979, as it moved with him from country to country. It’s easier to relocate within Asia than to move halfway across the world — especially when the tariff situation seems to change from week to week.

“If you’re not thinking about it, you’re nuts,” Schindler said. “It’s almost impossible to do anything about it quickly. And partially because when the tariffs were first talked about, you never really knew. It’s really hard to make hard and fast decisions when you really don’t know.”

Uncertainty also faces most baseball teams and leagues as they plan next season’s purchases.

The Fort Wayne TinCaps, a Class A team, has braced for a cost increase. The team bought 8,160 balls last year at $53 a dozen, which comes to $36,040. Rawlings has an exclusive contract to supply the TinCaps with Chinese-made baseballs, so there’s no way to bargain down the price. Although the TinCaps share the cost of bats and balls with their major league affiliate, the San Diego Padres, collectively the tariffs could mean a significant cost increase by next year.

And that could also affect the fan experience, from Double A teams on down, said team President Michael Nutter. One of the traditions of these games is tossing balls out to eager fans, which can get expensive if prices rise.

“I know some teams and operators are really strict with the baseballs and discourage players from throwing them to fans and trying to protect every single baseball,” Nutter said, while noting that he’ll continue to encourage fielders to be generous. “Really, to us, this is a cost of doing business.”

Youth sports have even less wiggle room. Tariffs have been on the minds of school baseball team managers across the country, many of whom operate on fixed budgets from local governments, dues paid by parents and ticket sales.

“Anytime there’s an increase in equipment cost, it gets passed on to the gate, or you have another fundraiser,” said Shelton Crews, executive director of the Florida Athletic Coaches Association. “I know up here in Tallahassee, parents have to raise so much money or make up the difference in cash.”

At a certain point, increased prices will translate into lower sales, especially for the mom-and-pop shops like Karsh’s that already operate on razor-thin margins.

“We can survive, but it’s very unfortunate what they’re doing,” Karsh said. “The manufacturers have put all their eggs in one basket. But there’s not much I can do about it. Not much anybody can do about it.”

How the U.S. Shattered the Middle East

Yemen is a nightmare, a catastrophe, a mess—and the United States is highly complicit in the whole disaster. Refueling Saudi aircraft in-flight, providing targeting intelligence to the kingdom and selling the requisite bombs that have been dropped for years now on Yemeni civilians places the 100,000-plus deaths, millions of refugees, and (still) starving children squarely on the American conscience. If, that is, Washington can still claim to have a conscience.

The back story in Yemen, already the Arab world’s poorest country, is relevant. Briefly, the cataclysm went something like this: Protests against the U.S.-backed dictator during the Arab Spring broke out in 2011. After a bit, an indecisive and hesitant President Obama called for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down. A Saudi-backed transitional government took over but governed (surprise, surprise) poorly. Then, from 2014 to 2015, a vaguely Shiite militia from Yemen’s north swarmed southward and seized the capital, along with half the country. At that point, rather than broker a peace, the U.S. quietly went along with, and militarily supported, a Saudi terror-bombing campaign, starvation blockade and mercenary invasion that mainly affected Yemeni civilians. At that point, Yemen had broken in two.

Now, as the Saudi campaign has clearly faltered—despite killing tens of thousands of civilians and starving at least 85,000 children to death along the way—stalemate reigns. Until this past week, that is, when southern separatists (there was once, before 1990, a South and North Yemen) seized the major port city of Yemen, backed by the Saudis’ ostensible partners in crime, the United Arab Emirates. So it was that there were then three Yemens, and ever more fracture. In the last few days, the Saudi-backed transitional government retook Aden, but southern separatism seems stronger than ever in the region.

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Like Humpty-Dumpty in the nursery rhyme, it’s far from clear that Yemen can ever be put back together again. Add to that the fact that al-Qaida-linked militants have used the chaos of war to carve out some autonomy in the ungoverned southeast of the country and one might plausibly argue that the outcome of U.S.-backed Saudi intervention has been no less than four Yemens.

What makes the situation in the Arabian Peninsula’s south particularly disturbing is that supposed foreign policy “experts” in D.C. have long been hysterically asserting that the top risk to America’s safety are Islamist-occupied “safe havens” or ungoverned spaces. I’m far from convinced that the safe-haven myth carries much water; after all, the 9/11 attacks were planned in Germany and the U.S. as much as in, supposedly, the caves of Afghanistan. Still, for argument’s sake, let’s take the interventionist experts’ assumption at face value. In that case, isn’t it ironic that in Yemen—and (as I’ll demonstrate) countless other countries—U.S. military action has repeatedly created the very state fracture and ungoverned spaces the policymakers and pundits so fear?

Let us take an ever-so-brief tour of Washington’s two-decade history of utterly rupturing Greater Mideast nation-states and splintering an already fractious region. Here goes, from West to East, in an admittedly noncomprehensive list.

U.S. airstrikes and regime change policy in Libya has unleashed an ongoing civil war, divided the country between at least two warlords, and enabled arms and militiamen to cross the southern border and destabilize West Africa. Which means that Niger, Libya, Cameroon, Mali, Chad and Nigeria have seen their shared territory around Lake Chad become a disputed region, contested by a newly empowered array of Islamists. That, of course, led the U.S. military to plop a few thousand troops in these countries. That deployment is unlikely to end well.

In Israel/Palestine, decades of reflexive U.S. support for Israel and Donald Trump’s doubling down on that policy—by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and turning a blind eye to Israeli plans to annex much of the West Bank—have ensured, once and for all, that there can be no viable Palestinian state. Which means that the area is divided into at least three (for the Palestinians, at least) noncontiguous entities: Gaza, Israel and the West Bank.

In Syria, American meddling in the civil war, self-destructive support for various Islamists groups there and military intervention on behalf of the Kurds have broken Syria into a mostly jihadi, rebel-held northwest, Assad-regime center and U.S.-backed Kurdish east.

Just over the border in Iraq stands the gold standard of counterproductive U.S. fracture. There, an ill-fated, illegal U.S. invasion in 2003 seems to have forever broken into an autonomous Kurdish north, Shiite-held east and south and Sunni-controlled west. It is in that contested western region that Sunni jihadism has long flourished and where al-Qaida in Iraq, and its more extreme stepchild, Islamic State, metastasized and then unleashed massive bloodletting on both sides of the border.

Finally, in Afghanistan, the U.S. invasion and occupation—as well as any impending peace deal—ensured that this Central Asian basket case of a country will divide, for the foreseeable future, into Taliban-dominated Pashtun south and east and tenuous Tajik/Uzbek/Hazara minorities held north and west.

The point is that the U.S. has irreparably fractured a broad swath of the globe from West Africa to Central Asia. Interventionist pundits in both parties and countless think tanks insist that the U.S. military must remain in place across the region to police dangerous “ungoverned spaces,” yet recent history demonstrates irrefutably that it is the very intervention of Washington and presence of its troops that fragments once (relatively) stable nation-states and empowers separatists and Islamists.

The whole absurd mess boils down to a treacherous math problem of sorts. By my simple accounting, a region from Nigeria to Afghanistan that once counted about 22 state entities has—since the onset of the U.S. “terror wars”—broken into some 37 autonomous, sometimes hardly governed, zones. According to the “experts,” that should mean total disaster and increased danger to the homeland. Yet it’s largely U.S. military policy and intervention itself that’s caused this fracture. So isn’t it high time to quit the American combat missions? Not according to the mainstream policymakers and pundits. For them, the war must (always) go on!

Counterproductivity seems the essence of U.S. military policy in Uncle Sam’s never-ending, post-9/11 wars. Call me crazy, or wildly conspiratorial, but after serving in two hopelessly absurd wars and studying the full scope of American military action, it seems that maybe that was the idea all along.

Jay-Z’s Shameful Partnership With the NFL

What follows is a conversation between Eddie Conway of The Real News Network and several members of Baltimore’s African American community. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.

EDDIE CONWAY: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Eddie Conway, coming to you from Baltimore. I’m here in front of Conscious Head Barbershop, and we’re going to interview some of the people in the barbershop about Jay-Z’s latest deal with the football league.

ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: Good man. Appreciate you. Thanks.

DARYL MCINTOSH: I respect the move, you know, Jay-Z. I follow hip-hop, so coming out of hip-hop, it’s something that’s never been done before. I respect what he’s trying to do, I guess, from the business side.

EDDIE CONWAY: Do you think it undermines what Kaepernick did when he took a knee to highlight the protests of Black Lives Matter?

DARYL MCINTOSH: I don’t think we’ve seen it yet. You know what I mean? I don’t think – I guess we’d have to see. We still have black people getting drafted in the NFL. We still have coaches. We still have people in other positions, so I don’t think that it necessarily undermines it.

KEVIN ACKWOOD: It changes the way people look at Jay-Z, because it’s totally undercutting Kaepernick and what he is trying to do—Not trying to do; the movement has already started. He set into motion from the first time he knelt.

JAY-Z: We all do different things and we all work differently for the same results. I don’t knock what he’s doing. And hopefully, he doesn’t knock what I’m doing.

KEVIN ACKWOOD: Everybody has a voice that wants to be heard. Kaepernick is just the first one to actually step up to the plate and do it. Jay-Z and Beyoncé, when the riots broke out in Baltimore, they bailed a whole bunch of people out down here. So you would think that they would be more for a revolutionary-type of movement, but it seems like they’re straddling the fence. Half and half. They’re half with the movement, and the other half against it.

RICARDO WINCHESTER: My overall impression is he’s a businessman, first and foremost. I mean, if anything you’re hearing about him, nine times out of ten it has to do with some sort of business. Up until lately, you’re hearing him more into, I guess you could say, activism.

EDDIE CONWAY: How do you think it fits into Black Lives Matter protests that’s been going around with Kaepernick taking a knee, with black people concerned about the amount of young black people being murdered by police? How do you think him lending his name and his image to the football league is undercutting that protest?

RICARDO WINCHESTER: In my opinion, what Kaepernick was doing, as far as the protest, was more symbolism over substance. I don’t think it led to any policies being passed or any of these officers going to prison for this so-called brutality that’s going—Well, it is going on.

REPORTER: Sorry to put it this way, but would you kneel or would you stand?

JAY-Z: Would I what?

REPORTER: Would you kneel or would you stand?

JAY-Z: Okay. I think we’ve past kneeling. I think it’s time to go into actionable items.

ANTONIO WILSON: He’s a big name. They need a big name right now. The black community will listen to Jay-Z more than they will listen to some old white dude that makes $50 million a year working for the NFL and nobody knows his name at all, but he’s an executive for them.

EDDIE CONWAY: So you’re saying it’s a good PR move for the white owners who are billionaires, and you’re saying that he’s kind of giving them credibility. Cred, say, for instance, by speaking out on their behalf.

ANTONIO WILSON: That’s when it gets really weird. Because he could either be a puppet, or he could be actually helping the black community.

REPORTER: Do you regard this partnership as a form of protest? I mean, are you looking to change things from the inside?

JAY-Z: Of course, yes. I’ll answer that first. I guess, I don’t have anything else to add to that. Just, yes.

JABARI NATUR: Business-wise, there’s a reason why I didn’t really like him. He came in, he was a big drug dealer, you know what I mean? He did a lot of damage at first in the community, you know what I mean, encouraging the whole drug culture and those different things, things of that nature. I didn’t like that. I didn’t agree with what Jay-Z did with the Clintons, when he stood with the Clintons, you know what I mean, when she was running for—I mean, I was like, “What is he doing?” But I still see him, on the other hand, he’s still putting out things that’s relevant, and I think he’s still teaching and, like I said, putting his life out before the world.

KEVIN ACKWOOD: I would like to know, what’s in it for Jay-Z?

EDDIE CONWAY: Or what’s in it for the black community?

KEVIN ACKWOOD: Nothing.

EDDIE CONWAY: I think this is going to make or break his image in the next few months.

KEVIN ACKWOOD: It seemed like they were trying to just use his image to breathe some life back into the football, into the NFL. Because you just took all of these protests, all of these people sacrificing their jobs, people that haven’t even lost their jobs over this, or even been shunned by the world as a whole in general, people that love the NFL that turned away from it just because of what’s been going on. It’s a lot riding on that. And then Jay-Z just goes and sweeps it under the rug basically, and sings a song and all that. He just basically is running with the NFL.

DARYL MCINTOSH: I think when we look at some of the things that Jay-Z did recently, some of the things that he’s involved himself in, you know, with the Meek Mill situation—Meek Mill’s a popular hip-hop artist, so that became a big interest of what was going on with his case. Not necessarily police brutality, but I think more on the criminal justice reform side. And I think Jay-Z kind of stepped in and played a certain role in that. It’s interesting particularly for hip-hop, I think, in my opinion, to see hip-hop be involved in these type of conversations, and especially at that level.

EDDIE CONWAY: I’m aware that he probably—Jay-Z, that is— has done a lot of things. Some of it secret, in terms of Sean Bell’s children, funds to support them, other kinds of things that’s helped the black community.

RICARDO WINCHESTER: Whatever he’s doing with the NFL, I know he has things going on with the Patriots owner and a few other people as far as prison reform and things like that, and getting people out of jail. So maybe the NFL can partner in that effort, but I don’t see how anything else could come out of it.

EDDIE CONWAY: Are you aware that his getting people out of jail has something to do with his business deals with the electronic monitoring out in the community?

RICARDO WINCHESTER: Yeah. Yeah, I heard about that.

EDDIE CONWAY: His company is selling the software that is being used to watch the electronic monitors that people are forced to wear and—

RICARDO WINCHESTER: Right. That’s why I say he’s a businessman, first and foremost. Yeah.

EDDIE CONWAY: And he’s making money off of that.

RICARDO WINCHESTER: Right.

EDDIE CONWAY: Maybe it’s prison reform in the sense that they’re not inside the prison, but now those bracelets are turning their homes into little prisons in the community. Is that the kind of reform you’re looking for, you would like to see?

RICARDO WINCHESTER: No. Not really, no. I mean, I guess you could say it’s a step in the right direction because maybe they not away from their families— if you want to look at the bright side of it. But other than that, no. I mean, prison reform, in my opinion, should be people just not being put in prison over these petty things and nonviolent drug offenses, and things like that.

JABARI NATUR: I would say so far as the industry is concerned, and somebody like Jay-Z, and when you’re dealing with the NFL, when you’re dealing with all these billionaires and people who got a whole lot of money, it’s a lot of gangster inside that organization, too, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? At some point, it could be like, “Hey, you’re going to do this.” Or, “This is what’s going to happen.” These are billionaires. These are people who got their money, a lot of them, from dirty stuff in the past, you know what I mean? So it could—

EDDIE CONWAY: Including him?

JABARI NATUR: Yeah, including him. Yeah, yeah, including him. Definitely. Definitely. Oh, and he know that. That’s why he know he got a lot of cleaning up to do.

The Sinister Forces Behind Boris Johnson’s Brexit Coup

Natasha Hakimi Zapata reports for Truthdig from London.

The last thing I want to do today is write about Brexit again, partly because I still can’t get over the nausea of the dizzying speed of events in British politics or the unease that’s taken hold since Boris Johnson was chosen as prime minister of the United Kingdom. (I say chosen because a bunch of Tory members deciding who the nation’s leader will be hardly can be considered an election.)

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Since former Prime Minister Theresa May’s astonishing three-vote-failure to pass her negotiated deal for leaving the European Union through Parliament, much ado about nothing has taken place in the House of Commons. Johnson, the notoriously power-hungry former London mayor who led the “Leave” campaign prior to the 2016 EU referendum, became prime minister in July despite no general election being held. This is due to rules that allow a new leader to be selected solely by the Tory members of Parliament and the party members, as long as the party in question continues to hold a majority of seats in Parliament (even if, like the Conservatives, it’s a slim majority of one). It’s also worth noting the makeup of the Tory Party membership, which totals about 160,000 people in a country with a population of about 67.6 million, are primarily white and middle class, as well as “more right-wing than the population as a whole,” according to the BBC. This means minorities and working-class Brits are sorely underrepresented in the ruling party. Add to these facts that 70% of Tory MPs are male, and it becomes clear the Conservatives are not concerned with any form of gender, class or ethnic representation that would reflect the wider U.K. population.

There is plenty to say about the U.K.’s new American-born leader, but perhaps most of it can be summed up by John Oliver’s segment on the duplicitousness behind the clownish, salt-of-the-earth image the elite-raised Johnson has cultivated throughout his careers as both a journalist and politician.

In the six weeks since Johnson has taken power, the Leave campaigner has tried to convince those in the U.K. they should prepare for a so-called no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31, while simultaneously maintaining the threat is mainly a negotiating tactic to try to obtain a better deal than May’s from the EU.

What on Earth Is a No-Deal Brexit?

In essence, a no-deal Brexit means exactly what it sounds like: the U.K. would leave the EU on Oct. 31, the deadline set forth by the EU when it gave its second extension to the U.K in April after May’s failure to pass her deal, without any agreements between London and Brussels. While on the surface this type of divorce may not seem too catastrophic, there have been plenty of studies and warnings to the contrary.

In a Guardian piece, the organization U.K. in a Changing Europe sought to outline the impacts of a no-deal, pointing out that while in the short-term the European bloc has taken temporary measures to stem some of the chaos that could arise, especially when it comes to EU citizen rights and travel, the politically fraught border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland remains a huge cause for concern.

Many of the worse possible consequences–such as severe disruption to road and air transport links–are not on the table in the short term because the EU has unilaterally put into place temporary workarounds. Would these–some of which expire as soon as the end of December, just two months into no deal – survive a political confrontation over the U.K.’s “divorce bill”?

Similarly, while there is no prospect of EU citizens in the U.K. becoming irregular migrants overnight, the government’s recent incoherence on what no deal means for freedom of movement has made many feel, understandably, insecure–and it is still unclear how employers, landlords and public services will be expected to apply any new rules. The position for Britons in Europe is even more complex and uncertain.

… But perhaps the biggest and most dangerous unknown is what happens on the island of Ireland. The U.K. government has said it will not apply checks and tariffs at the Irish border–a stance which is at odds with its commitments under, inter alia, WTO rules. The EU, however, has made it clear it intends to apply the rules, though whether all checks will be imposed from day one is less obvious. Both sides are likely to blame the other, with unforeseeable political and economic consequences.

But as U.K. in a Changing Europe points out, one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding a no-deal is that it would somehow represent an end to the relationship between the 27-member state bloc and the United Kingdom. Negotiations between the two would take years to sort out, and would be done, in the case of a no deal, in a much more chaotic context given that arrangements will not have been made prior to the U.K.’s departure.

As Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn highlighted on Wednesday in PMQs—a session in which parliamentarians ask the prime minister questions on any range of issues—one other significant outcome of crashing out of the EU without any agreement is the possibility of fresh food and medical supply shortages, as outlined in leaks from Johnson’s own government. The “Operation Yellow Hammer” papers, as the leaked documents are titled, also indicate the government expects massive delays at U.K. ports and a “hard border” in Ireland, which some believe would violate the Good Friday Agreement in which long-sought-after peace was established in Ireland. When Corbyn asked the prime minister repeatedly on Wednesday whether he was willing to release the Yellow Hammer documents, Johnson mostly dodged the question and railed on about not wanting to give away his EU negotiating tactics.

European officials, however, have repeatedly stated Johnson and his historically right-wing cabinet have not proposed a single alternative to the Irish backstop, the sticking point in the deal negotiated by Johnson’s predecessor May.

What Is Parliament Doing to Quash Johnson’s Mess?

While Parliament is currently in session in Westminster, Johnson’s recent request to Queen Elizabeth II for a prorogation, which would shut down Parliament for 23 working days until mid-October, was approved by the monarch. MPs from all parties have declared the move undemocratic as it would keep democratically elected leaders from voting on any legislation in the crucial crunch time before the Oct. 31 deadline. British author Laurie Penny summed this move up best in a tweet riffing off the Leave campaign slogan.

Three years ago: take back control! The people have spoken! If you oppose Brexit, you hate democracy!

Now: unelected Prime Minister gets hereditary monarch to suspend parliament in order to force through a disastrous no-deal Brexit that nobody voted for. #StopTheCoup #brexit

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) August 28, 2019

On Tuesday, MPs from Labour, Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party, Wales’ Plaid Cymru and even some “rebel” Tories sought to begin proceedings to quickly pass legislation that would keep Johnson from forcing through a no-deal. In anticipation of a humiliating defeat, Johnson threatened to withdraw the whip from any member of his party who voted in favor of the legislation, a move that would basically kick them out of the Conservative Party and not allow them to run as a Tory in an upcoming election. As threats were thrown around, one Tory decided to leave in a theatrical display. Phillip Lee walked over to the opposite side of the chamber in the middle of a speech by the PM and defected to the Liberal Democrats, effectively putting an end to Johnson’s one-person majority.

The moment defecting Tory MP Phillip Lee takes his seat with the Liberal Democrats, leaving Boris Johnson’s government with no working majority

Live updates: https://t.co/y5cguYUOfs pic.twitter.com/3RWlVJOPKo

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 3, 2019

By Tuesday evening, 21 other Tories, including Phillip Hammond, who was Theresa May’s Lord Chancellor, and the grandson of Winston Churchill, Nicholas Soames, were all kicked out of the party after helping the opposition parties impart a devastating blow on Johnson’s no-deal plans. The decision was seen as especially hypocritical given that Johnson and many members of his cabinet were deemed “rebels” themselves by May’s government for repeatedly voting against her deal.

In other words, Johnson blew up his own party on one of his first few days as prime minister in the House of Commons, a move that, as Corbyn described it, left him with “no mandate, no morals and, as of today, no majority.” The fledgling prime minister then said he would call a general election under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, which would require a two-thirds majority to get through parliament. Corbyn, however, has insisted Labour would not vote in favor of a snap election until a bill was passed that would ensure Johnson could not force the U.K. out of the EU on Oct. 31 without a deal. On Wednesday, parliamentarians met for another marathon of debates centering mostly on Brexit as the clock ticked toward both the forced suspension of parliament, which is set to begin from Sept. 9 to Sept. 12, just days after Parliament returned from a summer recess on Sept. 3, and toward the October 31 deadline. After a day chock-a-block with more Brexit-fueled fury on all ends, the bill proposed by Labour’s Hilary Benn that would impede a no-deal gained another Tory rebel voter on its second reading, and passed its third reading on the way to the House of Lords. The proposed legislation would impose an Oct. 19 deadline to either pass a deal or a no-deal in Parliament, or else be forced to request another three-month extension from the EU.

For those interested in the ongoing Shakespearean drama unfolding in and around the House of Commons, here are a few other theatrical tidbits from Tuesday night. Dominic Cummings, a senior aide to Johnson who many view as the mastermind behind the Leave campaign, was seen allegedly inebriated, shouting at Corbyn in Westminster.

Dominic Cummings is having an evening pic.twitter.com/q2OxHE7hdR

— Thomas Colson (@tpgcolson) September 3, 2019

Meanwhile, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the newly minted leader of the House of Commons under Johnson, was lambasted for lying down during Tuesday’s session, an image that not only perfectly illustrates the arrogance and laziness Johnson’s government is quickly becoming known for, but also fed the internet meme-machine.

Also, this incredibly moving moment came on Wednesday, courtesy of Labour’s Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi who called the prime minister out on his hateful attacks on Muslim women who wear burkas.

In every corner of the globe and certainly here in America, every constituent deserves courageous Representatives who could call out hate and bigotry.

Demand it, expect it and don’t even allow them to coward! https://t.co/IXtV3XfTN9

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) September 4, 2019

Why Is Johnson Blowing Up His Own Government?

It’s hard to know what is going through the prime minister’s deliberately messy-haired head, especially given that part of the persona he’s cultivated is based on covering up his lack of preparedness with disarming charm. It’s possible Johnson actually wants a no-deal in order to bolster support for a trade deal with the U.S. that would be billed as an attempt to save the U.K. economy post-Brexit. Certainly, that’s what many in the opposition think, including Corbyn, who has billed any negotiations between Trump and Johnson as a disaster for the U.K.’s welfare state. Given that ghoulish Trump adviser Steve Bannon has been linked to Johnson, the Labour leader has plenty of reason to be alarmed about the future of his state.

I think what the US president is saying, is that Boris Johnson is exactly what he has been looking for, a compliant Prime Minister who will hand Britain’s public services and protections over to US corporations in a free trade deal. https://t.co/kcg2jkYi0o

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) August 28, 2019

It’s also possible that Johnson saw a Tory rebellion and subsequent general election coming, and by deselecting “rebel’ MPs, has made room for hard-line Brexiters to run in their place to push through a no-deal or a hard Brexit in the event he’s even able to win an election. Corbyn and leaders of other parties, however, are doing what they can to delay a general election until after Oct. 17, when Johnson is set to negotiate with the EU, perhaps to call the prime minister’s bluff and show the public the new leader has no real plans to avoid a no-deal. Cummings in the meantime has been machinating a campaign that is expected to pit “the people versus the Parliament,” billing Johnson as a populist savior who wants to deliver the people’s democratic desires but is being thwarted by pesky parliamentarians.

Whether or not there’s any method to Johnson’s madness, what’s clear is the man is just as big a gambler as his predecessor David Cameron. Unfortunately for Johnson, there are already grassroots signs that the absurd game he’s playing with an entire kingdom is about to blow up in his smug face and hand Corbyn the premiership. I’ve written before that Theresa May was putting the nail in the coffin of the Conservative Party, but what I should’ve added was that the coffin was largely built by Bullingdon-Club buddies Cameron and Johnson with all the toxic white male hubris they could each muster. Now, Johnson’s finishing up what he helped start, and rapidly lowering the right-wing casket into the ground, where it rightfully belongs.