Calls have grown for Secretary of State Antony Blinken to resign or be impeached, after a bombshell report revealed that he lied to Congress about internal Biden administration recommendations that the U.S. suspend weapons shipments to Israel over myriad human rights violations — a move that one advocacy group said is “egregiously illegal.” Muslim and Arab rights groups and commentators said…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
As the death toll continued to climb in Lebanon amid Israel’s attacks on the country this week, President Joe Biden suggested in an address to the UN that Israel’s bombing campaign is legitimate, even as other officials in the chamber have warned that Israel’s massacres amount to war crimes. In his final address to the UN General Assembly as the U.S. president on Tuesday…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The Pentagon has announced that it is sending additional U.S. troops to the Middle East “out of an abundance of caution” after Israel launched a series of attacks on Lebanon that have killed hundreds of people in a major escalation of its war. Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder said in a press conference on Monday that the U.S. is sending some military members to the region to bolster the 40…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) reiterated a call for the U.S. to stop sending weapons to Israel on Monday as Israeli forces have launched an all-out assault on Lebanon in the 12th month of their genocide in Gaza. In response to the American embassy in Beirut advising that U.S. citizens flee Lebanon amid Israel’s major escalation of attacks on the country, Tlaib quipped, “It’s easier to stop…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Two new books reveal the shortcomings at the heart of the liberal critique of Trump voters.
This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.
Can we expand the state’s role in the economy while diminishing its capacity for war?
This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.
More than 33,000 Boeing factory workers in the Pacific Northwest voted to strike on September 13, in a monumental moment for labor that could determine the future of the already embattled aircraft company. After 95 percent of unionized workers rejected a tentative agreement with Boeing, 96 percent voted in favor of authorizing a strike — currently the largest in the country.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Dr Alex Vickery-Howe wonders aloud if we’re going to wake up before American democracy implodes.
I’m calling it now: Democrats are idiots for turning on the incumbent and giving Donald Trump a clear path to the White House.
The news that donors were willing to withhold millions of dollars was stomach turning. Of course, people have the right to withhold a donation – it’s their money – but publicly knifing a president and playing into a conman’s hands was hardly a good look.
Now, the knife has sunk, and a good man has left the race. It’s almost like the Democrats and their key supporters have somehow forgotten what’s at stake in this upcoming election.
Here’s a refresher…
Trump’s resurgence is genuinely horrifying and may well see the end of contraception, the weaponisation of the justice department, the erosion of LGBTQI+ rights, the forced deportation of recent immigrants, an all-out assault against the American education system and the eventual installation of a Christian dictatorship. This isn’t fantasy… this is the stated intention of Project 2025. Despite his denials, Trump is a big fan of their work.
I could describe all of this as ‘unconstitutional’, because it’s the exact opposite of what the Founding Fathers wanted… but I’m not sure America cares about its own constitution anymore. That went out the window when Republicans sided with Russia and decided they were fine with Hitler being quoted in campaign rallies.
All of this, however, is what Margaret Atwood predicted when she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale. Should we be moving it off the ‘Fiction’ shelf and replacing it with something more far-fetched, such as Lance Armstrong’s biography, or The Art of the Deal?
Trump is so busy conning others that he probably doesn’t even realise that he too is being conned, used, and played. I don’t think Donnie wants to live in a country where pornography is banned. He was, allegedly, pretty upset that he couldn’t watch his favourite movies while he was living in the White House. He’s going to be more upset when he clicks on Stormy Daniel’s profile and finds a frustrating ‘Error: file not found’ message. I’ve a sneaking suspicion he’ll be put out when his next illegitimate child is carried to term too.
While we’re speaking about the benefits of the morning after pill… I don’t care about Hunter Biden any more than I care about Eric Trump. The desperation with which people are making this race about the children of the candidates is pitiful. Marjorie Taylor Greene whipping out Hunter’s penis has to be the low point. Parading poor Barron like mini-me is a close second. Haven’t we moved on from political dynasties?
Before I deconstruct the unfolding disaster around the betrayal of Biden, let me pivot to something else I’ve raised before that I really think Republicans need to consider…
You should be uniting around Tim Scott.
The collaboration between Trump and his previous Vice-Presidential stooge, Mike Pence, was bully and victim, or daddy and sub. It was an abusive relationship that plausibly could have ended in Pence’s death. Tim Scott has a stronger personality, and he’s well-liked in Washington, so it’s odd to me that he wasn’t the clear frontrunner to stand beside Trump on the GOP ticket this time.
The answer to that conundrum is probably that Scott is unwilling to be a stooge at all, and would actually challenge Trump. I guess the party faithful couldn’t handle that. Better to install J.D. Vance, a man who once linked Trump to both ‘Hitler’ and ‘heroin’, but whose moral code seems as changeable as the climate he denies.
When all the talk about replacing Biden in the top job – with little voter research beyond falling for the opposition’s argument – reached fever pitch among the Democrats, it was strange to me that no Republican strategist was watching Trump rave about wrestling with sharks and thinking that, maybe, Tim Scott could be the saner choice. Why didn’t that come up?
It’s one of those peculiar quirks of partisan alchemy that the Democrats had a workable candidate they decided to shank for nobody in particular, while the Republicans have a terrible candidate they still refuse to substitute for the younger, smarter ideologue waiting in the wings.
It just goes to show….
The right knows how to unify. The left turns on its own if the lattés aren’t the perfect temperature.
If the recent electoral process in France has taught us anything it’s that the French know how to get their act together and take on the far-right. The left and the centre-left saw the existential threat and joined forces in the name of reason. I wish the same could have happened to America in 2016, when Bernie and Hillary played tug-of-war with the leftist vote. Sarah Silverman’s cries to ‘unify’ were on the money. We’re seeing the same division play out in leftist circles now, and it may well lead to the same awful result.
I admire Bernie Sanders and I admire Hillary Clinton. They could have shared the ticket.
I admire Kevin Rudd and I admire Julia Gillard. They actually did share the ticket, and they still managed to knife each other until Australia was saddled with the idiocy of an Abbott government. The left needs to learn the value of loyalty. Sure, the right is disloyal too – Turnbull crept up behind Abbott and Scotty from Marketing crept up behind Turnbull – but they don’t tend to do it when they’re winning.
The left does.
Do you know who won more votes that any presidential candidate in US history? Joe Biden.
Do you know who won 95% of the delegates in the August Democratic convention? Joe Biden.
In the crucial Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, who do you think the people want to vote for? Steady Biden from… wait for it… Scranton, Pennsylvania… or a new candidate picked at the whim of Hollywood powerbrokers? Nothing feeds more into the ‘coastal elite’ narrative than that. It’s gonna be a gift for class warriors and catnip for Vance.
I knew that Biden wasn’t going to make it through to Election Day when comedian Bill Maher said:
“Above any matters of politics, or what’s right or wrong, the one thing I know for sure about America is this… it’s run by mean girls. Mean girls. In the press and in politics, and in life… and when they smell blood in the water, the lust to finish off a vulnerable person will never be denied.”
Maher is catching up to George Carlin in terms of astute philosophical observations made in jest. Once the blood hit the water, the opposition, the media, and erstwhile friends and allies, swarmed to feast on Biden’s reputation.
Where have I seen this before?
Remember, Clinton was the target of a smear campaign that boiled down to a bogus FBI search, a lot of cultish hype – ‘but her emails!’ – and a schoolyard nickname: Crooked Hillary. There was also a whiff of misogyny in her constantly being linked to her husband’s infidelity, which she, more than anyone, had the right to be pissed off about.
Even my own brilliant (I said brilliant… brilliant… please don’t fire me, sir) editor couldn’t resist making a crack about Bill in relation to Hillary when I pointed out that none of Trump’s political rivals could get away with sleeping with a porn star and bullying her into silence. Bill never stood against Trump, his tryst was 27 years ago, and Hillary is not her husband. It must irk her no end to have to keep asserting her individual worth.
But that’s the essence of playground politics. Throw mud. Invent a nickname. Repeat until it all sticks. Mean girls. Mean little boys. Adolescents who lack nuance, perspective, stakes, or a shred of empathy.
When Trump wheeled a group of women out for his debate with Hillary to make accusations against Bill, fresh on the back of Trump’s own ‘pussy grabbing’ scandal, I laughed out loud at the transparent desperation of the tactic. It shocked me then that his manipulative crap actually resonated with people. It shocks me today that the same dirty tricks are still resonating as he throws his toddler taunts at Biden.
‘Crooked’ Hillary was a lie. We now know Trump is the criminal with a list of convictions to his name, including being found liable for sexual assault.
‘Sleepy’ Joe is also a lie. Trump is exhibiting clear signs of dementia. Medical professionals have been highlighting this for years. Did you sit through his chat with Musk? I’ve literally had more coherent conversations with residents in nursing homes.
It’s the same trick: deflect your failings back on your opponent.
Both my grandmother and a close teacher died of dementia. It’s important to clock the difference between normal decline – slowness, reaching for words, lethargy – which Biden absolutely 100% exhibits vs the verbal glitches Trump slips into with scary regularity. Those glitches are a very, very different thing and a sign of actual dementia. You know, the clinical kind, as opposed to a pop cultural diagnosis.
For the people in my life who suffered from this disease, it was those tell-tale glitches that were the clearest sign to doctors. The same tell-tale glitches Trump is showing now. Eighteen months later and they were severely declined, didn’t know where they were, couldn’t string a sentence together and couldn’t decipher a gas bill. It’s a distinction between a slow but normal 80-year-old and the glitching, rambling early signs of true cognitive impairment.
Case in point: Biden quickly corrected himself when he accidentally introduced President Zelenskyy as ‘President Putin’ while Trump has repeatedly confused Nikki Haley for Nancy Pelosi without catching himself in the moment or showing the slightest hint that anything is amiss. And that’s before we mention the cats and the ducklings.
My expectation, had Biden stayed on, was that he would slow further and wouldn’t necessarily make a full term, but that the people around him would be stable and professional, and the President’s decision-making process would remain unhurried but sound until the day he left.
Trump, on the other hand, may not make it through the next few years without degenerating significantly, losing speech, losing his sense of self-awareness (if he has any now), and requiring full-time care. He’ll be like Boris Yeltsin, literally propped up by his minders, and we all know how that chapter in history ended… with the rise of Vladimir Putin.
Cognition can slip very quickly once those signs kick in and, for Trump, those signs kicked in a while back. My teacher was working until her 80th birthday but she was in care, thinking I was an actor on tour with her, by her 82nd. My grandmother, a habitual smoker, was offended when I suggested a box of cigarettes on her bedside table belonged to her. One day I walked into her room… and she had no idea who I was.
It is also a fact, of which I’m acutely aware, that some forms of dementia do run in families. Trump’s own father succumbed to Alzheimer’s and this, curiously, hasn’t been widely analysed by the media.
I’ve yet to see a medical professional declare that Biden is unwell in any way. Lots of unqualified journalists have suggested it. George Clooney has suggested it. A guy at my gym has suggested it. I’m not sure how that became headline news. I’m stunned that it shattered the candidacy of an outstanding President.
Meanwhile, Trump is freewheeling about sharks, Hannibal Lecter, the ‘oranges’ of the Mueller investigation, the dangers of solar power after dark, and random thoughts that not only lack coherency in the moment but any sense of objective reality.
If Biden had said half of these wacko things, he’d have been splashed all over the tabloids. Somehow, Trump sidesteps scrutiny because the press still treats him like the harmless character actor from The Apprentice. That’s not who he is. He’s the guy who wants to usher in martial law and take retribution against his enemies.
I look back respectfully on honourable Republican leaders, like the late John McCain who refused to belittle his political opponents and defended American healthcare shortly after his own surgery and not long before his death. Like Biden, McCain was a man of integrity. Draft dodger Trump mocked McCain for being captured during the Vietnam War. That’s not just low… it’s slimy.
It would be challenging, I’m sure, for an old-school politician to be confronted by someone as fundamentally unscrupulous as Trump, and I do understand why Democrats became concerned by Biden’s subdued response, but fracturing into warring pieces was not the answer.
It was time to rally. The Democrats chose to collapse.
The truth has never mattered when it comes to Trump. Hillary isn’t a criminal but Trump himself is. Biden isn’t mentally unfit, but Trump himself is. Haven’t we caught on yet? It’s the same con, the same projection, and America is about to fall for it all over again. To quote one of Trump’s own catchphrases – something I hardly ever do – there’s really only one word for this: Sad.
I wonder if the Romans were this smug when Rome fell. I’m seeing a lot of people revel in these attacks against Biden. Cenk, you’re great, but you’re never gonna be President. George, I’m a fan, but the guy who starred in Batman & Robin shouldn’t be giving anyone career advice.
Attacking Biden four months out from a potentially catastrophic election wasn’t edgy or clever. It certainly wasn’t wise. It was very, very far from tactically sound. I’m not an American national, so I’ll leave it for others to decide if it was ‘patriotic’… but, from a global perspective, what we’re seeing is a country handing its honour back to a criminal. America might not make it through another Trump term.
Tom Nichols summed it up:
“The real tragedy is that, in a serious country, Biden might step down without incident, and a normal race would continue, because decent people would have banished Trump from the public square long ago.”
I’ll risk being laughed at for saying it earnestly: Biden is a good guy. He is. Look into his history, look at what he has confronted and transcended in his life, and ask yourself how a weak coward like Trump would have fared under those same circumstances. Ask yourself who has integrity, who has character, and who is a fragile man-baby pretending to be tough while shadowy figures, like Miller and Bannon, and foreign rulers, like Putin and Kim Jong Un, merrily pull his strings.
Trump is not a good guy, and he’s not even a particularly capable bad guy. He’s just an empty guy. So sad.
It disgusted me to watch Biden being assaulted by his own party and by a wider network of media hacks and “activists” who may as well be on the GOP’s payroll. Some people are still enjoying this pile on. Well, enjoy four more years of the felon-in-chief. You won’t have anyone else to blame but your own mirrors. There are several reasons why this strategy is suicidal:
Michael Moore once put a Ficus forward for political office to demonstrate that a plant was a stronger candidate than the opposition. The same applies here. In a choice between Trump and literally anyone – or anything – you don’t vote Trump.
If anyone is still interested in being objective rather than kneejerk and emotional, the fact is, Biden has been a very successful president. In everything from birth control to gun safety (admittedly two things Republicans hate) Biden has been effective.
He has responded to the climate emergency with positive green initiatives that benefit rather than alienate farmers; he has given food producers a direct boost; he has relieved student debt; he has cracked down on cybercrime; he has repaired crumbling infrastructure; he has actually been tough with America’s foreign adversaries instead of just telling people he’s tough; he has strengthened the NATO alliance; he has lowered drug prices for families; and he has presided over skyrocketing employment figures. What do people want?
Joe Biden’s opponent is not in the same league.
Besides being an outlaw and a rapist, Donald Trump was a rat-shit president who bailed out the rich while stifling minimum wage growth (i.e. directly betraying his supporters); refused to believe Covid-19 was a problem, even as record numbers of Americans lay dying (i.e. directly betraying his supporters); and cosied up to dictators eager to exploit the US (i.e. directly betraying his supporters).
History has judged him and there is little to redeem the Don from the ash heap of persistent failure. For his supporters, bringing him back is like cutting off your own hand to resurrect Voldemort. He’s never gonna be grateful.
I don’t understand how there was even a contest.
In the blue corner: A man who overcame personal tragedy to become a strong and empathetic leader when history needed him. Biden proved himself to be intelligent, measured, hardworking and kind. He remains a stable choice, surrounded by excellent people. His weakness – if it can be called that – was being undervalued by a nation that equates belligerence with heroism.
In the red corner: A man who was given everything by his rich daddy to become a petulant, vindictive, dishonest, sleazy, stupid criminal. Trump is a textbook illustration of what happens when narcissism goes unchecked. He’s a pathetic candidate, surrounded by nationalist extremists, proud Nazis and Christofascist thugs. Small of mind if not in stature, he only wants to get back into power to settle his grievances. He doesn’t give a damn about his flock. If this monster returns to the Oval Office, he will decimate and humiliate his country a second time.
And the Democrats who fight internally and let him waltz back in while they bitch about each other will have no right to complain on election night. They’ll have opened the door.
Both of the original candidates are probably too old for the gig. Both are older, in fact, than Bill Clinton is now. Both of the original candidates have some decline. Biden is slow and prone to gaffes. Trump is a raving half-wit who is obsessed with faucets and afraid of windmills.
One presided over a calm and prosperous America. The other turned his nation into a global punchline, betrayed his own base by favouring the wealthy, saluted North Korea, worshipped Russia, and pretended Covid wasn’t killing his own citizens.
One planned for the future and put initiatives into place that will continue to bear fruit and have a positive impact for decades to come. The other sticks his fingers in his ears whenever anyone mentions climate science, boasts about tax evasion, preys on the vulnerable, enjoys casual sexual assault, mocks American veterans, and gets a little coy if Jeffrey Epstein’s name comes up in an interview. Go figure.
One cared about voters. The other harasses poor people for donations to his personal legal fund.
One respected democracy. The other is a hypocrite and a sore loser who calls his opponents ‘snowflakes’ and then launches a coup when an election doesn’t go his way.
One wanted to be president. The other wants to be dictator for life.
For reasons that history will regard as insane, America chose to axe the former… and now the latter is laughing.
There is now, of course, a new candidate in the blue corner…. Fresh from her strong debate performance, Vice-President Kamala Harris is riding a wave of popularity, which, hopefully, extends into those crucial states I’ve mentioned above. That is where this contest will be decided. It doesn’t really matter if Los Angeles loves her.
While I’m unnerved by her repeated advocacy for the fracking industry, her militarism and her love of guns, I’m hooked on the poetry of Kamala, a seasoned prosecutor, stepping up to humble Trump, a seasoned gangster.
Nevertheless, the wisdom, or otherwise, of replacing a proven winner in President Biden remains to be seen. Further internal division will be terminal, so the Democrats better unite now and unite clearly.
Regardless of who steps into his shoes and into the Rose Garden, I’m happy to go on record and say that Biden deserved better. Clooney and I can agree to disagree. The Ides of March is an underrated Clooney film – most of his films are great, really – but the title feels somehow apt in the wake of this betrayal of the President by those who should have been defending him.
One thing we should all see now is the pattern.
‘Crooked’ Hillary.
‘Sleepy’ Joe.
It looks like they’re struggling to find something that sticks with Kamala, but they will….
Next time a stupid nickname comes up in the playground, let’s not fall for it again. Ten to one it will just be another example of Donald Trump deflecting from his own inadequacy.
The post ‘Crooked’ Hillary and ‘Sleepy’ Joe: Let’s Not Fall For This Act a Third Time appeared first on New Matilda.
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Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) admitted on Sunday that he and Donald Trump have been “creat[ing] stories” about Haitian immigrants in Ohio in order to incite anti-immigrant hatred and bring media attention to racist lies circulated by the right in recent weeks. In an interview on CNN, Vance referred to the lies, which some have labeled as blood libel against Haitians, as “memes…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) admitted on Sunday that he and Donald Trump have been “creat[ing] stories” about Haitian immigrants in Ohio in order to incite anti-immigrant hatred and bring media attention to racist lies circulated by the right in recent weeks. In an interview on CNN, Vance referred to the lies, which some have labeled as blood libel against Haitians, as “memes…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Major defense contractor Elon Musk suggested in a now-deleted post on social media that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris should be targeted for assassinations after the Secret Service foiled what the FBI said was an apparent plot on Donald Trump’s life on Sunday. In a post on X, Musk quoted a post from a user who asked, “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?” Musk…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Once upon a time, an attempt on the life of a sitting president (or a former president) would have all but guaranteed re-election. We don’t live in that world anymore. Things got weird. And that’s potentially a good thing, depending on your politics. Chris Graham weighs in on some polling data that in another universe, would be almost inconceivable.
Another day, another assassination attempt on former US president Donald J. Trump.
Overnight, a 58-year-old man, Ryan Wesley Routh, was captured by police after he was allegedly spotted lying in wait for Trump while the ex-president was playing golf in West Palm Beach, Florida. A Secret Service agent reportedly began firing on Routh after spotting a rifle poking through a fence. Routh, who was about 500 metres from Trump when he was discovered, fled the scene but was apprehended by police a short time later.
It’s the second time in as many months someone has tried to kill Trump, although on this occasion, the gunman wasn’t able to fire off any rounds. That’s obviously in stark contrast to the incident on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, when Trump’s ear was grazed by a bullet.
That shooting sparked widespread speculation across the political spectrum that having been wounded in an assassination attempt, Trump was now a shoe-in for the American presidency.
The facts, and the polling, tell a radically different story.
For most of 2024, Donald Trump led US president Joe Biden in the polls. It was never by more than few points and by July 13 – the day Trump was scheduled to speak in Butler – the polling numbers remained tight, at 42.3% for Trump, and 40.3% for Biden.
And then, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old with an automatic rifle – shot Trump. The footage from the rally of a former president turned presidential candidate bleeding from the head and pumping his fists defiantly in the air as he emerged from a Secret Service pile-on, are amongst the most extraordinary images of the modern political era.
Surely Trump should have seen his support surge?
One week later, when Joe Biden finally announced he was dropping out of the presidential race, Trump was sitting on 43.5% – a bump of just 1.2%, which is well within the margin of error – and Biden was virtually unchanged at 40.2%.
If you know anything about American political history, this kind of outcome following an ‘almost assassination’ is inconceivable. Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, and went on to win by the largest landslide in American political history (more on that below). But if you look closely, the lack of any boost for Trump is consistent with all the other available data .
The fact is, of those Americans who do vote, very few of them haven’t already made up their mind about Donald Trump. They either love him or hate him, and as the data has consistently shown, the majority of the population sit in the latter camp.
There’s a perception inside and outside the US that political polls are no longer reliable, chiefly because they failed to predict Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential elections.
While it’s true that relatively few polls predicted Trump would win office, most polls correctly predicted the national result: that is, that Hilary Clinton would win the popular vote. And she did, by more than three million.
Where US pollsters fell down in 2016, and to a lesser extent again in 2020, is in the more marginal states where the battle for the White House is most hotly contested. Places like Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, and to a lesser extent the bigger states like Florida and Ohio.
In particular, polling has been unreliable in rural areas and where folks without a university degree reside. It’s no coincidence that these are the very folk, on average, most likely to vote for Trump. They’re also less likely to be reached by pollsters.
It’s an ongoing problem, but that doesn’t mean the polls are useless – the good ones are still very good at predicting national trends.
By some margin, the best pollster to follow is FiveThirtyEight.com, which uses a complex system of aggregating polls from all over the US. Indeed, that’s the polling I’ve used to research this article.
Trump has long claimed that the polls are being manipulated to make him look bad, and that in fact he’s easily the most popular president in US history.
Of course, as with so many things ‘Trump’, the opposite of what is being claimed is often the truth. And so rather than being the most popular US president ever, Trump actually has the lowest average approval rating on record, since polling began in 1937.
Those figures are bad enough, but they’re even worse for Trump if you look not at averages, but at the highest single result each president has ever managed to achieve – that is, what was the pinnacle of his polling?
On that front, the numbers are actually quite shocking.
Trump’s best ever ‘approval rating’ is not only the lowest on record, but during the course of his presidency, Trump never actually even cracked the 50% mark. That means that during his entire time in office, more people always disapproved of Trump’s performance than ever approved of it.
That is unprecedented. Since polls began almost 100 years ago, no president has failed to crack the 50% mark at least once.
Biden has the next ‘lowest high’, but it’s still a full eight points better than Trump (57%), and Biden managed to stay above 50% for the first seven months of his presidency.
By any reasonable measure, the figures around Trump’s actual popularity are a political train wreck.
What these figures confirm is that amongst US voters, there’s very little ‘indifference’ to Trump.
The voter turnout figures also back this up – voting is not compulsory in the US, and it’s not unusual for voter turnout to be in the 50% range. But the 2020 election contested between Trump and Biden saw the largest voter turnout in more than a century, at 66.8%.
The last time a sitting US president was shot in an assassination attempt was in 1981.
Then, Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jnr as he left a hotel in Washington, the bullet ricocheting off Reagan’s limousine and striking him in the chest, penetrating his lung and causing significant internal bleeding.
Reagan was just two months into his first term as president, so he was still relatively popular when he was shot. Polling on the day before the assassination attempt gave Reagan an approval rating of around 60%. One day after the shooting, a Washington Post poll saw that number jump to 73%.
While Reagan never climbed above 70% again, he consistently polled relatively well through his first term, and at his second and final election he won the most electoral college votes in history, at 525. That translated to a staggering 58.8% of the popular vote, compared to 40.6% for his opponent, Walter Mondale (the former Vice President under Carter). Indeed, Mondale managed just 13 electoral college votes, winning his home state of Minnesota, plus Washington D.C.
The moral being… generally speaking, if a US president gets shot, his re-election chances are pretty good.
Unless he’s Donald Trump. Then, it appears not to make much difference. Which seems an extraordinary thing to say in a country mired in violence. But the numbers here don’t lie.
As Americans come to terms with the second attempt on Trump’s life, the polls over the next few days and weeks are worth watching. But based on the reaction of American voters to Trump actually being wounded in July, it seems highly unlikely Trump will see any significant bounce in the polls.
Since July 24, when she formally announced her candidacy, the Democrats' new nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, has led Trump in the polls. On current trends, he's going to have to do more than just get shot if he wants to beat her.
Watch this space.
The post Second Time Lucky? Bullets Bring No Bump For Trump In The Polls appeared first on New Matilda.
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Turkey announced on Thursday that it has opened an investigation into Israel’s killing of Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi and will be seeking arrest warrants in relation to her death. Eygi “was deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli soldiers during a peaceful demonstration in solidarity with Palestinians,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. “We will make every effort to…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington) are calling on the Biden administration to conduct an independent probe into Israel’s killing of American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, as officials have been relying on Israel’s own flawed investigation into her death. In a letter addressed to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
This past spring, in response to escalated campus protests in solidarity with Palestine, President Joe Biden proclaimed: “Dissent is essential to democracy, but dissent must never lead to disorder.” Peace is framed as order, or a lack of conflict. Yet, as we surpass 40,000 Palestinians killed in an ongoing Israeli genocide, it raises the question: Peace for whom? Democracy for whom?
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
President Joe Biden sparked outrage on Tuesday after he claimed, without evidence, that Israel’s killing of American Aysenur Ezgi Eygi last week was accidental, despite the circumstances of Eygi’s death and Israel’s history of intentionally killing civilians. In a statement, Biden acknowledged Israel’s responsibility for the killing and called for “full accountability,” though he did not…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
For years, Donald Trump has bullied and blustered and beaten up on his generally hapless debate opponents. He has mocked their appearance and their energy levels, made up offensive nicknames for them — Sleepy Joe, Low-Energy Jeb, Lyin’ Ted Cruz, and on and on and on; he has lied about their records and he has hyped his own performances. And time and again, he has somehow gotten away with it.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) with US Vice President Kamala Harris IMAGE/Independent/MSN/Duck Duck Go
A quote, wrongly attributed to Abraham Lincoln, reads:
You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
Well, that may be true but what is also true is that you can fool most of the people (followers of politicians, political parties, religions, celebrities, stars, social media influencers, businesspersons, and so on) most of the time because followers place blind trust in their heroes, heroines, religious leaders, influencers, etc.
This was visible during the quadrennial spectacles called Republican National Convention (July 15 to July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) and Democratic National Convention (August 19 to August 22, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois).
Of course, there is a difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party: the Republicans are overtly hostile and will screw you unashamedly in broad day light without any kind of lubrication or apology.
The Democrats are, in that respect, a bit less rough. They’ll beg your pardon; would plead with you to understand the criticality of the situation; but will screw you, nonetheless — of course, in a dim light with a bit of lubricant.
Both the conventions took place during the ongoing Israeli slaughter, displacements, starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza since October 12, 2023. Both parties have supported the Israeli carnage. There is a division in the Democratic Party about supporting Israel, but the strong voices are few and many a times become victims of the Israel Lobby. One of the powerful group AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) has spent more than $100 million in the 2024 election campaign: $15 million was spent to defeat US House Representatives Jamal Bowman who was critical of Israeli genocide of Gazans and $9 million to oust Cori Bush, another critic of Israeli war.
Danaka Katovich, National Co-Director CodePink, describes how a woman outside the convention center calling out the names of the children killed in Gaza was ignored and laughed at.
“There was a young woman that sat outside the exit of the Democratic National Convention on its third night reading the names of the children Israel has killed in the last ten months. She did it for hours, until her speaker battery died. She did it alone, taking care to pronounce every child’s name correctly and to say their age at the time of their murder. Without her, many of the DNC guests wouldn’t necessarily be confronted with the carnage members of their party is carrying out.
“Outside the gates of the DNC I saw a young woman making sure the children of Palestine weren’t just numbers, and I saw people laughing at her for doing so. They laughed loudly and mocked her voice. They mocked the names of the dead babies. They yelled at her to leave them alone. They left the coronation ceremony livid that they had to even hear about Gaza.”
Things were not too different inside the convention center, either.
The DNC allowed the parents of one of the hostages held by Hamas to speak and highlight their plight but no Palestinian was permitted to talk about the killing of over 41,000 [1] Palestinians (33% of them children and 18.4% women) and about ceasefire. Even a speech which included support for Kamala Harris was disallowed.
The speakers who did talk about Gaza and Palestine knew very well that their speeches were not going to make any difference.
AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez):
“She [Vice President Kamala Harris] is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home.”
After five and a half years in the US Congress and as an active member of the Democratic Party, progressive AOC [2] knows damn well that no efforts on part of Kamala or Biden administration is needed to secure a ceasefire — the US just has to stop money and arms flow to Israel and that’s it.
On August 21, AOC posted on X:
“Just as we must honor the humanity of hostages, so too must we center the humanity of the 40,000 Palestinians killed under Israeli bombardment. To deny that story is to participate in the dehumanization of Palestinians. The @DNC must change course and affirm our shared humanity.
“We must end this horrific war in Gaza. Bring home the hostages and demand an immediate ceasefire.”
Two progressive members devoted a total of 31 words to the more than 10 month old continuing tragedy without mentioning the over 41,000 Palestinians killed!
Senator Raphael Warnock (Georgia) talked about children’s (including Gaza’s) safety.
“I need all of my neighbors’ children to be okay — poor inner-city children in Atlanta and poor children in Appalachia.” “I need the poor children of Israel and the poor children of Gaza, I need Israelis and Palestinians, I need those in the Congo, those in Haiti, those in Ukraine. I need American children on both sides of the tracks to be OK. Because we are all God’s children.”
The speakers, including (Barack Obama), touched on various topics, but as Lorraine Ali in Los Angeles Times observed,
“But little was said about Gaza or Israel, and the silence spoke volumes. Let’s talk about everything but that war.”
When hawkish Harris opened her mouth she roared about defending the security of the most powerful and technologically advanced country, Israel, against the broken Palestinians.
“With respect to the war in Gaza, President Biden and I are working around the clock because now is the time to get a hostage deal and cease-fire done.
“Let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that the terrorist organization Hamas caused on Oct. 7.
“Including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival. At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again.
“The scale of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war such that – Israel is secure – the hostages are released – the suffering in Gaza ends – and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity.”
Hamas of the Israeli occupied Gaza is a “terrorist organization” but there is no mention of who caused the loss of “so many innocent lives” or who is making “desperate, hungry people” flee for “safety, over and over again.”
No mention of Israel. This, from one who is the would-be next President of the US.
She said she and Biden are “working around the clock.” The clock must be out of order. The war will only stop when the US decides to halt its support.
Back in July, Netanyahu addressed the US Congress. Many Democrats abstained, Harris included. But then the very next day, she met Netanyahu in private. Her facial expressions didn’t show she was angry in any manner. Now look at Obama’s picture with Netanyahu where Obama’s displeasure is visible. Netanyahu was trying to undermine Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
The statement by Harris after her meeting with Netanyahu was the same diplomatic bullshit. [3]
The conventions are basically a feel good exercise to create excitement and hope among supporters and to denigrate and make fun of the opposition. The Democrats did exactly that; made fun of former president and the current Republican Party presidential candidate, Donald Trump and frightened, rightly so, their followers/die hard supporters with fascism replacing “democracy” if Trump gets reelected.
The Democrats, however, didn’t remind their supporters that they (the Democrats), when in power, do act in a fascist manner overseas with their wars, sanctions, embargoes, blockades, seizing money and gold belonging to countries they don’t like.
On domestic issues the Democrats and Republicans differ on certain issues but both support capitalism and get plenty of money from the corporations. The hands of both parties are drenched with blood of foreigners, including children and women. Even within the US, the Democrats are cruel with many segments of the society. Republicans are openly cruel.
Notes
[1] After every Israeli deadly crime, the usual statement, actually a warning, from its major supporter, the United States, is,
“We are engaged in intense diplomacy pretty much around the clock, with a very simple message: All parties must refrain from escalation.”
That is, Israel’s murderous act should remain unpunished or else we’ll jump in to defend Israel. The above warning was for Iran to refrain from any retaliation against Israel which had assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had also ordered killing of Lebanese militia group Hezbollah’s commander Fuad Shukr.
[2] The Democratic leadership was using one of their presidents’ tactic by inviting AOC to speak and thus mainstreaming her but also blunting her voice. President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908 – 1973) said the following about FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
“It’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”
[3] A couple of paragraphs from Harris’ statement;
“I also expressed with the prime minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians. And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there, with over 2 million people facing high levels of food insecurity and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity.
“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating — the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.”
Lip service completed, let the one-sided hostilities continue …
The post DNC 2024 and Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
The Biden administration is reportedly considering making temporary changes to asylum rules issued earlier this summer harder to undo by increasing threshold numbers needed to end the rules to likely unattainable levels — effectively causing them to be permanent. President Joe Biden signed an executive order in June changing how migrants coming to the U.S. could apply for asylum. Previously…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Four people — two teachers and two students — were killed in a school shooting in Georgia on Wednesday, the latest mass shooting in an educational setting and the first major shooting in the U.S. this school year. The shooting took place at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, in the middle of the school day. The shooter, who was taken into custody by law enforcement shortly after the…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Despite much grandstanding in the Biden administration about halting specific arms shipments to Israel over feigned concerns about how they might be used (inflicting death is the expected form), US military supplies have been restored with barely a murmur. In a report in Haaretz on August 29, a rush of weapons to Israel has been noticed since the end of July.
August proved to be the second busiest month for US arms deliveries to Israel’s Nevatim Airbase since the October 2023 attacks by Hamas. This has taken place alongside an increased concentration of US forces in the region since Israel’s assassinations of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh at the end of last month. Two aircraft carriers, a guided missile submarine, and deployments of advanced F-22 stealth aircraft in Qatar, have featured in a show intended to deter Tehran from any retaliatory strikes.
After examining open-source aviation data from the end of July, Haaretz concluded that the issue of delayed shipments of US weapons had “been solved.” Dozens of flights by US military transport planes, along with civilian and military Israeli cargo planes, mostly from Qatar and the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, had been noted. Demands by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his July 24 speech to Congress that US military aid be “dramatically” expedited to “end the war in Gaza and help prevent a broader war in the Middle East”, had been heeded.
On August 26, Israel received its 500th aerial shipment of weapons and military supplies from the United States since the latest war’s commencement. The 500 flights have also been supplemented by 107 sea shipments, altogether facilitating the transfer of 50,000 tons of military equipment in an initiative between the US military, Israel’s Defence Ministry’s Directorate of Production and Procurement and Mission to the United States, the IDF’s planning Directorate and the Israeli Air Force.
During the same month, the Democratic National Convention, which saw no debate about the candidature of Kamala Harris as its choice for presidential candidate, had tepidly promised some agitation on continued arms to Israel. Ahead of the event, the Uncommitted movement’s 30 delegates, picked by voters alarmed by US support for Israel’s war machine in Gaza, were hoping to convince the 4,000 pledged delegates Harris had captured to add an arms embargo to its campaign in order to induce a ceasefire.
A petition by the group sought two outcomes: the adding of language to both the party and campaign platform “that unequivocally supports a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a cessation of supplying weapons for Israel’s assault and occupation against Palestinians.”
These wishes proved much too salty for the apparatchiks and party managers. The Democratic Party’s 2024 national platform ironically enough begins with an effusive “land acknowledgment” to “the ancestors and descendants of Tribal Nations” but plays it safe regarding an ally very much the product of territorial seizure, violence and occupation. Despite mutterings in the party room about a split between moderate and progressive members on Israel’s conduct of the war, the topic of a ceasefire never made it to the committee hearings when the document was drafted.
In firmly insisting on continued US support for Israel in its war against Hamas, much is made in the platform about US efforts to forge a way that will see a release of the hostages, “a durable ceasefire”, the easing of “humanitarian suffering in Gaza” and the “possible normalization between Israel and key Arab states, together with meaningful progress and a political horizon for the Palestinian people.” The language is instructive: the Palestinians are objects of pitiful charity, at the mercy of Israel, the US, and various Arab states. Like toddlers, they are to be managed, steered, guided, their political choices forever mediated through the wishes of other powers.
With Israel remaining Washington’s paramount ally in the Middle East, that process of steering and managing the unruly Palestinians has been, thus far, lethal. During her first interview given after the convention (she has an aversion to them), Harris scotched any suggestions on going wobbly on Israel. “I’m unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defence and its ability to defend itself, and that’s not going to change,” she told CNN’s Dana Bush. In what has become a standard refrain, Harris lamented that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed” while acknowledging Israel’s right to self-defence.
When asked whether she would alter President Biden’s policy on furnishing military assistance to Israel, “No” came the reply. “We have to get a deal done. The war must end, and we must get a deal that is about getting the hostages out. I’ve met with the families of the American hostages. Let’s get the hostages out. Let’s get the ceasefire done.”
This middle-management lingo says much about Harris’s worldview; in wishing to “get the ceasefire done”, she is encouraging a range of factors that will make sure nothing of the sort will be achieved. The Netanyahu formula has worked its usual black magic. Hence, the lack of an arms embargo, and the continued, generous supply to the IDF from their largest military benefactor.
The post A Return to Form: Expediting US Arms to Israel first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Vice President Kamala Harris has sparked fury after saying that she would not break from President Joe Biden’s policies toward Israel and its U.S.-sponsored genocide of Palestinians in Gaza if she were elected president this fall. In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Harris said she would not stop sending Israel weapons and that Israel “has a right to defend itself” — after it has killed…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The DNC showed a party that has successfully metabolized movement energy and insurgent campaigns while distancing itself from demands deemed harmful to its electoral prospects.
This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.
DNC delegates unfurl banner during Biden’s speech at the DNC. Photo credit: Esam Boraey
An Orwellian disconnect haunts the 2024 Democratic National Convention. In the isolation of the convention hall, shielded from the outside world behind thousands of armed police, few of the delegates seem to realize that their country is on the brink of direct involvement in major wars with Russia and Iran, either of which could escalate into World War III.
Inside the hall, the mass slaughter in the Middle East and Ukraine are treated only as troublesome “issues,” which “the greatest military in the history of the world” can surely deal with. Delegates who unfurled a banner that read “Stop Arming Israel” during Biden’s speech on Monday night were quickly accosted by DNC officials, who instructed other delegates to use “We 
Joe” signs to hide the banner from view.
In the real world, the most explosive flashpoint right now is the Middle East, where U.S. weapons and Israeli troops are slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly children and families, at the bidding of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. And yet, in July, Democrats and Republicans leapt to their feet in 23 standing ovations to applaud Netanyahu’s warmongering speech to a joint session of Congress.
In the week before the DNC started, the Biden administration announced its approval for the sale of $20 billion in weapons to Israel, which would lock the US into a relationship with the Israeli military for years to come.
Netanyahu’s determination to keep killing without restraint in Gaza, and Biden and Congress’s willingness to keep supplying him with weapons to do so, always risked exploding into a wider war, but the crisis has reached a new climax. Since Israel has failed to kill or expel the Palestinians from Gaza, it is now trying to draw the United States into a war with Iran, a war to degrade Israel’s enemies and restore the illusion of military superiority that it has squandered in Gaza.
To achieve its goal of triggering a wider war, Israel assassinated Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah commander, in Beirut, and Hamas’s political leader and chief ceasefire negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. Iran has vowed to respond militarily to the assassinations, but Iran’s leaders are in a difficult position. They do not want a war with Israel and the United States, and they have acted with restraint throughout the massacre in Gaza. But failing to respond strongly to these assassinations would encourage Israel to conduct further attacks on Iran and its allies.
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The assassinations in Beirut and Tehran were clearly designed to elicit a response from Iran and Hezbollah that would draw the U.S. into the war. Could Iran find a way to strike Israel that would not provoke a U.S. response? Or, if Iran’s leaders believe that is impossible, will they decide that this is the moment to actually fight a seemingly unavoidable war with the U.S. and Israel?
This is an incredibly dangerous moment, but a ceasefire in Gaza would resolve the crisis. The U.S. has dispatched CIA Director William Burns, the only professional diplomat in Biden’s cabinet, to the Middle East for renewed ceasefire talks, and Iran is waiting to see the result of the talks before responding to the assassinations.
Burns is working with Qatari and Egyptian officials to come up with a revised ceasefire proposal that Israel and Hamas can both agree to. But Israel has always rejected any proposal for more than a temporary pause in its assault on Gaza, while Hamas will only agree to a real, permanent ceasefire. Could Biden have sent Burns just to stall, so that a new war wouldn’t spoil the Dems’ party in Chicago?
The United States has always had the option of halting weapons shipments to Israel to force it to agree to a permanent ceasefire. But it has refused to use that leverage, except for the suspension of a single shipment of 2,000 lb bombs in May, after it had already sent Israel 14,000 of those horrific weapons, which it uses to systematically smash living children and families into unidentifiable pieces of flesh and bone.
Meanwhile the war with Russia has also taken a new and dangerous turn, with Ukraine invading Russia’s Kursk region. Some analysts believe this is only a diversion before an even riskier Ukrainian assault on the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine’s leaders see the writing on the wall, and are increasingly ready to take any risk to improve their negotiating position before they are forced to sue for peace.
But Ukraine’s recent incursion into Russia, while applauded by much of the west, has actually made negotiations less likely. In fact, talks between Russia and Ukraine on energy issues were supposed to start in the coming weeks. The idea was that each side would agree not to target the other’s energy infrastructure, with the hope that this could lead to more comprehensive talks. But after Ukraine’s invasion toward Kursk, the Russians pulled out of what would have been the first direct talks since the early weeks of the Russian invasion.
President Zelenskyy remains in power three months after his term of office expired, and he is a great admirer of Israel. Will he take a page from Netanyahu’s playbook and do something so provocative that it will draw U.S. and NATO forces into the potentially nuclear war with Russia that Biden has promised to avoid?
A 2023 U.S. Army War College study found that even a non-nuclear war with Russia could result in as many U.S. casualties every two weeks as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq did in two decades, and it concluded that such a war would require a return to conscription in the United States.
While Gaza and Eastern Ukraine burn in firestorms of American and Russian bombs and missiles, and the war in Sudan rages on unchecked, the whole planet is rocketing toward catastrophic temperature increases, ecosystem breakdown and mass extinctions. But the delegates in Chicago are in la-la land about U.S. responsibility for that crisis too.
Under the slick climate plan Obama sold to the world in Copenhagen and Paris, Americans’ per capita CO2 emissions are still double those of our Chinese, British and European neighbors, while U.S. oil and gas production have soared to all-time record highs.
The combined dangers of nuclear war and climate catastrophe have pushed the hands of the Doomsday Clock all the way to 90 seconds to midnight. But the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties are in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry and the military-industrial complex. Behind the election-year focus on what the two parties disagree about, the corrupt policies they both agree on are the most dangerous of all.
President Biden recently claimed that he is “running the world.” No oligarchic American politician will confess to “running the world” to the brink of nuclear war and mass extinction, but tens of thousands of Americans marching in the streets of Chicago and millions more Americans who support them understand that that is what Biden, Trump and their cronies are doing.
The people inside the convention hall should shake themselves out of their complacency and start listening to the people in the streets. Therein lies the real hope, maybe the only hope, for America’s future.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
The Democratic National Convention is taking place this week in Chicago, and efforts to smear, co-opt and deflate the planned massive protests — and the Uncommitted movement within the convention itself — are already underway. Since securing the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Vice President Kamala Harris has not only refused to signal any real break from President Joe Biden’s Gaza…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
In a speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on Monday night, President Joe Biden said that “both sides” in Israel’s genocide of Gaza are experiencing civilian death — a blatant lie that ignores any semblance of reality on the ground in Gaza, where the Palestinian civilian death toll rises each day. “Those protesters out in the street, they have a point,” Biden said…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
On Monday evening, President Joe Biden returned to headline the Democratic National Convention stage, as he has many times in the past — though this time, it was not in the way he had probably prepared for just two months ago. Instead of returning as a presidential candidate, Biden spoke as a supportive incumbent who had opted not to run again, backing the campaign of his vice president…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
This week in Chicago, thousands of Democrats and their supporters — as well as tens of thousands of demonstrators planning huge protests — will meet in Chicago, Illinois, for the quadrennial Democratic National Convention. Vice President Kamala Harris, who has already become the official candidate for the party through a virtual roll call vote, will formally accept the Democratic Party’s…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Noam Chomsky (95) famous dissident and father of modern linguistics, considered one of the world’s leading intellectuals, is recovering from a stroke he suffered at age 94 and now living with his wife in Brazil. According to a report in Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now d/d July 2, 2024, this past June Brazilian President Lula personally visited Chomsky, holding his hand, saying: “You are one of the most influential people of my life” personally witnessed by Vijay Prashad, co-author with Noam Chomsky, The Withdrawal (The New Press).
Indeed, Noam Chomsky is established as one of the most influential intellectuals of the 21st century.
A pre-stroke video interview with Chomsky conducted at the University of Arizona is extraordinarily contemporary and insightful with a powerful message: What Does the Future Hold Q&A With Noam Chomsky hosted by Lori Poloni-Staudinger, Dean of School of Behavioral Sciences and Professor, School of Government and Public Policy, University of Arizona.
Chomsky joined the School of Behavioral Sciences in 2017 and taught “Consequences of Capitalism.”
This article is a synopsis of some of Chomsky’s responses to questions, and it includes third-party supporting facts surrounding his statements about the two biggest risks to humanity’s continual existence.
What Does the Future Hold?
Question: geopolitics, unipolar versus multipolar
Chomsky: First there are two crises that determine whether it is even appropriate to consider how geopolitics will look in the future: (1) threat of nuclear war (2) the climate crisis.
“If the climate crisis is not dealt with in the next few years, human society is essentially finished. Everything else is moot unless these two crises are dealt with.”
(This paragraph is not part of Chomsky’s answer) Regarding Chomsky’s warning, several key indicators of the climate crisis are flashing red, not green. For example, nine years ago 195 nations at the UN climate conference Paris ‘15 agreed to take measures to mitigate CO2 emissions to hold global warming to under 1.5°C pre-industrial. Yet, within only nine years of that agreement amongst 195 nations, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C (2.7°F) above preindustrial for the first time in human history for a 12-month period from February 2023 to January 2024 and now fast approaching danger zones. Obviously, nations of the world did not follow their own dictates, and if not them, who will?
Paleoclimatology has evidence of what to expect if the “climate crisis,” as labeled by Chomsky, is not dealt with (The following paragraph is also not part of Chomsky’s answer): “While today’s CO2-driven climate change scenario is unprecedented in human history, similar circumstances existed in the geological record that give us an idea of what to expect in the way of global sea level rise, and the process that will get us there. About 3.2 million years ago, during the Pliocene epoch, CO2 levels were about 400 ppm (427 ppm today) and temperatures were 2-3°C above the “pre-industrial” temperatures of 1850-1880. At the same time, proxy data indicate global sea level was about 52 feet (within a 39-foot to 66-foot range) higher than today.” (Source: The Sleeping Giant Awakens, Climate Adaptation Center, May 21, 2024)
Maybe that is why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) strongly suggests keeping temperatures ideally below 1.5°C and certainly not above 2.0°C pre-industrial.
Chomsky on World Power: Currently the center of world power, whether unipolar or multipolar is very much in the news. This issue has roots going back to the end of WWII when the US established overwhelming worldwide power. But now the Ukraine war has the world very much divided with most of world outside of the EU, US and its allies calling for diplomatic settlement. But the US position is that the war must continue to severely weaken Russia.
Consequently, Ukraine is dividing the world, and it shows up in the framework of unipolar versus multipolar. For example, the war has driven the EU away from independent status to firm control by the US. In turn the EU is headed towards industrial decline because of disruption of its natural trading partners, e.g., Russia is full of natural resources that the EU is lacking, which economist have always referred to as a “marriage made in heaven,” a natural trading relationship that has now been broken. (footnote: EU industrial production down 3.9% past 12 months)
And the Ukrainian imbroglio is cutting off EU access to markets in China e.g., China has been an enormous market for German industrial products. Meanwhile, the US is insisting upon a unipolar framework of world order that wants not only the EU but the world to be incorporated within something like the NATO system. Under US pressure NATO has expanded its reach to the Indo-Pacific region, meaning NATO is now obligated to take part in the US conflict with China.
Meantime, the rest of the world is trying to develop a multipolar world with several independent sectors of power. The BRICS countries Brazil, Russia, India, China, Indonesia, South Africa, want an independent source of power of their own. They are 40% of world economy that’s independent of US sanctions and of the US dollar.
These are developing conflicts over one raging issue and one developing issue. Ukraine is the raging issue; the developing issue is US conflict with China, which is developing its own projects in Eurasia, Africa, Middle East, South Africa, S9uth Asia, and Latin America.
The US is determined to prevent China’s economic development throughout the world. The Biden administration has “virtually declared a kind of war with China” by demanding that Western allies refuse to permit China to carry out technological development.
For example, the US insist others do not all0w China access to any technology that has any US parts in it. This includes everything, as for example, Netherlands has a world-class lithographic industry which produces critical parts for semi-conductors for the modern high-tech economy. Now, Netherlands must determine whether it’ll move to an independent course to sell to China, or not… the same is true for Samsung, South Korea, and Japan.
The world is splintered along those lines as the framework for the foreseeable future.
Question: Will multinational corporations gain too much power and influence?
Chomsky suggests looking at them right now… US based multinationals control about one-half of the world’s wealth. They are first or second in every domain like manufacturing and retail; no one else is close. It’s extraordinary power. Based upon GDP, the US has 20% of world GDP, but if you look at US multinationals it’s more like 50%. Multinationals have extraordinary power over domestic policy in both the US and in other capitalistic countries. So, how will multinationals react when told they cannot deal with a major market, like China?
How does this develop over future years? The EU is going into a period of decline because of breaking relationships in trade and commercial business with the East. Yet, it’s not sure that the EU will stay subordinate to the US and willingly go into decline, or will the EU join the rest of the world and move into a more complex multipolar world and integrate with countries in the East? This is yet to be determined. For example, France’s President Emmanuel Macron (2017-) has been vilified and condemned for saying that after Russia is driven out of Ukraine, a way must be found to accommodate Russia within an international system, an initial crack in the US/EU relationship.
Threat of nuclear war question: Russia suspended the START Nuclear Arms Treaty with the US and how important is this to the threat of nuclear war?
Chomsky: It is very significant. It is the last remaining arms control treaty, the new START Treaty, Trump almost cancelled it. The treaty was due to expire in February when Biden took over in time to extend it, which he did.
Keep in mind that the US was instrumental in creating a regime which somewhat mitigates the threat of nuclear war, which means “terminal war.” We talk much too casually about nuclear war. There can’t be a nuclear war. If there is, we’re finished. It’s why the Doomsday Clock is set at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it’s been.
Starting with George W. Bush the US began dismantling arms control. Bush dismantled the ABM Treaty, a missile treaty very significantly part of the arms control system and an enormous threat to Russia. So, the dismantling allowed the US to set up installations right at the border of Russia. It’s a severe threat to Russia. And Russia has reacted.
The Trump administration got rid of the INF Treaty, the Reagan-Gorbachev treaty of 1987 which ended short-range missiles in Europe. Those missiles are now back in place on the borders of Russia. Trump, to make it clear that we meant business, arranged missile launches right away upon breaking of the treaty.
Trump destroyed the Open Skies Treaty which originated with Eisenhower stating that each side should share information about what the other side was doing to reduce the threat of misunderstanding.
Only the new START Treaty remains. And Russia suspended it. START restricts the number of strategic weapons for each side. The treaty terminates in 2026, but it’s suspended by Russia anyway. So, in effect there are no agreed upon restraints to increasing nuclear weapons.
Both sides already have way more nuclear weapons than necessary; One Trident nuclear submarine could destroy a couple hundred cities all over the world. And land based nuclear missile locations are known by both sides. So, if there is a threat, those would be hit immediately. Which means if there’s a threat, “you’d better send’em off, use’em or lose’em.” This obviously is a very touchy, extraordinarily risky situation because one mistake could amplify very quickly.
The new START Treaty that’s been suspended by Russia did restrict the enormous excessive number of strategic weapons. So, we should be in negotiations right now to expand it, restore it, and reinstitute the treaties the US has dismantled, the INF Treaty, Reagan-Gorbachev treaty, ABM Treaty, Open Stars Treaty should all be brought back.
Question: Will society muster the will for change for equity, prosperity, and sustainability?
Chomsky: There is no answer. It’s up to the population to come to grips with issues and say we are not going to march to the precipice and fall over it. But it’s exactly what our leaders are telling us to do. Look at the environmental crisis. It is well understood that we may have enough time to control heating of the environment, destruction of habitat, destruction of the oceans which is going to lead to total catastrophe. It’s not like everybody will die all at once, but we’re going to reach irreversible tipping points that becomes just a steady decline. To know how serious it is, look at particular areas of the world.
The Middle East region is one of the most rapidly heating regions of the world at rates twice as fast as the rest of the world. Projections by the end of the century at current trajectories show sea level in Mediterranean will rise about 10 feet.
Look at a map where people live, it is indescribable. Around Southeast Asia and peasants in India are trying to survive temperatures in the 120s where less than 10% of population has air conditioning. This will cause huge migrations from areas of the world where life will become unlivable.
Fossil fuel companies are so profitable that they’ve decided to quit any sustainable efforts in favor of letting profits run as fast and as far as possible. They’re opening new oil and gas fields that can produce another 30-40 years but at that point we’ll all be finished.
We have the same issue with nuclear weapons as with the environment. If these two issues are not dealt with, in the not-too-distant future, it’ll be all over. The population needs to “have the will” to stop it.
Question: How do we muster that will?
Chomsky: Talk to neighbors, join community organizations, join activist’s groups, press Congress, get out into the streets if necessary. How have things happened in the past? For example, back in the 1960s small groups of women got together, forming consciousness-raising groups and it was 1975 (Sex Discrimination Act) that women were granted the right of persons peers under US domestic law, prior to that we’re still back in the age of the founding fathers when women were property Look at the Civil Rights movement. Go back to the 1950s, Rosa Parks refused to move from her seat on a bus that was planned by an organized group of activists that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, big change… in 1960 a couple of black students in No. Carolina decided to sit in at a lunch counter segregated. Immediately arrested, and the next day another group came… later they became organized as SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinated Committee. Young people from the North started to join. Next freedom buses started running to Alabama to convince black farmers to cast a vote. It went on this way, building, until you got civil rights legislation in Washington.
What’s happening right now as an example of what people can do? The Biden administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act, IRA. It’s mostly a climate change act. The only way you can get banks and fossil fuel companies to stop destroying the world is to bribe them. That’s basically our system. But IRA is not the substantial program that Biden presented. It is watered down. The original came out of Bernie Sander’s office. As for the background for that, young people, from the Sunrise Movement, were active and organizing and sat in on Congressional offices. AOC joined them. A bill came out of this, but Republican opposition cut back the original bill by nearly 100% They are a denialist party. They want to destroy the world in the interest of private profit. The final IRA bill is nowhere near enough.
Summation: Chomsky sees a world of turmoil trying to sort out whether unipolar or multipolar wins the day with the Ukrainian war serving as a catalyst to change. Meanwhile, the EU carries the brunt of its impact. Meantime, nuclear arms treaties have literally dissolved in the face of a tenuous situation along the Russia/EU borders with newly armed missiles pointed at Russia’s heartland. In the face of this touch-and-go Russia vs. the West potentially explosive scenario, the global climate system is under attack via excessive fossil fuel emissions cranking up global temperatures beyond what 195 countries agreed was a danger zone.
Chomsky sees a nervous nuclear weapons-rattling high-risk world flanked by unmitigated deterioration of ecosystems that global warming steadily, assuredly takes down for the count, as global temperatures set new records. He calls for individuals to take action, do whatever necessary to change the trajectory of nuclear weaponry and climate change to save society. Chomsky offered several examples of small groups of people acting together, over time, turning into serious protests and ultimately positive legislation.
AmThis article covers the first 34 minutes of a 52-minute video: Noam Chomsky: About the Future of Our World.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” (Margaret Mead, Anthropologist)
The post The Future of Our World by Noam Chomsky first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
According to the New York Times, U.S. officials say there’s no excuse, on the warmakers’ own terms, for the genocide they are arming:
“Israel has achieved all that it can militarily in Gaza, according to senior American officials, who say continued bombings are only increasing risks to civilians while the possibility of further weakening Hamas has diminished…. William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, is due in Qatar on Thursday. Brett McGurk, President Biden’s Middle East coordinator, has headed to Egypt and Qatar. Amos Hochstein, a senior White House adviser, landed in Lebanon. One of the messages the officials are expected to deliver is that there is little more Israel can accomplish against Hamas.”
But there’s another message they’re delivering:
the weapons will never stop flowing from the United States to Israel.
According to opinion polls, the majority of U.S. voters want the weapons shipments to stop now and have wanted that for some time.
But there’s another message many of them are delivering:
OMG it’s so awesome how Kamala tells peace advocates to shut up, she and Walz bring joy to my life like like like like yeah you know?
If Harris were to demand that Biden or Congress or the UN stop the weapons shipments, and were they to stop, I would start campaigning for Harris-Walz to take office in Washington. As long as that doesn’t happen, I’ll support Biden-Harris taking seats in the dock at The Hague.
Unless of course somebody takes a notion to uphold U.S. laws and prosecute them here. Every weapons shipment violates the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, the Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Export Control Act, the U.S. War Crimes Act, the Genocide Convention Implementation Act, and the Leahy Law. Just ask former Senator Leahy who says the U.S. government is making a mockery of the law that bears his name.
Biden is still scheduled to be officially president for about as long as the Gulf War took from start to finish, about twice as long as the Spanish-American war, about three times the Falklands war, several times various U.S. wars in Latin America and around the globe, and several times what it took for the U.S. to overthrow the government of Afghanistan prior to failing to grasp the need to leave that place for decades.
Biden’s remaining months are also longer than it has taken for polls to show dramatic turns of opinion against wars, commonly labeled “war fatigue” as though noticing the horror of the mass killing requires sleepiness rather than insight. But the “fatigue” has already been awakened.
Of course, politicians also hear messages from war-profiting bribers of their campaigns, and from weapons-funded stink-tankers. The war machine has a great deal of inertia even when it has no excuse. Peace making has been bizarrely redefined as “anti-Semitism.” Opposition to genocide is now “terrorism.” And all the microphones have been gathered up in a big pile and placed in front of corporations peddling that BS.
But too many people know better. Too many people grew up believing genocide was evil. We’ve been here before, and it didn’t work out well for the forever-war candidate. His losing worked out horribly for everyone, of course, but his winning would likely have done the same.
We need an election in which people insist on not voting for war. We need an election in which people develop too much self-respect to give a flying F-35 what kind of tacos a candidate eats, which candidate you’d like a beer with, which you’d hire as a babysitter, which you’d vote for as prom king or queen.
Why does the killing never end? Panem et circenses.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
