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military
Retired Military Officers, Serve Your Country Once More by Standing Up to Trump
Once these former generals and admirals and other high officers take a united stand, they will receive great mass media attention and give great credibility to the expanding peaceful opposition to Trump.
Jan 17, 2026
As President Donald Trump’s dictatorial grip over America worsens, his violations of our Constitution, federal laws, and international treaties become more brazen. Only the organized people can stop this assault on our democracy by firing him, through impeachment, the power accorded to Congress by our Founders. This is one of the few things that he cannot control.
According to a PRRI’s (Public Religion Research Institute) poll, “a majority of Americans (56%) agree that ‘President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy’ up from 52% in March 2025.” Trump’s recent actions will only further increase this number.
In earlier columns, I discussed the potential power of
- The Contented Classes;
- The small minority of progressive billionaires; and
- The huge potential of the four ex-presidents–George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, who detest Trump but are mostly silent, and are not organizing their tens of millions of angry voters in all Congressional Districts.
A fourth formidable constituency, if organized, is retired military officers who have their own reasons for dumping Trump. Start with the ex-generals whom Trump named as Secretary of Defense (James Mattis); John Kelly, as US Secretary of Homeland Security and White House Chief of Staff; and Mark Milley, who headed the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
High military brass have sworn to uphold the Constitution, which does not allow for monarchs or dictators.
Trump introduced many nominees with sky-high praise. When they tried to do their job and restrain Trump’s lawlessness, slanders, and chronic lies to the public, his attitude toward them cooled, and then he savaged them. Ultimately, he fired several of them in his first term.
During a November 2018 trip to France to mark the WWI armistice centennial, Trump canceled a planned visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where many Americans killed at Belleau Wood are buried. Trump said he canceled the visit to the cemetery because of the rain. The Atlantic magazine reported that Trump claimed that “‘the helicopter couldn’t fly’ and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.” Trump especially disliked Kelly saying about Trump that “a person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’” This sentiment, coming from Trump, a serial draft dodger, rankled Kelly. (Of course, the persistent prevaricator Trump denied saying these words.)
The retired military officers’ case against Trump is too long to list fully. They were, however, summarized by one retiree, who cited the military code of justice and declared that were he to be tried under that code, Trump would be court-martialed and jailed many times over. Consider some of the would-be charges: constant lying about serious matters, including his own illegal acts; using his office to enrich himself; unconstitutionally and illegally bombing countries that do not threaten the United States; using federal troops inside our country; and escalating piracy on the high seas, with misuse of the US Coast Guard.
Moreover, they resent deeply how Trump came into his second term, enabled by the feeble Democratic Party, and fired career generals for no cause other than to replace them with his cronies and sycophants. This includes firing the highly regarded first woman to head the Coast Guard. He has discarded the policy aimed at ensuring the military reflects America’s diversity by providing equal opportunities for women and minorities to serve.
Retired military officers despise Pete Hegseth, the incompetent, foul-mouthed puppet secretary of defense, for his mindless aggressions, misogyny, and mistreatment or forcing out of long-time public servants in the Pentagon. They find it appalling that Trump’s statement that the six ex-military members of Congress who reminded US soldiers not to obey an illegal order (long part of the Military Code of Justice and other laws) should be executed. This impeachable outburst was followed by Hegseth moving to punish Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), one of the signers, by seeking to lower his reserve rank and reduce his pension.
They also resent Trump reducing services at the VA due to mass layoffs.
What could be keeping these officers on the sidelines? Many of the very top brass have become consultants to the weapons manufacturers. Others fear retribution affecting their retirement. Others want to avoid the Trumpian incitement to his extreme loyalists to use the internet anonymously to attack any critics.
None of the above should be controlling factors. After all, these officers were expected to face the dangers of any military battle courageously.
Retired Colonel Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff of Secretary of State Colin Powell, has been outspoken in the media against Trump’s dangerous policies for years. There are others who have taken on Trump, the White House Bully-in-Chief.
Besides, the Republic’s existence is urgently at stake here. Trump is overthrowing the federal government, invading America’s cities with his growing corps of storm troopers, while threatening to go much further with his mantra, “This is just the beginning.” High military brass have sworn to uphold the Constitution, which does not allow for monarchs or dictators.
Once these former generals and admirals and other high officers take a united stand, they will receive great mass media attention. They will give great credibility to the expanding peaceful opposition to Trump. They will provide the needed backbone to the Democrats in Congress to hold shadow hearings to press for impeachment and removal from office Fuhrer Trump, who daily provides Congress with openly boastful impeachable actions.
For example, he told the New York Times on January 9, 2026, that only “my own morality. My own mind.” restrains him. Not the Constitution, not federal laws and regulations, not treaties we have signed under Republican and Democratic presidents.
He took an oath to obey the Constitution and violated it from Day One.
Stepping forward with an adequate staff, funds that would be raised instantly, the fired generals would bring out retired officers and veterans down the ranking ladder all over the country. Already, Veterans for Peace, with over 100 chapters, is ready for rapid expansion. (See, https://www.veteransforpeace.org/).
Remember this: TRUMP’S DICTATORIAL RAMPAGE IS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE, MUCH WORSE. Venezuela, Cuba, Panama, Greenland, Nigeria, and Iran are on the growing list for Trump’s endless warmongering. He has openly declared more than once, “Nothing can stop me.” Those words should be sufficient for enough top retired military officers to exert their special legacy of patriotism for the “United States of America and the Republic for which it stands…”
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NATO's 5% Pledge: An Obscene Betrayal of Global Needs
Presented as a historic step, in truth this increased level of military spending represents a major step backwards for humanity and the common good.
Jun 26, 2025
At this week’s NATO summit in The Hague, leaders announced an alarming new goal: push military spending to 5% of nations’ GDP by 2035. Framed as a response to rising global threats, particularly from Russia and terrorism, the declaration was hailed as a historic step. But in truth, it represents a major step backwards—away from addressing the urgent needs of people and the planet, and toward an arms race that will impoverish societies while enriching weapons contractors.
This outrageous 5% spending target didn’t come out of nowhere—it’s the direct result of years of bullying by U.S. President Donald Trump. During his first term, Trump repeatedly berated NATO members for not spending enough on their militaries, pressuring them to meet a 2% GDP threshold that was already controversial and so excessive that nine NATO countries still fall below that “target.”
Now, with Trump back in the White House, NATO leaders are falling in line, setting a staggering 5% target that even the United States—already spending over $1 trillion a year on its military—doesn’t reach. This is not defense; it’s extortion on a global scale, pushed by a president who views diplomacy as a shakedown and war as good business.
This is not defense; it’s extortion on a global scale, pushed by a president who views diplomacy as a shakedown and war as good business.
Countries across Europe and North America are already slashing public services and yet they are now expected to funnel even more taxpayer money into war preparation. Currently, no NATO country spends more on the military than on health or education. But if they all hit the new 5% military spending goal, 21 of them would spend more on weapons than on schools.
Spain was one of the few to reject this escalation, with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez making clear that his government would not sacrifice pensions and social programs to meet a militarized spending target. Other governments, including Belgium and Slovakia, quietly pushed back too.
Still, NATO leaders pressed on, cheered by Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who fawned over Donald Trump’s demand that Europe boost defense spending. Rutte even referred to Trump as “Daddy,” a comment that—while dismissed as a joke—spoke volumes about NATO’s subservience to U.S. militarism. Under Trump’s influence, the NATO alliance is shedding even the pretense of being a defensive pact, embracing instead the language and logic of perpetual war.
Real security doesn’t come from tanks and missiles—it comes from strong communities, global cooperation, and urgent action on our shared crises.
Just before NATO leaders were gathering at the Hague, protesters took to the streets under the banner “No to NATO.” And back in their home countries, civic groups are demanding a redirection of resources toward climate justice, healthcare, and peace. Polls show that majorities in the U.S. oppose increased military spending, but NATO is not accountable to the people. It’s accountable to political elites, arms manufacturers and a Cold War logic that sees every global development through the lens of threat and domination.
NATO’s expansion, both in terms of war spending and size (it has grown from 12 founding members to 32 countries today) has not brought peace. On the contrary, the alliance’s promise that Ukraine would one day join its ranks was one of the triggers for Russia’s brutal war. Instead of de-escalating, the alliance has doubled down with weapons, not diplomacy. In Gaza, Israel continues its U.S.-backed war with impunity, while NATO nations send more arms and offer no serious push for peace. Now the alliance wants to drain public coffers to sustain these wars indefinitely. NATO is also surrounding its adversaries, particularly Russia, with ever more bases and troops.
Under Trump’s influence, the NATO alliance is shedding even the pretense of being a defensive pact, embracing instead the language and logic of perpetual war.
All of this demands a radical rethink. As the world burns—literally—NATO is stocking up on kindling. When healthcare systems are crumbling, schools underfunded, and blazing temperatures making large swaths of the planet uninhabitable, the idea that governments should commit billions more to weapons and war is obscene. Real security doesn’t come from tanks and missiles—it comes from strong communities, global cooperation, and urgent action on our shared crises.
We need to flip the script. That means cutting military budgets, withdrawing from endless wars, and beginning a serious conversation about dismantling NATO. The alliance, born of the Cold War, is now a stumbling block to global peace and an active participant in war-making. Its latest summit only reinforces that reality.
This is not just about NATO’s budget—it’s about our future. Every euro or dollar spent on weapons is one not spent on confronting the climate crisis, lifting people out of poverty, or building a peaceful world. For the future of our planet, we must reject NATO and the war economy.
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The Time Has Come to Establish the International Arctic Ocean Sanctuary
In addition to accelerating efforts to reduce global carbon emissions to reverse global warming, governments must urgently adopt strong, permanent protections for the entire Arctic Ocean.
Jun 08, 2025
On World Ocean Day, and the eve of the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France opening Monday, the Arctic Ocean ecological crisis needs to be top of the list for attention by governments.
Given the well-documented, catastrophic decline of the Arctic Ocean sea ice ecosystem in recent decades due to climate change, coupled with the increasing threats and impacts from industry and military activity in the region, it is imperative that governments establish an International Arctic Ocean Sanctuary to preserve this extraordinary ecoregion as a global commons for peaceful, non-commercial, scientific purposes.
Covering approximately 5.4 million square miles, the Arctic Ocean is one of the most extraordinary and vibrant regions of the global ocean, and plays an important role regulating Earth’s climate.
Combined with the effects of climate change, industrialization and militarization would further accelerate the ecological and social collapse of the struggling Arctic Ocean region.
The Arctic marine ecosystem is globally unique, productive, and remains relatively unexplored. The ocean biome supports more than 7,000 identified species, many of which are found nowhere else on Earth—polar bears, walrus, several kinds of ice seals, narwhals, beluga whales, bowhead whales, some of the largest populations of seabirds in the world, and many unique fish and invertebrate populations. It hosts cold seeps, hydrothermal vents, stunning benthic habitats, a rich pelagic ecosystem that remains surprisingly active during winter darkness, and supports the subsistence cultures of coastal Indigenous Peoples.
However, this unique polar marine ecosystem is now one of the most endangered regions of Earth’s biosphere, suffering effects of climate change more severely than anywhere else. Arctic sea ice has declined by more than half in the last 50 years, losing about 1 million square miles in both summer and winter, has thinned from an average of four meters to about one meter, and could disappear entirely in summer by 2035. Multiyear sea ice has all but vanished. This remarkable decline has been caused by global carbon emissions from human activity, mainly fossil fuel use.
The loss of Arctic sea ice over the last half-century constitutes one of the largest declines in ecological habitat on Earth, rivaling the loss of tropical rainforests. The resultant Arctic Ocean ecological crisis is now severe, and predicted to get much worse in coming decades.
In addition to devastating impacts of climate change in the Arctic Ocean, commercial interests are clamoring to exploit ice-free offshore areas for oil and gas, methane hydrates, minerals, commercial fishing, shipping, and tourism. And Arctic coastal nations have made Extended Continental Shelf (ECS) seabed claims (pursuant to U.N. Law of the Sea, Article 76) beyond their 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), a dangerous territorial expansion into international waters with an eye toward resource extraction.
As Arctic nations and others (China, India, etc.) advance their own parochial interests across the region, there is a growing competitive race to exploit Arctic offshore resources and to project military power across the region to secure these competing national interests. As such, the risk of military confrontation across the Arctic Ocean is escalating. Combined with the effects of climate change, industrialization and militarization would further accelerate the ecological and social collapse of the struggling Arctic Ocean region, and would clearly compromise the ability of the bioregion and its people to survive the 21st-century climate crisis.
In fact, the resource and political tensions in the Arctic Ocean today are remarkably similar to the Antarctic after World War II, that were resolved then by the leadership of U.S. (Republican) President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposing and negotiating the historic 1959 Antarctic Treaty. The international Treaty, now with 58 nation-state members, permanently protects the extraordinary 5.5 million square-mile Antarctic continent as a global commons for peaceful, scientific purposes, free from nuclear testing, military operations, economic exploitation, and territorial claims. The Antarctic Treaty remains the single greatest conservation achievement in history.
The same opportunity now presents itself with the Arctic Ocean. In addition to accelerating efforts to reduce global carbon emissions to reverse global warming, governments must urgently adopt strong, permanent protections for the entire Arctic Ocean to give this region and its people the best chance possible to survive the 21st-century climate crisis. Given the pace of decline, this may be our last best chance to do so.
While Arctic nations have begun protecting some areas off their coasts, still less than 5% of Arctic Ocean waters are in permanently protected status. This is clearly insufficient.
The proposed circumpolar Arctic Ocean Sanctuary must fully protect not only international waters beyond coastal state 200-mile EEZs across the 1.1 million square mile Central Arctic Ocean (as is currently proposed), but also the highly productive waters within the EEZs of Arctic coastal nations—Canada, Norway, Denmark and Greenland, Russia, and the U.S., where most ecological activity, human impact, and threat occurs. The sanctuary should permanently prohibit oil and gas leasing, mineral leasing, commercial fishing, military activities, improve shipping safety, reduce pollutants, and enhance scientific research.
To be sure, it is a big ask of the five Arctic coastal nations to contribute some of their claimed territory into a globally protected area, but this was the right thing to do in 1959 in the Antarctic, and it is the right thing to do now for the Arctic.
While the current federal administrations in the Russia and U.S. habitually oppose any and all environmental conservation proposals, perhaps presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump might see this as a historic legacy in the midst of the environmental havoc they have caused, a chance to be remembered as Eisenhower is today for his leadership in negotiating the Antarctic Treaty. And just to note, former President Joe Biden ignored this request entirely, enacted no comprehensive permanent protections in the U.S. Arctic Ocean off Alaska, and made no effort to begin discussions on the International Arctic Ocean Sanctuary.
Global society has a historic choice to make with the imperiled Arctic Ocean. Should we continue our competitive industrial and military expansion into one of the last wild areas of the world, further degrading a region already unraveling due to human-caused climate change? Or should we protect and sustain this magnificent place for all time, giving it and its inhabitants, human and non-human, the best chance possible to recover from climate change this century?
How we answer this question will tell us a lot about ourselves and our future.
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This Tax Day Column Is Going to Piss You Off
The GOP’s current push to extend tax cuts is just the latest round of the party’s 90-year campaign to eliminate government programs based on a misguided belief that the private sector can take care of just about everything besides the military.
Apr 15, 2025
Taxes are complicated. That’s why every spring I hand everything over to my accountant.
Federal tax policy is even more complex. Trying to figure out how the Republicans’ current plan to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act they passed in 2017—which blew a $1-trillion to $2-trillion hole in the federal deficit—would impact taxpayers is beyond even my trusty accountant.
There are federal agencies and nonprofit think tanks that have done a good job crunching tax cut extension numbers, but most people are not aware of their work. They have to rely on the news media for that information, and to be sure, news outlets have accurately reported that the GOP tax cut extension—which expires after this year unless Congress acts—favors the uber wealthy. Most reporters also have cited the Congressional Budget Office or another reputable source that have calculated that the tax cuts would cost the government $4.6 trillion in lost revenue over a decade, bolstering the GOP’s trumped-up rationale for dismantling “unaffordable” federal agencies and programs. For the most part, however, the news media have failed to spell out the damning details.
This column is going to provide those details—and they’re going to piss you off.
Big bucks for the top 1 percent
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, has been tracking the ebb and flow of the Republican tax cut extension plan. It posted its most recent updated analysis on April 11, which included a very informative bar graph. But the center buried some pertinent data in an end note at the bottom of that chart, so I asked an information designer to create a chart that clearly shows how households in different income brackets would be affected.
If the Republican-controlled Congress succeeds in extending the tax cuts, which everyone received to some extent due to the original 2017 law, income taxes would stay roughly the same, providing a windfall for the 1 percent of households that make more than $1 million a year. If the GOP fails to extend the cuts, taxes would go back to where they were before. That would especially hit the wealthiest Americans, whose taxes would help replenish government coffers and short-circuit the Republicans’ longtime goal of privatizing most government functions.
What the numbers plainly show is that the 1 percent of households that make more than $1.14 million annually would continue to receive an average tax break of more than $77,000, while households making between $66,800 and $119,200 would receive an average tax cut of only $1,120. Households making less than $66,800 would on average save only $500, while the poorest households—those earning less than $34,600 a year—would be rewarded with an average tax break of a measly $120. (At the same time, Trump’s tariffs could cost the average household $4,700 a year, according to new analysis by the Yale Budget Lab, wiping out the tax break for as many as 90 percent of households.)
Many Democrats, including Joe Biden when he was in the White House, wanted to extend the tax cuts, but only for households making less than $400,000 a year. At a House Rules Committee hearing on February 24, Jim McGovern (Mass.), ranking Democrat on the committee, offered amendments to cap the tax cut extensions at various income levels—first for households earning less than $400,000 per year, then less than $1 million, $100 million, and $1 billion per year.
All of McGovern’s amendments were voted down along straight party lines. Five of the nine Republicans on the committee who rejected the amendments are millionaires. The richest, Ralph Norman (S.C.), has a net worth of $66 million. The next wealthiest Republican on the committee, Virginia Foxx (N.C.), has $6.9 million. Two of the four Democrats on the committee who voted in favor are millionaires—McGovern himself, with a net worth of $3.4 million, and Mary Gay Scanlon (Pa.), with a net worth of $9.35 million.
Millionaires are shaping tax policy in their favor
Norman, Foxx, McGovern and Scanlon are hardly outliers. Roughly half of all members of Congress are millionaires, including about two-thirds of senators. By contrast, only 6.6 percent of Americans have that kind of money. Do wealthy legislators protect their class interest? A number of them do.
For example, the committees that drafted the tax bills the House and Senate recently passed (with no Democratic support) setting the stage for extending tax cuts are studded with Republican millionaires, according to a February report by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF). Besides the tax cut extension, the bills would lower corporate tax rates, exempt tips from taxes, and allow new car buyers to deduct their auto loan interest payments. All told, the Trump tax package could cost between $5 trillion and $11 trillion over the next decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
ATF found that the average net worth of the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee is nearly $15 million. More than two-thirds of the 26 Republican members of the House committee and nearly two-thirds of the 13 Republicans on the Senate committee are millionaires, and nine of the 36 GOP members on the two tax-writing committees are worth more than $10 million. The wealthiest Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, Vern Buchanan (Fla.), is worth $249 million. The richest Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Johnson (Wis.), has a net worth of $54.6 million.
“The multimillionaire Republicans in charge of these key committees cannot properly represent average Americans’ tax and spending interests,” said ATF Executive Director David Kass in a statement. “Their prioritization of extending Trump’s tax scam demonstrates their disconnect from middle- and working-class constituents’ needs.
“While wealthy Democrats also serve on these committees,” he added, “they aren’t promoting continuing the entire Trump tax legislation which primarily benefits rich individuals like them and giant corporations—legislation that would add trillions to the deficit and threaten funding for Social Security, healthcare, education, housing and other vital public services.”
Ninety years of GOP attacks on progressive federal programs
The GOP’s current push to extend tax cuts is just the latest round of the party’s 90-year campaign to eliminate government programs based on a misguided belief that the private sector can take care of just about everything besides the military.
In the 1930s, the GOP tried to kill Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in its crib. Thirty years later, it opposed Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs, notably Medicare, Medicaid and federal education funding. Richard Nixon cut funds for anti-poverty programs. Ronald Reagan rolled back welfare, public housing and food assistance programs, declaring that government is the problem, not the solution. George W. Bush wanted to privatize Social Security. Does this all sound familiar?
Now that the Republicans have slim majorities in both houses of Congress, a vengeful Donald Trump in the White House, and Elon Musk’s swat team, they will do all they can to fulfill their dream of destroying the programs and agencies they never supported. Why? To pay for more tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, which includes them. Is that American exceptionalism or what?
This column was originally posted on Money Trail, a new Substack site co-founded by Elliott Negin.
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To Defeat Fascism in Brazil, Lula Must Learn From the Past
Democracies can survive and overcome the rise of authoritarian threats when they employ comprehensive and bold actions that balance justice with pathways for societal reintegration.
Dec 17, 2024
In 1937 after establishing the Estado Novo, or New State, socialist President Getúlio Vargas, faced with 500,000 fascists, the Integralists, on his doorstep, took radical action to prevent a fascist takeover, eventually leading to a democratic transition in 1945. Less than three decades later, socialist President João Goulart faced a resurgence of fascist sentiment, and after failing to take action, was promptly toppled, with American help.
Today, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Brazilian democracy face the same threats as Vargas and Goulart. Once again, radical action is the only thing standing between progress, and fascism.
Recent events in Brazil underscore the existential threat facing an increasingly fragile democracy. The indictment of former President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 military leaders, including former ministers, by the Polícia Federal, for an alleged coup and assassination plot, reveals a coordinated and escalating strategy by the fascist right. Bolsonaro and his movement venerate the military dictatorship, and the core tenets of fascist ideology, including militarism, destroying leftist opposition and “decadence,” hyper-masculinity, and authoritarianism. This is a dangerous insurgency against democracy, freedom, and progress.
Lula must take inspiration from Vargas’ bold action and learn from Goulart’s demise, leveraging the full weight of the state to dismantle the fascist infrastructure that threatens the country.
The insurgency’s leaders have shown themselves willing to use their supporters for violent anti-democratic action. Just last month, a failed terrorist attack in Brasília underscored the lengths to which these extremists are willing to go. The incident echoes the January 8 insurrection, where thousands of rioters, incited by Bolsonaro and his government, stormed the headquarters of all three branches of government, laying siege to Brazil’s democratic institutions. In Rio de Janeiro, militias backed by the Bolsonaro family have killed leftist politicians, and fascist supporters have attacked and intimidated Workers’ Party voters. These are not isolated incidents of political violence, but a clear signal that the threat is boiling over.
To navigate this moment, Lula must consider the lessons of Brazil’s history.
Brazil’s history provides two starkly contrasting examples of how leaders have faced fascist threats: Getúlio Vargas’ campaign against the Integralists and João Goulart’s failure to confront a brewing coup. These lessons are not merely academic—they offer a blueprint for President Lula as he navigates the current crisis.
In the 1930s, Vargas faced a powerful and organized threat from the Brazilian Integralist Action (AIB) front, a fascist movement inspired by European models like Benito Mussolini’s Italy and Adolf Hitler’s Germany. The Integralists were highly organized, funded, armed, and bolstered by significant public support, even gaining some seats in government and support in the armed forces.
Yet Vargas, after attempting to bring them into a big-tent state—similar to Lula welcoming anti-coup conservatives after his 2022 victory—recognized the threat Brazil faced. When the Integralists went to the Guanabara Palace and attempted to kill Vargas and take over the government in 1938, Vargas responded decisively, crushing their rebellion and ensuring that Brazil’s institutions would not be undermined by fascism. Despite first attempting to integrate the Integralists into a big-tent democracy, Vargas understood that in the face of an existential threat, bold action was necessary to safeguard the nation. Vargas’ actions were informed by his own socialist ideological roots—which manifested in his popular armed struggle which he led against the preceding military dictatorship and oligarchy.
Contrast Vargas’ actions with those of President João Goulart, also a socialist, who, in the early 1960s, faced a growing movement of reactionary military and political elites intent on removing him from power. Goulart hesitated, seeking compromise and reconciliation with forces that had no interest in negotiating in good faith. His inaction and failure to consolidate power allowed the right-wing military coup of 1964, with American support, to unfold, plunging Brazil into two decades of military dictatorship. Goulart’s downfall is a cautionary tale for Lula.
Lula must take inspiration from Vargas’ bold action and learn from Goulart’s demise, leveraging the full weight of the state to dismantle the fascist infrastructure that threatens the country. This is not a time for half-measures or concessions but for strategic and decisive leadership. The stakes could not be higher, and history is watching.
To neutralize the fascist threat, President Lula must first employ a two-pronged approach: holding the architects of the Brazilian fascist movement accountable while offering a path to redemption for those willing to abandon extremism. The message is simple: Support democracy, or get crushed.
The January 8 insurrection revealed the spectrum of actors involved in the coup attempt. Figures like Anderson Torres, Bolsonaro’s former justice and public security minister, were arrested for their roles in facilitating the attack. Torres’ failure to act on intelligence of impending violence—and the shocking discovery of a draft decree in his home to overturn the 2022 election results—made him a clear target for prosecution.
Meanwhile, many of the rioters, such as those who voluntarily turned themselves in and cooperated with authorities, were given opportunities to negotiate reduced penalties. This demonstrated that the government could balance accountability with reconciliation, dividing hardline extremists from those susceptible to redemption.
A similar carrot-and-stick approach is now needed on a larger scale. The masterminds behind the current wave of anti-democratic activities—military leaders plotting coups, politicians like Bolsonaro who fan the flames of extremism, and financiers who enable violence—must face swift and uncompromising justice. Their actions represent a clear and present danger to Brazil’s democracy and cannot go unpunished.
However, for the millions of Bolsonaro supporters and lower-level participants who may have been misled or coerced into action, unless they resort to violence, no action should be taken against them. The goal is to go after those spinning the wheels of fascism for their own gain, rather than the millions of victims, ordinary people, who fall prey to manipulative propaganda, mostly a byproduct of their own socio-economic and material conditions.
This would not be the first time a democracy has taken radical action to protect itself from existential threats. History is replete with examples of governments in advanced democracies acting decisively against internal dangers. Post-war Germany dismantled Nazi influence through denazification while offering paths to reintegration for lesser participants and followers, creating the Federal Republic of Germany. Spain transitioned to democracy after Francisco Franco’s death by implementing reforms, appointing a democratic head of government, and negotiating peace to stabilize the nation. France, similarly, purged Vichy collaborators before facilitating national republican unity. In post-dictatorship South Korea, democratic accountability was reinforced by prosecuting former fascist leaders while balancing this with pardons to promote reconciliation.
Similarly, in late 2022 in Peru, President Pedro Castillo’s attempt to dissolve Congress and establish autocratic rule was quashed Although Castillo’s power grab was less coordinated and less dangerous than the ongoing fascist threat in Brazil, Peruvian democratic authorities acted decisively, removing him from office and arresting him within hours.
These cases demonstrate that democracies can survive and overcome the rise of authoritarian threats when they employ comprehensive and bold actions that balance justice with pathways for societal reintegration.
After an appropriate targeting of coup plotters and insurrectionists is conducted, Lula can then use his democratic powers to engender key reforms to prevent a fascist coup from ever happening again.
While holding Jair Bolsonaro and his allies accountable is essential, the true force potential behind a coup lies with Brazil’s military leaders. Bolsonaro’s rhetoric and actions have long exploited military sympathies, and the January 8 insurrection demonstrated how quickly fascist elements can pivot to using violence against the state. Without addressing the military’s role in enabling these threats, any attempt to neutralize the fascist movement will fall short.
A critical step in this process is reforming Brazil’s Constitution, particularly Article 142. Bolsonaro and his supporters have misused this article, which ambiguously outlines the military’s role in ensuring “the defense of the country, for the guarantee of the constitutional powers, and, on the initiative of any of these, of law and order,” to justify anti-democratic actions. Bolsonaro himself has discussed the invocation of Article 142 to justify a military coup, including with his own cabinet and supporters. Reforming Article 142 is essential to removing this tool of democratic sabotage. The 1988 Constitution allows for these changes to be introduced by the president, and passed through Congress—though a public referendum could help circumvent this process.
Brazil must bring the military fully under civilian control to eliminate the persistent threat of coups. Currently, over 6,000 military officers hold office in the Brazilian state, and hold significant sway over the country’s democratic affairs, going against the very foundation of the Brazilian republic.
Democracies with politically influential militaries—such as Thailand and Pakistan—offer stark warnings. In both countries, military interference has led to repeated political instability, undermining democratic governance and creating cycles of authoritarianism. Both countries have faced repeated military coups, despite operating as democracies.
Thailand’s 2017 Constitution was almost entirely written by the military, reserving seats for officers in the Senate and including military support as a necessary sign-on for any legislation. Kemalist Turkey, Egypt and Myanmar are also powerful reminders that weak democracies can be brought back into dictatorship easily when military forces hold significant democratic power, performing coups whenever the military does not like democratic outcomes. Diminishing the military’s political power and promoting civilian oversight is essential to prevent these outcomes.
Implementing these principles does not weaken democracy; it merely strengthens it.
As the possibility of jail time looms for Jair Bolsonaro and other far-right leaders, their followers may become even more desperate, deciding to enact their violent plan for fascism. The arrest of Bolsonaro’s minister of defense, Walter Braga Neto, only solidifies this urgency. Time is not on Lula’s side. The longer he delays, the greater the likelihood that these actors will strike, pushing Brazil further into instability.
To preserve democracy and protect the progress Brazil has achieved, Lula must learn from his countrymen’s past failures and act swiftly to neutralize this fascist threat before it metastasizes into a full-blown fascist entity.
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Corporate Greed Threatens the Health of Our Minds, Our Bodies, and Our Republic
Americans, who are getting sicker, sadder, and ever more anxious, are so often unable to access necessities like healthcare because all too many legislators, judges, and administration officials refuse to hold large companies accountable.
Aug 21, 2024
One thing our government doesn’t like doing is challenging the greed of health insurance companies. I can speak with some authority about holes in the ever-fraying safety net of our healthcare system, including Tricare, the military health insurance plan used by most troops, veterans, and their families; other employer-sponsored health insurance; state-sponsored care like Medicare and Medicaid; and individually purchased plans. After all, I’m the spouse of a veteran who uses military healthcare and a clinical social worker. I serve military families that rely on a variety of health insurance plans to pay for their care and believe me, it’s only getting harder.
To take one example: At least in my state, Maryland, Tricare, if it pays at all, compensates clinicians like me far less for mental healthcare than Medicaid (government medical assistance for low-income Americans). It also misleads military patients by referring them to me even after Tricare has acknowledged that I’m unable to take more of them. Other healthcare plans serving Americans go months without reimbursing me for services they authorized.
For me, as a therapist, wife, and mother, nowhere is the relationship between corporations and everyday life more impactful than in the ways our government allows health insurance companies of every kind to avoid truly paying for the care Americans need
Over the years, I’ve written for TomDispatch about many things that military families go through—most similar to what other Americans experience, although almost invariably a little more so. That includes the struggle to feed their families and stay out of debt, the search for childcare, a growing sense of loneliness and pain, and, of course (to mention something so many other Americans haven’t experienced) exposure to the violence of war and its weaponry.
Private companies—and not just medical ones—shape the contours of American life in so many ways, even if we don’t know those companies’ names. Take arms contractors who have contributed so much to the spillover of military-grade weaponry into the hands of civilian killers. Just as all too many Americans, including schoolchildren, have found themselves forced to stare into the barrel of an AR-15 rifle, so have distressed soldiers stared into the “barrels” of companies few of us have heard of that can decide whether they’ll ever get the opportunity for therapy.
Sadly, in my world, greed all too often shapes how we live, just as it’s shaped the world of… yes, the Supreme Court. And for that you can thank the magnates who so generously gifted lavish trips and perks to Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito while they handed down morally devastating decisions on so many issues, gun control and abortion among them, that will determine the nature of life and death in this country.
In a moment, I’ll tell you a bit about my own experiences as a clinician. But let me start by saying that, for me, as a therapist, wife, and mother, nowhere is the relationship between corporations and everyday life more impactful than in the ways our government allows health insurance companies of every kind to avoid truly paying for the care Americans need. (Ask me, for instance, whether Tricare paid for my family to get flu shots this year. I’ll bet you can guess the answer to that one.)
Americans, who are getting sicker, sadder, and ever more anxious, are so often unable to access necessities like healthcare because all too many legislators, judges, and administration officials refuse to hold large companies accountable to the rule of la—when, that is, significant laws related to such corporations even exist.
An Uphill Battle to Provide Affordable Mental Healthcare
As a therapist, I accept most major insurance plans in the Washington, D.C. area, where I operate a small private practice out of my rural home. I set out to make care accessible to middle- and lower-income Americans, particularly those who fought in America’s wars, were impacted by them, or grew up in a military family—groups where suicide rates are significantly higher than in the general population and where depression, anxiety, and violence are rampant.
I have a social science PhD that has helped me figure out how complicated systems work, yet our insurance system (if it can even be called that) confounds me. I find myself turning away dozens of people every month because I can’t afford to lose more time and income dealing with the complications of their insurance.
A country of wealthy healthcare corporations enabled by the government, who let clinicians choose between volunteer work or turning sick people away, is its own kind of banana republic.
My standard line for those who come to me seeking care is too often: “I’m so sorry, I wish I could help, but I’m unable to take any new patients with [insert here major healthcare plan, most of them state-sponsored or, in the case of Carefirst, D.C.’s version of Blue Cross Blue Shield, contracted by the federal government for its employees].” I then wonder what will happen to that suicidal three-times-deployed Afghanistan and Iraq veteran with young kids at home, who’s been referred to me by this country’s downsized, on-base healthcare system; or the single mother whose State Department job is supposed to offer her an insurance plan to help her manage the stress of aid work in combat zones; or unnerved asylum seekers from Russia, Ukraine, and so on (and on and on and on).
Meanwhile, in a separate area of my mind, I’m starting to try to lay the groundwork for a time when my own ability to support my family won’t suddenly be thwarted because one link in some part of our country’s fragile chain of companies that finance healthcare breaks for months on end.
The Change Healthcare Outage
Most people I talk to around my affluent town aren’t aware that, in late February of this year, the U.S. healthcare system suffered a major setback: BlackCat, a ransomware group, hacked into Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of the corporate behemoth UnitedHealth Corporation, which (until recently at least) processed about 40% of the nation’s healthcare claims annually, including from therapists. For months after that, some major insurance companies lacked a clear route to receive medical claims from providers like me. They also lacked a way to transfer money from their own banks to doctors. Other claims payment systems take weeks or months to establish, because you have to make sure they’re in sync with the chain of companies you work with in healthcare (if you accept insurance). There’s your encrypted patient data system, your payment-processing system, the insurance company itself, and maybe a company you hire to help you with your billing. In short, the Change outage left many providers like me without a way to get paid for what we do.
Nationally, over these months, more than 90% of hospitals and many group practices (especially smaller ones) lost money—to the tune of somewhere between hundreds of millions of dollars and $1 billion daily. Tens of millions of dollars in insurance payments to providers were delayed indefinitely. Doctors, nurses, and therapists were forced to close their doors, cut staff, forego needed supplies such as chemotherapy drugs, for example, or stop seeing patients. A survey by the American Medical Association of 1,400 medical practices found that 80% had lost revenue, 55% had to use their own personal funds to cover practice expenses, and about a third were unable to pay staff. Eighty-five percent of those practices had to commit extra time to the revenue cycle. The only reason I was able to see patients is because I have a spouse with a job that covers some of our bills (as well as our mounting credit card debt).
UnitedHealth went months without paying me for therapy I did with several of its members because I wrote the number “11,” not “10,” on claim forms to indicate that I saw patients online.
I had a particularly difficult time getting the insurance companies that are supposed to cover the healthcare of our troops to cough up funds. Tricare took three months to begin paying me because the requirements of its subcontractor, Humana, Inc., to enroll with a new payment system were opaque even for my professional biller. Then, it took weeks more after they figured it out for Tricare to formally approve the new arrangement.
Johns Hopkins Family Health Plan, another insurance plan for military families sponsored by the Department of Defense, didn’t start paying me the thousands of dollars it owed me in backpay until late June. Maryland Medicaid went weeks or even months without covering services for three of my patients. (Lest anyone think this is unrelated to the way we treat our military families, note that Medicaid serves millions of troops, in addition to many other populations.) The only reason those patients of mine continued to receive care was because I volunteered to do it, a choice that a medical professional living in the largest economy on Earth shouldn’t have to make. A country of wealthy healthcare corporations enabled by the government, who let clinicians choose between volunteer work or turning sick people away, is its own kind of banana republic.
Should we be surprised? Not in a for-profit healthcare system, where companies stand to gain by hoarding premiums long enough to garner yet more interest on them. Why would any of them feel compelled to fix such an outage in a timely fashion unless someone made them do it?—and no one did.
The Devil’s in the Details (and There Are So Many Details)
After the Change Healthcare outage, UnitedHealth’s CEO Andrew Witty testified before Congress for the first time in 15 years—a noteworthy (if insufficient) first step in raising public awareness and pressuring companies to improve their data security and prevent disruptions to healthcare. What I didn’t see was any significant discussion of why Americans need little-known companies like Change to begin with.
Change’s role is essentially to take the notes saying what we did that therapists and doctors like me write after we see patients and pass them on to insurance companies like Tricare/Humana, Medicaid/Optum, or D.C. Medicare (administered by the Pennsylvania-based Novitas, Inc.) in a format those payers are most likely to accept. If you ask me, were Change the character in the 1990s parody Office Space asked by downsizing consultants, “What would you say you do here?,” instead of responding, “I deal with the customers so the engineers don’t have to,” it might say, “I deal with the insurance companies so the providers don’t have to.” Essentially, Change takes my notes and sends them to the computer systems of insurers, which then (maybe) pay me. For a company that electronically dispatches healthcare claims from providers to payers, it’s done remarkably well. It was the most profitable of UnitedHealth’s thousands of subsidiaries, and UnitedHealth was itself one of the Fortune 500’s top 25 companies in 2023.
Maybe before something akin to another January 6 happens in America, more people should begin to question the assumption that private is better, that billionaires are the embodiment of the American dream, and that government, on principle, is not to be trusted
So many cooks in the kitchen amount to confusion and lack of accountability for providers like me.
Prior to the Change outage, the reasons companies didn’t pay out to medical workers were often as arbitrary and unrelated to healthcare as you could imagine. UnitedHealth went months without paying me for therapy I did with several of its members because I wrote the number “11,” not “10,” on claim forms to indicate that I saw patients online. No matter that both numbers stood for the same thing. Worse yet, its representatives refused to tell me that this was the problem until government officials intervened on my behalf. Honestly, I don’t think we live in a “deep state” as much as in (and yes, I would capitalize it!) Deep Corporate America.
Deep Corporations
Much is said these days by folks on the far right about the “deep state” and Donald Trump’s plans to gut it should he return to the White House in 2025. Speaking from the bowels of the healthcare industry, I’d say that what we have on our hands are many layers of companies (like those beneath Tricare, Medicaid, and Medicare) that decide whether and how to administer funds in ways too complicated and inhuman to truly explain. Consider it an irony then that, in 2022, the healthcare version of all of that was deepened by—yes!—a Trump-appointed judge who struck down a Justice Department lawsuit attempting to prevent UnitedHealth from acquiring Change.
Many failed states rot from the inside before they collapse, when people get so fed up with not having their basic needs met that they take to the streets. Maybe before something akin to another January 6 happens in America, more people should begin to question the assumption that private is better, that billionaires are the embodiment of the American dream, and that government, on principle, is not to be trusted. Instead, isn’t it time to hold the feet of government officials to the fire and begin a genuine crackdown on corporate greed in this country?
If that doesn’t happen, our healthcare system will prove to be just one disastrous layer in a genuine American house of cards. Unless our public officials begin to place our human rights and the rule of law first, count on one thing: Somewhere along the line that house of cards, medical or otherwise, is headed for collapse.
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The Active-Duty Airman Refusing to Eat While Gaza Starves
Airman Larry Hebert, who began a hunger strike at the White House on Easter Sunday, says he was inspired by the self-immolation of active-duty Airman Aaron Bushnell.
Apr 03, 2024
An active-duty Air Force airman is on a hunger strike in front of the White House, in solidarity with the children of Gaza, who are being deliberately starved to death.
Larry Hebert, a senior airman with six years in the Air Force, began his hunger strike at the White House on Easter Sunday. He says he will be present at the White House from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm, April 1-6, and will then move to the House of Representatives, beginning Monday, April 8, when Congress is back in session.
Airman Hebert, who recently joined the organization Veterans For Peace, says he was inspired by the self-immolation of active-duty Airman Aaron Bushnell.
"When Aaron Bushnell took his own life at the Israeli Embassy for the people of Gaza, that had a profound impact on me. I felt and resonated exactly with how he was feeling, and so that was really powerful and influential," Hebert said. "But what really infuriated me was the response afterward. Leadership within the military and within our government were just silent. There was utter silence surrounding Aaron Bushnell and what he did."
"We anticipate that other active-duty military and veterans will be following his example."
"I knew I had to raise my voice in opposition to the U.S. government supplying Israel the bombs and rockets to commit genocide in Gaza," said Hebert. "Active-duty members are afraid to speak out, and I hope my example and that of others, like Aaron, can change that."
In mid-March, Hebert, from rural New Hampshire, took an authorized leave from his assignment at Naval Station Rota, Spain. Since then he has participated in demonstrations demanding a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and visited several congressional offices to press for an end to U.S. weapons shipments to Israel, which violate several U.S. laws.
Hebert is standing outside the White House this week with a sign that reads "Active-duty airman refuses to eat while Gaza starves."
He is not wearing a military uniform, which might be considered a violation of military regulations.
"I am on Day 4 of my hunger strike in solidarity with the civilians that are being deliberately starved in Gaza," said Hebert on Wednesday.
Hebert told
Task and Purpose that he currently works as an avionics technician assigned to Naval Station Rota, Spain. The NAVSTA base provides cargo, fuel, and logistics support to military units in the region and supports U.S. and NATO ships with three active piers.
Hebert plans to continue the hunger strike—limiting himself to water and a juice supplement—for as long as he physically can.
He told Military.com, "I don't have a stop or an end for it right now. I'm going to go until my body cannot go any longer or we get the cease-fire and the end of unconditional aid to Israel."
Hebert joins many hundreds of current and retired military and civilian government officials urging U.S. leaders to stop fueling Israel's war that has killed over 32,000 Palestinians, nearly half of whom are children. Starvation and disease are rapidly becoming as deadly as the war itself throughout Gaza, where Israel has bombed hospitals, mosques, and residential neighborhoods to rubble.
"We applaud and wholeheartedly support the courageous action of this young Airman," said Mike Ferner, national director of Veterans For Peace. "We hope he will inspire other military personnel and veterans to take similar actions."
Veterans For Peace supports military personnel who act in good conscience and refuse to participate in genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, whether directly or in support roles. For example, orders to load or transport U.S. weapons to Israel are illegal, under both U.S. and international law.
Veterans For Peace recommends that military personnel who want more information about their legal rights, or who wish to be discharged from the military, contact the GI Rights Hotline.
Airman Hebert's protest is gaining national and international notice. On Tuesday alone, he was interviewed by Democracy Now, The New York Times, The Guardian, Voice of America, Al Jazeera, WMUR-New Hampshire, and The Katie Halpern Show on YouTube.
"Larry Hebert's bold action is having an impact," said Ferner of Veterans For Peace. "We anticipate that other active-duty military and veterans will be following his example."
List of U.S. Laws Violated by the Biden Administration When Sending Arms to Israel
For active-duty members of the U.S. military considering following in Herbert's footsteps, or anyone who seeks more information, here are some of the laws the U.S. is currently breaking. In a February 12 letter to the U.S. State Department inspector-general, Veterans For Peace detailed the U.S. laws currently being violated by U.S. officials every time weapons shipments to Israel are authorized to include:
- The Foreign Assistance Act, which forbids the provision of assistance to a government which "engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights."
- Arms Export Control Act, which says countries that receive U.S. military aid can only use weapons for legitimate self-defense and internal security. Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza goes way beyond self-defense and internal security.
- The U.S. War Crimes Act, which forbids grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, including willful killing, torture, or inhumane treatment; willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health; and unlawful deportation or transfer. All of these crimes are perpetrated daily by the Israeli Occupying Forces.
- The Leahy Law, which prohibits the U.S. government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces when there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.
- The Genocide Convention Implementation Act, which was enacted to implement U.S. obligations under the Genocide Convention, provides for criminal penalties for individuals who commit or incite others to commit genocide
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Imagining the Ecomodernist Death Ray
We need green military technology to kill one another sustainably.
Mar 09, 2024
You probably have never read the 2015, "An Ecomodernist Manifesto." Good for you! That missed experience leaves you a little more brain space to recall who won the 1967 World Series, which brothers played sax and drums on "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" (Maceo and Melvin Parker), and who wrote the trilogy, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable (if you guessed Samuel Beckett, congratulations). Having a finite brain, I maintain only a sustainable body of knowledge.
So why even bring up a hoary old movement that seldom enters the news cycle? Who cares about a manifesto written at the end of President Barack Obama's last term?
Our political culture rolls the dice on climate change, with a strategy of doing absolutely nothing, and ecomodernism provides the rhetorical inspiration for inaction. We ought to trot out the manifesto on sweltering hot days just to pay homage to the authors of a document that uplifts us with the rallying cry that “future help is on the way.” If ecomodernists have become the de facto architects of environmental policy, shouldn't we spend a couple of minutes considering their virtues?
With an economy growing with clean, safe nuclear energy, carbon capture, GMOs, and desalination we need a fighting force keeping pace—with space lasers, magnifying glasses the size of football stadiums, solar drones, and clean nukes.
Ecomodernism is sort of the love child of Ayn Rand and John Muir, or the mutant offspring of Rachel Carson and Tony Robbins, or even, god forbid, the living flesh melded from Emily Dickinson and John D. Rockefeller. If you attempt to intertwine the most predatory icons of free market thinking with random champions of pristine woods, you come up with a utopia of unlimited luxury and unspoiled nature. This is the best "have your cake and eat it too" philosophy ever. The ecomodernists even have a word to describe this unlikely splicing of mass consumption and ecologism—"decoupling."
Decoupling (take a deep breath) means that economic growth and the fate of the natural world can—by virtue of future technical achievements—be entirely separated. The rabid faith in free markets, future technology, and human expansion drives the economic fundamentalism of ecomodernists. You can have a hypertrophied economy the size of fucking Betelgeuse juxtaposed with flourishing redwood forests and twittering finches (carefully cultivated by human designs)—or so the ecomodernists tell us. It's like thinking that you can eat 20,000 daily calories of bacon, butter, and ice cream (while sitting on the couch all day flicking through YouTube shorts) and be as shredded as Bruce Lee—you merely have to decouple your diet and lifestyle from your health.
This wonderful world bursts forth from a foundation of three great shibboleths—clean, safe nuclear energy, desalination, and carbon capture. Oh, and GMO driven industrial farming—four shibboleths. In ecomodernist fantasies we can just keep doing what we are doing—burning coal, fracking, drilling, etc. and be confident that a befouled world can be saved by future innovations. Count me in! Who doesn't want a world crammed with cheap stuff—a mandate for greed decoupled from consequences?
The one tiny issue that the ecomodernists have yet to consider is decoupled military spending and warfare. If the economy can be decoupled from the environment, then so too, we need to imagine a future utopia in which we can blow up cities and eviscerate enemy civilians while preserving the sanctity of nature. I spent a full 12 minutes on The Breakthrough Institute website and did not see a single blog comment on green military hardware. I should mention that The Breakthrough Institute is the flagship of ecomodernism—the place to read a hundred or more bits about decoupling. It might be that there are musings about environmentally responsible weapons of mass destruction at The Breakthrough, and I just failed to find them. You would think that ecomodernists have thought about such things—obviously, in an infinite growth economy there will be infinite military spending. Or, I should say, continued infinite military spending.
The ecomodernist weltanschauung appears to embrace the idea that any technological invention that can be imagined will inevitably come to fruition. If this is correct, why are ecomodernists unable to imagine the future of clean weaponry? Even a less than shining light—Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)—imagined Jewish space lasers. A weapon that can vaporize people and property from a remote orbit in space has to be far more deferential to ecosystems than the usual fighter bomber delivered explosives. In the spirit of decoupling we need space lasers from all spiritual denominations—not just Jewish ones.
Every evil child knows about the pleasures of committing ant genocide with a magnifying glass. This solar driven means of mass death should be a natural idea for ecomodernist thinkers. Think of the James Webb telescope built, not to explore remote galaxies shortly after the big bang, but designed to redirect and concentrate deadly sunbeams to crush those enemy strongholds that advocate growth-impeding ideology. Modern warfare since Guernica has centered on bombing civilian populations to a pulp. In an ecomodernist world, we ought to obliterate unwanted people with the most sustainable technology that money can buy.
What about solar powered robotic drones armed with razor sharp titanium blades? How about clean nuclear bombs? It is rumored that the nuclear industry funds The Breakthrough Institute—that makes nuclear warfare into an ecomodernist prerogative.
In a world full of free markets, war, and genocide we cannot continue to destroy human life on industrial scales with old-fashioned fossil fuel driven armies. The U.S. military uses, annually, more fossil fuels than the country of Portugal. That is fine for now, but we will need an even bigger military in the future—a fighting force with the exponential potential to match capitalist expansion. With an economy growing with clean, safe nuclear energy, carbon capture, GMOs, and desalination we need a fighting force keeping pace—with space lasers, magnifying glasses the size of football stadiums, solar drones, and clean nukes.
Ecomodernists talk about building a "good Anthropocene"—an Anthropocene bursting to the gills with gadgets, fashion, entertainment, 70-hour work weeks, and fast cars. We can't have all the stuff we need to keep the emptiness of the Anthropocene at bay, unless we can force the Global South to hand over the extracted rare materials we need to make an ass kicking, rocking Anthropocene. We need The Breakthrough Institute to grow a pair and say the quiet part out loud.
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Pakistan Election-Day Internet Blackout Condemned as 'Reckless Attack on People's Rights'
"The decision to suspend telecommunications and mobile internet services on an election day is a blunt attack on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly," said an expert with Amnesty International.
Feb 08, 2024
A leading international human rights group condemned Pakistani authorities on Thursday for shutting down the country's internet services as voters headed to the polls to cast their ballots in a long-delayed election marred by military interference, terrorist violence, and the imprisonment of the nation's most popular politician, former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
"The decision to suspend telecommunications and mobile internet services on an election day is a blunt attack on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly," Livia Saccardi, Amnesty International's interim deputy director for South Asia, said in a statement issued as polls closed in the world's fifth-most populous nation.
"It is reckless to impede access to information as people head out to polling stations on the heels of devastating bomb blasts and what has been an intense crackdown on the opposition in the lead-up to the elections in the country," said Saccardi. "Unwarranted restrictions on dissemination of information, despite reassurances to the contrary from the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority and Election Commission of Pakistan, are in breach of people's human rights at this critical time in Pakistan."
The internet blackouts across the country were one of many factors that called into question the legitimacy of Thursday's vote, in which dozens of parties competed for nearly 270 seats in the lower house of the Pakistani Parliament as well as positions in regional governments. The Parliament will be tasked with choosing a prime minister after the results are tallied.
Video footage posted to social media showed long lines at polling stations, but early government reports suggested that overall turnout was low relative to other elections in recent years.
Sayed Bukhari, who served as an adviser to Khan, disputed claims of low turnout, calling them a ploy by Pakistan's caretaker government to "rig the votes."
"So this what this incompetent and compromised caretaker government and its officials will do this next, mark my words!" Bukhari wrote. "Despite a historic turnout in most of the country... they will now spread the fake narrative that the voter turnout was very low."
"No extra time to vote has been granted as it usually always does," he added, noting that polls closed as many were still standing in line to vote. "How many channels are going to play this narrative?"
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) are the three dominant parties in the nation's politics. The Associated Press noted ahead of Thursday's vote that "the top contender is PML-N and on its ballot are two former prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif."
"However," the outlet added, "it is the absence from the ballot of PTI's founder, cricket legend turned Islamist politician Imran Khan, that's at the forefront of public discourse in Pakistan."
Just a week before the contest, Khan was hit with two lengthy prison sentences—10 and 14 years—on consecutive days, one for his alleged release of state secrets and the other for corruption charges that the former prime minister and his allies say were politically motivated.
Khan, who was removed from power in a no-confidence vote in 2022, was already in prison facing corruption allegations before the closed-door trials concluded last week. The no-confidence vote was backed by the U.S. State Department.
Ahead of Thursday's election, as The Intercept's Ryan Grim wrote Wednesday, Pakistan's government worked hard to suppress Khan's popular PTI party, including by banning its famous electoral symbol—a cricket bat—and arresting members of the party.
"With the loss of its bat, PTI was converted from a formidable political party to a loose group of individuals with no legal affiliation overnight, effectively disenfranchising millions of citizens who placed their trust in PTI as a political entity," Grim wrote. "The move has been severely criticized as a 'huge blow to fundamental rights' by the Pakistani legal fraternity and civil society."
In an Economist op-ed written from prison last month, Khan warned that elections held under such conditions "would be a disaster and a farce, since PTI is being denied its basic right to campaign."
"Such a joke of an election would only lead to further political instability," Khan wrote. "The only viable way forward for Pakistan is fair and free elections, which would bring back political stability and rule of law, as well as ushering in desperately needed reforms by a democratic government with a popular mandate. There is no other way for Pakistan to disentangle itself from the crises confronting it. Unfortunately, with democracy under siege, we are heading in the opposite direction on all these fronts."
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What Comes After Pax Americana?
War in the new multipolar disorder can be prevented by our social movements’ pressure from below and by political and national leaders with the courage to press for common security diplomacy.
Jul 20, 2023
What we, our children, and future generations need and deserve is clear: Freedom from the threat of war. A sustainable environment. And our nations’ resources should be devoted to ensuring food and housing security and facilitating lives that can be lived with dignity.
It is the pursuit of power and privilege, and the maintenance of structural inequality, that are the greatest obstacles to the common security we need and deserve. As we learned from the Korean Democracy movement, and in the U.S. from the civil rights, women’s, and nuclear disarmament campaigns, freedom, justice, peace, and environmental sustainability will not be delivered to us by our governments. They can only be achieved with pressure from below, by our movements and courageous individuals.
Our struggles take place within national and international political, economic, and social contexts. Today, with escalating military tensions in and around the Korean Peninsula, with the geopolitical tectonic changes stemming from the emergence of a multipolar disorder to replace declining U.S. regional and global hegemony, and with the failure of our elites to courageously confront and reverse the existential threats to humanity of nuclear annihilation and the climate emergency, we face a host of obstacles to creating a common security.
Despite its inherently brutal recipe for maintaining U.S. global full spectrum dominance, there is some truth in the U.S. National Security Strategy where it reads: “The post-Cold War era is definitely over and a competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next.”
Our situation has historic origins: Korean history, including Japanese colonialism and Korea’s Cold War Division; the industrial, scientific, and intellectual revolutions; U.S. Manifest Destiny and the exceptionalist ideologies of its now 125-year-old overseas empire; the century and a half of Chinese humiliation and its rise to again become a major world power; the end of the post-Cold War era, and the inherent uncertainties of the 21st century multipolar disorder.
Despite its inherently brutal recipe for maintaining U.S. global full spectrum dominance, there is some truth in the U.S. National Security Strategy where it reads: “The post-Cold War era is definitely over and a competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next.” Fiona Hill put it differently.: The Ukraine War, she wrote, is making “the passing of the Pax Americana apparent to everyone.”
In fact, not everyone has this awareness. Many U.S. policymakers and most of the U.S. general public have yet to acknowledge this reality. The belief that “America is the indispensable nation” continues to guide U.S. policymakers and the country, fueling outdated policies and provocative and dangerous actions including seeking to strategically defeat Russia via the Ukraine War, repeatedly sending warships through the Taiwan Strait, and initiating trade wars.
The U.S. is not alone in refusing to adjust to the new multipolar disorder. Russian President Vladimir Putin models himself in the tradition of Peter the Great. China seeks to establish neocolonial regional hegemony in East Asia and the West Pacific and refuses to renegotiate the terms of loans which look to bankrupt some of its ostensible partners. Unjust Cold War power relations in Korea and across the planet leave humanity in or on the brink of catastrophic wars, nuclear and climate Armageddon, hunger, and poverty.
The intensifying U.S.-China military confrontations and their economic, technological, and diplomatic competition are a classic replay of the inevitable tensions between rising and declining powers that historically have often climaxed in catastrophic wars. As former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd put it, we are sleepwalking into an avoidable war. It can be prevented by our social movements’ pressure from below and by political and national leaders with the courage to press for common security diplomacy.
While the Ukraine War is at the center of world attention, it is about more than Ukraine. It’s not simply a criminal Russian war of aggression, which it is. It also reflects the birthing of the dangerously uncertain multipolar era.
Given Russian-Chinese strategic interdependence, as well as Chinese dependence on U.S. technology and the U.S. and European markets, China has much to lose as well as to gain in the Ukraine War. With Beijing’s economic and limited diplomatic support of the Kremlin, China’s leadership seeks to ensure that Washington and NATO continue to face a Russian military potential in Europe in order to limit the threatening U.S. miliary buildup on China’s periphery. Simultaneously, Beijing’s 12 point “Position on Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis,” its warnings against Russian use of nuclear weapons, its Global Security Initiative, and its facilitation of the Iran-Saudi agreement mean that China’s partnership with Moscow is not unlimited. And Xi’s “peace diplomacy” is challenging Washington’s role as the ultimate diplomatic arbiter.
Even as the U.S. dispatches warships to the Taiwan Strait, flies nuclear capable bombers across South Korea, reinforces is military alliances, expands its military presence across Asia and the Pacific, and undermines the One China doctrine, Washington’s near-term priority is to inflict a strategic defeat on Moscow.
This relates to China. In Asia, Europe, and the Global South, the Biden Administration is working to salvage and reinforce the four-generation old Bretton Woods and NATO systems to resist what it perceives to be Russia’s immediate, and China’s longer-term, threats to the so-called “rules based” order. Yes, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s menacing naval forces in Philippine and Vietnamese waters, and its refusal to respect the International Court of Arbitration’s decision on South China/West Philippine Sea sovereignty are gross violations of the “the rules based order.” But they are not the only ones. Recall the U.S. invasions of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq; the Reagan Administration’s refusal to participate in the International Court of Justice; and Washington’s continuing support for Israeli apartheid.
The Biden Administration’s Security Strategy’s primary commitments are clear: contain and “out compete” China while “constraining Russia.” This updates former President Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia and former President Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policies, while insisting that the U.S. maintain its “unmatched” military war fighting capabilities. President Joe Biden crowed that “the U.S. is back,” and his military buildup and U.S. military operations across the so-called Indo-Pacific and Europe are all designed to enforce that boast.
The Security Strategy gives the “China threat” pride of place. China is seen as “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and increasingly the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.” China’s facilitation of the Iran-Saudi deal appears to prove this point. The Strategy also explains that Chinese military expansion and modernization is the “pacing threat” driving U.S. military planning, operations, and, I would add, spending. Technological primacy is described as determinative for military and economic power, and the Strategy commits to offset China’s economic challenge.
This is not unrelated to the tensions in Korea and to the ongoing danger that the armistice will not hold. Geography plays a major role in a nation’s destiny. Korea was once a major empire, but for the last two centuries Koreans have been caught in the geopolitical vortex of U.S.-Chinese-Russian-Japanese tensions. Even as Beijing has no love for the regime in Pyongyang, it has supported the Kim dynasty because historically Korea has served as the military gateway to Manchuria. And even as South Korea is China’s fourth largest trading partner, when it looks across the West Sea it is confronted by U.S. first-strike related THAAD missiles and Washington’s nuclear armed Seventh Fleet.
South Korea has played critical roles maintaining U.S. East-Asian and Pacific military dominance. For Washington, the Republic of Korea (ROK) is its sixth greatest trading partner and an important source of technology. And, for 75 years, Washington has seen Korea as a geopolitical dagger that could potentially threaten the United States’ most important Asian ally, Japan. This helps to explain the drawing of the line on the 38th parallel, the Pentagon’s neocolonial troop deployments and bases across the ROK, continuing control of the ROK military, and Biden’s efforts to enforce an unhappy marriage between Seoul and Tokyo and those nations’ deepening engagements with NATO.
Returning to the Security Strategy, it does acknowledge U.S.-Chinese economic interdependence, which explains Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin’s recent trip to Beijing. That said, the Strategy provides for a two-part containment strategy: massive investments to revitalize the U.S. economy and technological innovation as the foundation of U.S. power, and a deepening alignment with U.S. allies and partners. The first commitment was addressed with a $560-billion boost for the U.S. economy and by a $52-billion subsidy to the U.S. semiconductor and high-tech industry.
Biden’s cohort understand that the U.S. cannot enforce its hegemony unilaterally. Thus they give priority to integrating their allies’ military, economic, and technological power to resist China’s challenge. They have consolidated the QUAD military alliance with Japan, Australia, and India. The nuclear AUKUS alliance with Australia and Britain has been negotiated and is being implemented. South Korea and Japan are encouraged to build a tripartite alliance. The second Marcos dictatorship has reembraced the U.S. military alliance. And NATO’s new strategic concept names containing China as an alliance priority. May’s G7 commitment to contain China, and the Indo-Pacific Framework for Prosperity provide glue to hold it all together.
China is not standing still. It has reportedly doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal and may be aiming for nuclear parity with the U.S. China’s navy is larger than the U.S. 7th fleet and is the leading edge of Beijing’s effort to enforce its imperial nine-dash line. It has repeatedly sent its warplanes across the median line in the Taiwan Strait. And its space and cyber weapons challenge those of the U.S. No wonder that some Southeast Asian and Pacific Nations are hedging their bets and support U.S. militarism, even as they increase their economic dependence on China.
Taiwan is the hinge and most dangerous potential flash point of this geopolitical stew. Despite hysteria in Washington, Beijing has no intention of invading Taiwan in the near term unless Taipei recklessly opts for de jure independence or in the case of unexpected military accident or incident, But bipartisan Congressional madness is driving the U.S. toward increased confrontation and Kevin Rudd’s “avoidable war.”
For China, reunification of what it perceives to be a strategically vital and rogue province, first severed in 1895 by Japan and serving as a U.S. protectorate since 1949, is a national priority, the final prize to overcome the century and a half of humiliation. For the U.S. and its allies, Taiwan is a geostrategic resource essential to bottle up China’s Navy within the inner island chain, and a democratic society not to be sacrificed.
The U.S. is not an innocent party. Beginning with Trump and accelerated by Biden, the U.S. has sought to bring Taiwan fully into the U.S. sphere, undermining the One China Policy which it ostensibly supports. That policy has been the foundation for U.S.-Chinese relations and Northeast Asian stability since “normal” U.S.-Chinese relations were reestablished in 1979. But, to give Biden his due, Huang Kwei-Bo, a senior policy figure for the KMT in Taiwan, reports that Biden has kept an obedient DPP government in line, preventing pro-independence actions that could spark a catastrophic war.
China’s almost daily military operations targeted against Taiwan have multiplied since former U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reckless visit to Taiwan and with her successor’s meeting with Taiwan’s president. If an accident or miscalculation that could escalate are to be prevented, the U.S. and China must signal their willingness to deescalate tensions by reducing their provocative military operations near Taiwan.
There are other potential triggers for a catastrophic regional war. Tensions have been intensifying with Pyongyang’s growing nuclear arsenal and its powerful delivery systems, and the renewed and massive ROK-U.S.-Japanese military exercises designed to demonstrate the ability to destroy North Korea and topple the Kim dynasty. I agree with Francis Daehoon Lee and others South Korean peace movement leaders that, even as we mark the Armistice Agreement’s anniversary and call for a peace treaty, that we must focus on war prevention in Korea. All parties to the tensions have nuclear or conventional first strike doctrines; the fear is that we are approaching an extremely dangerous tipping point.
Militarized Japanese-Chinese competition for the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, competition for control of South China Sea resources and sea lanes, and certainly accidents or miscalculations could trigger a catastrophic military conflict. It is worth noting that Japan is preparing for possible conflict by doubling its military budget. Tokyo is already the world’s sixth biggest military spender, has an advanced navy, is purchasing cruise missiles from the U.S., and its military has long asserted its right to possess tactical nuclear weapons. And successive U.S. presidents have affirmed that Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty requires the U.S. to come to Japan’s aid in case of an attack.
With the U.S. and China involved in the Ukraine War, albeit differently, and facing the likelihood that it will be a long war that increases the possibilities of horizontal (geographic) and vertical (nuclear) escalation, it is imperative to press for a ceasefire and negotiations. But the greatest danger lies in an avoidable U.S., China, and regional war, and a failure of Beijing and Washington to cooperate to reverse the existential climate emergency. We must all do what we can to take humanity’s foot off the accelerator of what U.N. Secretary General António Guterres describes as “a highway to climate hell.”
China has the right to peacefully rise, but peacefully means with non-coercive policies toward its neighbors and respect for human rights. Korean voices urging security and trade policies independent from both Washington’s and Beijing’s confrontational approach can play critically important mediating roles. We can all learn and build on the 1982 Common Security Report which warned that no nation can unilaterally ensure its security, and that security can only be created with, and not against, a nation’s rivals. It served as the paradigm for the INF Treaty which ended the Cold War before the fall of the Berlin Wall and for the early post-Cold War security architecture. The paradigm rests on an ancient truth: “Security cannot be obtained unilaterally. Economically, politically, culturally, or importantly militarily—we live in an interdependent world and no nation can achieve security at the expense of another.”
This article is based on a talk prepared for the “Commons: Peace and Security For All” conference held in Seoul, South Korea.
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