sonali rising up

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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an 9 23 no lnx</font></div><div>Billionaires envision a new utopian city to replace what they ruined</div><div>
</div><div>Sonali KolhatkarandIndependent Media InstituteSeptember 02, 2023</div><div>Silicon Valley’s wealthy elites have been secretly buying up land in one of California’s poorest counties to build a new city from the ground up. Who will stop them?</div><div>
</div><div>What do billionaires do with all their money? Maybe they buy off a Supreme Court justice. Maybe they get their kicks from diving to the extreme depths of an ocean in a tiny metal capsule. Maybe they start a space company to fly into outer space for fun.</div><div>
</div><div>This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</div><div>
</div><div>Or, perhaps they fantasize about building a brand-new California city from scratch, one with more housing than San Francisco and more walkability than Los Angeles. The billionaires have money to burn. And so, they pool together a few drops of their obscene wealth into realizing this wild fantasy.</div><div>
</div><div>It’s true. The New York Times, in a series of reports in late August 2023, revealed that a small group of white male billionaires—a “who’s who of Silicon Valley”—has been secretly buying up thousands of acres of rural land in northern California’s Solano County since 2017 to build a city from the ground up.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The idea originated with a young Czech-born billionaire and former Goldman Sachs trader named Jan Sramek</b>. When he was only 22 years old, a profile in New York Magazine quoted Sramek as having adopted libertarian writer Ayn Rand’s credo: “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” That sentiment forms the throughline of his long-term Utopian plan to build his new, perfect city.</div><div>
</div><div>At 36, Sramek has succeeded in charming fellow billionaires into investing in a company that has been the face of his mysterious project. Flannery Associates LLC is now the largest landowner in Solano County. What he and his rich friends want is to transform the Bay Area’s poorest county into a bustling, cultured, walkable metropolis, running on green energy and self-driving cars, with thousands of well-paid jobs. And they apparently think they know how to do it.</div><div>
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</div><div>For years, local residents of Solano County wondered who was buying up parcels of land. News outlets speculated that the Chinese government was behind the purchases that circled Travis Air Force Base.</div><div>
</div><div>Even elected officials became concerned, with Ronald Kott, the mayor of nearby city Rio Vista, telling the press, “Nobody can figure out who they are… Whatever they’re doing—this looks like a very long-term play.” California congressional Representative John Garamendi, whose district encompasses Solano County, wanted to know, “Who are these people?” More importantly, “Where did they get the money where they could pay five to ten times the normal value that others would pay for this farmland?”</div><div>
</div><div>In retrospect, it’s not surprising that aside from government entities, the only ones with the money and audacity to embark on such a project are elite billionaires. They have a slick new website labeled California Forever, complete with attractive renderings of an idyllic city and platitudes about “good paying local jobs,” “homes of different sizes and price points,” and “walkable neighborhoods,” all built from a “consensus-minded plan.”</div><div>
</div><div>Now that the secret is out, what will we do about it? The billionaires are deluded in thinking they have the know-how, foresight, and intelligence to build a new city. But perhaps we as a society are equally deluded in believing that billionaires are smart enough to deserve the preposterous wealth they have accumulated.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Take Marc Andreessen,</b> a Silicon Valley venture capitalist billionaire and one of Flannery’s investors. In a rambling, off-the-cuff essay in April 2020, Andreessen attempted to make the case that the only answer to society’s problems is to “build.” Build what? Anything! Everything!</div><div>
</div><div>Andreessen wanted to build more universities, more K-12 schools, and more highly automated factories. He wanted supersonic aircraft and millions of delivery drones. And if they weren’t being built, he wanted society to “force the incumbents to build these things.” To him, “building is how we reboot the American dream.”</div><div>
</div><div>In his essay, Andreessen laid down a challenge, ostensibly to governments: “Demonstrate that the public sector can build better hospitals, better schools, better transportation, better cities, better housing.”</div><div>
</div><div>Andreessen doesn’t understand why we as a society don’t want the same things that he does. “The problem,” he wrote, “is desire,” or the lack thereof. “We need to want these things.” How frustrating to be an idealistic billionaire and not have one’s desire to build masses of random things on a whim be shared by the rest of society!</div><div>
</div><div><b>Another Flannery investor and venture capitalist billionaire, Michael Moritz, </b>has been more honest—at least to fellow investors—that it’s not about idealism as much as it is about profits. He wrote a 2017 note pitching the idea of building the fantasy California city in which, as the New York Times paraphrased, “[t]he financial gains [from the project] could be huge.” In Moritz’s own words, “If the plans materialize anywhere close to what is being contemplated, this should be a spectacular investment.” Unsurprisingly, billionaires, even in their wildest, most idealistic-sounding dreams, want to always ensure they can reap financial rewards.</div><div>
</div><div>Solano County, in addition to being the Bay Area’s poorest, is home to the region’s largest Black population by percentage and also has the highest unemployment rate. In other words, it is ripe for capitalist exploitation.</div><div>
</div><div>On the surface, it seems as though California’s real-world problems are cramping the billionaires’ style and all they want to do is realize a Utopian vision. But in truth, the billionaires are thesource of much of the state’s problems.</div><div>
</div><div>As their net worth has soared, billionaires have put upward pressure on the cost of living in cities like San Francisco, Oakland, Palo Alto, San Jose, and Mountain View. According to the 2023 Silicon Valley Index, “the San Francisco Bay Area is home to the greatest concentration of billionaires in the world.” The report also points out that Silicon Valley has the nation’s largest wealth gap, and, specifically, “the top 0.001 percent of Silicon Valley’s households [are] holding more wealth than the nearly 500,000 households in the bottom 50 percent.”</div><div>
</div><div>Rising housing prices, increased homelessness, traffic gridlock, and a generally higher cost of living are all the result of massive wealth differences—an inequality so deeply unnatural that it inevitably perverts the ability of cities to cope and skews the ability of ordinary people to survive and thrive.</div><div>
</div><div>The billionaires are steeped in so much hubris and so little wisdom that they don’t see beyond their own noses. Their answer to the problems they have created is to start from scratch and pour billions into a fantasy project whose details are so murky they won’t even share them with democratically elected representatives, and whose manifestation will likely replicate the same mess it is claiming to fix.</div><div>
</div><div>If their project fails, all they will lose is a few of their many billions.</div><div>
</div><div>What will the rest of us lose? Land, homes, resources, environmental regulations, tax revenues, and other perhaps things we cannot even foresee.</div><div>
</div><div>We need to have a good answer to the challenge that Sramek, Andreessen, Moritz, and their ilk have posed to the rest of us: “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”</div><div>
</div><div>Will we stop them?</div><div>
</div><div>AUTHOR BIO:</div><div>
</div><div>Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her most recent book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at Yes! Magazine. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission and is a co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. She also sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization.</div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/republicans-want-defund-our-libraries/">https://www.alternet.org/republicans-want-defund-our-libraries/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an 4 23</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>Here’s the real reason Disney Is defying DeSantis</div><div>
</div><div>Sonali Kolhatkar and Independent Media Institute April 28, 2023</div><div>
</div><div>Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis is eager to cast himself as the new and improved Donald Trump. He has waged a relentless war against what he calls “woke ideology” by attacking the rights of vulnerable minorities to teach and learn history, to read literature, and to get life-saving medical care such as gender-affirming treatment and reproductive health care. Now, his attack on Florida’s largest corporation is being cast in the same vein of “good versus evil.”</div><div>
</div><div>This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</div><div>
</div><div>Except that the DeSantis-Disney war ought really to be viewed as an opportunity to call Republicans out on their slavish devotion to Big Business and dare them to follow through with stripping not just the Disney corporation, but all money-hungry companies of their dependence on public financing. Both DeSantis and Disney are predatory, albeit in different ways.</div><div>
</div><div>Disney, a company that has deep cultural sway over Americans for being a purveyor of “magic” and “happiness,” has enjoyed a very special and extremely unusual arrangement in Orlando, Florida, where its Walt Disney World Resort occupies tens of thousands of acres named the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Since 1967, the state of Florida has allowed the corporation to govern the area and even to issue tax bonds to residents in order to pay for municipal services while being exempt from certain regulations and taxes.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rather than viewing Disney World as “the happiest place on earth,” Sophie Weiner, writing in Popular Mechanics in 2018, explained that, “Disney World is what it looks like if you give a corporation full control over an area of land as big as San Francisco. It’s worked out great for the company, which counts on the park for 14 percent of its $2 billion yearly earnings.” Further, in 2021, the state of Florida gifted the company a massive $580 million tax break in exchange for moving about 2,000 jobs from its California locations to Florida.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But in March 2022 Disney took a stand against the Parental Rights in Education Law, which has been dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” act, prompting DeSantis’s ire. A month later Florida’s Republican legislature dissolved Disney’s special status in a law that is to take effect on June 1, 2023. DeSantis explained the move saying, “I’m just not comfortable having that type of agenda get special treatment in my state.” In other words, Disney’s special corporate arrangement would not be tolerated if it challenged his homophobia.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Except that Disney had to be pushed hard into taking such a moral stand.</b> For weeks after the bill was announced the company was perfectly content enjoying the largesse of Florida even as activists were demanding it speak out against a law prohibiting teachings that touch on gender identity and sexual orientation to kids in kindergarten through third grade. Disney’s own workers protested their employer’s lack of courage. The hashtag #BoycottDisney began trending. The company eventually, reluctantly, reacted by suspending all its political donations in the state of Florida to both parties—not exactly the most principled stand.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">To his credit, Disney’s then-CEO Bob Chapek also made public statements against the bill and offered a $5 million donation to the Human Rights Campaign (which the group rejected).</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But earlier this year Florida, realizing that dissolving Disney’s tax status would end up dumping a billion-dollar bond debt onto the public, quickly scrambled to restore the special district while muzzling Disney. A new law will allow the governor to appoint leadership positions of Reedy Creek Improvement District instead of allowing Disney to do so.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Representative Anna Eskamani, a progressive Democrat in the state legislature, told the Hollywood Reporter, <b>“The inner workings [of the special district] stay the same. The only difference is Disney won’t challenge the governor on anything anymore.</b>” The company was initially happy and Disney World’s head Jeff Vahle said his company was “ready to work within this new framework.</span>”</div><div>
</div><div>Testing this new arrangement DeSantis has revved up his culture war, approving a rule change to expand the Don’t Say Gay bill to all grades and sending a message to LGBTQ youth that their lives don’t matter. But the new board that he appointed to govern Disney’s special district voted to nullify a company plan to expand and develop the area.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> It was only then that Disney filed a lawsuit against DeSantis claiming he violated their first amendment rights over the homophobic law.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Every step of the way Disney was happy to suck up all the tax perks and financial autonomy it could get away with, regardless of whom its host was harming. Only when its financial status was threatened has it claimed to be on the side of LGBTQ communities.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Aside from Eskamani, few Democrats have called Disney out for its hypocrisy and for reaping special financial perks, instead supporting the corporation for being a job creator. Democratic Congressional representative Darren Soto chastised DeSantis, saying, “It’d be nice if he stopped attacking Central Florida’s top employer.” He added, “We’re talking about trying to get [Disney] to invest more money to create more jobs. And this is not helpful to those efforts.”</div><div>
</div><div>Soto’s words suggest that he sees Disney performing a massive favor to the state by operating its resort and parks there instead of the other way around. But the sort of jobs that Disney creates is precisely what has fueled deep income inequality in the U.S. Its presence in Florida has meant thousands of poorly paid jobs that keep Floridians in a hand-to-mouth existence, unable to cope with the rising cost of living. Aubrey Jewett, a University of Central Florida political science professor, told USA Today, “Yes, we have a lot of jobs. But they don’t pay very much. And we seem to have lost ground over time, especially when it comes to housing costs.”</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>One Disney worker told the Guardian, “We’re grossly, grossly underpaid for the hours that we work,” and that “[a] lot of Disney workers are barely squeaking by. You have workers with families sleeping in their car.”</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Disney heiress Abigail Disney, who is an outspoken progressive, even made a documentary about the poor treatment of Disneyland workers in Anaheim, California, where the company also enjoys special tax benefits in exchange for creating jobs and where it was granted an exception to a voter-passed minimum wage increase. Just as in Florida, Disney’s California jobs are worth about as little as the taxes the company pays to the state.</span></div><div>
</div><div>In addition to constantly being granted exemptions for taxes and regulations, corporations like Disney enjoy a mythical status in the U.S. for being so massively profitable that their dollar signs obscure capitalism’s ugly underbelly.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Disney should not have control over land, resources, tax regulations, or wages. </b>And lawmakers should not be allowed to trample over the rights of minorities. It’s not difficult to oppose both Disney’s power grab and DeSantis’s dangerous culture wars. Indeed, both positions are fully consistent with progressive ideals of protecting and furthering the rights of human beings.</span></div><div>
</div><div>FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><div>Virginia’s Republican governor sidesteps questions about Ron DeSantis’ feud with Disney ›</div><div>'That ship has already sailed': Marco Rubio contorts himself defending Ron DeSantis’ war on Disney ›</div><div>'They’re those people': Vanity Fair rips the DeSantis’ Disney hypocrisy ›</div><div>RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><div>DeSantis responds to Disney lawsuit: 'I think it's political' - ABC News ›</div><div>Disney sues Florida governor Ron DeSantis - BBC News ›</div><div>Disney sues Florida Gov Ron DeSantis ›</div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an&nbsp; 2 23</font></div><div><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Republicans are resorting to their age-old tactic of manufactured moral outrage to distract from the fact that they have no economic agenda other than to enrich the already wealthy. It would be laughable if their culture wars didn’t have a deadly impact on people’s lives. From attacks on the right to an abortion, to the right to be transgender, to the right to study accurate history, conservative attacks on vulnerable populations have reached a fever pitch. And it’s destroying the nation.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This article was produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Economy for All</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As if overturning&nbsp;Roe v. Wade&nbsp;at the Supreme Court in 2022 wasn’t enough, 20 GOP state attorneys general are now&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/mailing-abortion-pills-could-break-law-republican-ags-tell-pharmacies-2023-02-02/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">targeting pharmacy chains Walgreens and CVS</a>&nbsp;for fulfilling mail orders of the abortion drug mifepristone. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a federal agency, in January&nbsp;</span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-health-medication-d5fc3d5990dced69b0bf93a4760250fe" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">expanded availability</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;of the drug across the country. The abortion pill was relatively unknown some years ago but is now used in&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2022/02/medication-abortion-now-accounts-more-half-all-us-abortions" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">more than half of all abortions nationwide</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, likely in response to the rapidly disappearing access to surgical abortions. Now, as they go after mail-order abortion pills, Republicans are showing just how hell-bent they are on ensuring that the bodies of women (and transgender men) remain glorified baby incubators.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Republicans claim that in addition to protecting the life of a collection of fetal cells that they are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/us/abortion-anti-fetus-person.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">determined to personify</a>, they are working in the interests of women’s health. Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-missouri-state-government-west-virginia-united-states-us-food-and-drug-administration-a1b1a387788bb5aaa39c9ce4128d77ab" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">explained his opposition</a>&nbsp;to the abortion pill in a written statement, saying he was merely “protecting the health of women and their unborn children.”</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">However, not only are abortion pills&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/07/10/abortion-pill-restricted-fda-record-safer-than-penicillin-viagra/5412810002/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">safer than penicillin or Viagra</a>, but going through pregnancy and childbirth is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-abortion/abortion-safer-than-giving-birth-study-idUSTRE80M2BS20120123" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">far more dangerous</a>&nbsp;to women’s health than aborting a fetus. According to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/24/well/mind/abortion-access-mental-health.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">New York Times</a>&nbsp;report on one study of the effects of abortion restrictions on women, “Women who were denied an abortion and gave birth reported more chronic headaches or migraines, joint pain and gestational hypertension compared with those who had an abortion.” Furthermore, “They also reported more life-threatening complications like eclampsia and postpartum hemorrhage, and burdens that included higher exposure to domestic violence and increased poverty.” (It is a wonder that some of us choose to have children at all.)</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The GOP’s war on transgender people has also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/us/politics/transgender-laws-republicans.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">gained steam</a>. </b>Just as Republicans are determined to control the bodies of people who want to terminate pregnancies, they are battling the right of transgender people to transition via surgeries, hormone supplements, or other gender-affirming medical treatments. It’s a shocking attack on people’s right to be who they want and need to be—one that targets young people in particular.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Again, the right wing uses concerns over health as cover for its attacks on human rights. For example, GOP&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/republican-states-aim-to-restrict-transgender-health-care-in-first-bills-of-2023" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">lawmakers in Texas</a>&nbsp;have introduced 35 anti-LGBTQ bills, three of which would view medical care as child abuse. But, even though the vast majority of the anti-LGBTQ bills that are introduced&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/human-rights-campaign-foundation-state-equality-index-91-of-anti-lgbtq-bills-in-2022-failed-to-become-law" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">fail to become law</a>, according to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thetrevorproject.org/blog/new-poll-emphasizes-negative-impacts-of-anti-lgbtq-policies-on-lgbtq-youth/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Trevor Project</a>, the debate itself is deeply traumatizing for young people. The organization found that “86% of transgender and nonbinary youth say recent debates around anti-trans bills have negatively impacted their mental health.” It has further encouraged bullying, and the risk of suicide.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Writing in the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/transgender-abortion-rights-attacks/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Nation</a>, Amy Littlefield and Heron Greenesmith point out how “The right is deploying tactics against trans rights that are eerily similar to those mounted against abortion rights over the past five decades.” <b>It’s the same Republican playbook over and over: claim that attacks on vulnerable people are in their own best interests to distract from the fact that the party has no actual plan to make people’s lives truly better.[bc that wd PO olig and corps]</b></span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Like the attacks on abortion and transgender rights, Republicans are also so worried about the supposed harm to students of American history that their third major battlefront is educational courses that question white supremacy and its impact</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Claiming they are fighting a college-level academic approach to history called&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/so-much-buzz-but-what-is-critical-race-theory" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><b>critical race theory</b></a>, GOP leaders such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are busy&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/books/book-bans-libraries.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">banning books</a>&nbsp;and classes at all levels of education. DeSantis’s latest assault is a ban on a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/19/us/desantis-florida-ap-african-american-studies.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">new AP-level high school African American studies course</a>&nbsp;that the College Board spent years devising and is set to pilot in 60 schools across the country.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The pushback by DeSantis and his allies has already yielded results.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/us/college-board-advanced-placement-african-american-studies.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The College Board seemingly capitulated</a>&nbsp;and sanitized the AP course, paring back mentions of Black feminism, queer theory, and the Black Lives Matter movement and replacing it with a new section on Black conservatism.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The move came at the same time that congressional Republicans took aim at Representative&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/us/politics/ilhan-omar-house-committee-republicans.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ilhan Omar</a>&nbsp;(D-MN), unceremoniously stripping her of membership in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy justified his ousting of Omar from the committee over her alleged&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kevin-mccarthy-says-will-remove-ilhan-omar-committee-assignment-antisemitism-speaker" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">antisemitism</a>&nbsp;because she has criticized the state of Israel. Never mind that criticism of Israel is not equivalent to racist attacks on Jews; two of the GOP’s own representatives, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/06/politics/republican-paul-gosar-white-nationalists-kfile/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Paul Gosar</a>&nbsp;(R-AZ), whose antisemitism is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/28/mcconnell-greene-gosar-white-nationalist-event-00012401" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">well documented</a>, are now poised to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/25/1151335616/mccarthy-democrats-schiff-swalwell-intelligence-committee-assignments" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">regain</a>&nbsp;their committee seats.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b style="">In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/02/02/ilhan-omar-foreign-affairs-committee-house-floor-vpx.cnn" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">speech</a>&nbsp;on the House floor, Omar rightly pointed out that the Republican attack was about “who gets to be an American</b>.” She called out the GOP for its earlier culture war aimed at the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama, and for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/us/politics/ilhan-omar-house-committee-republicans.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">spreading rumors</a>&nbsp;that he was a secret Muslim and not a natural born U.S. citizen.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The message that emerges from the conservative party is that those who are not either straight, white, cisgender men, or in service of white supremacist patriarchy, had better fall in line or face prohibition and the threats of violence.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are busy readying their pitchforks over the federal government’s debt, hoping to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2023/01/24/gop-social-security-medicare-debt-limit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">extract austerity measures</a>&nbsp;in exchange for their support to raise the debt ceiling. According to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2023/01/24/gop-social-security-medicare-debt-limit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Washington Post</a>, “the party has focused its attention on slimming down federal health care, education, science and labor programs, perhaps by billions of dollars.” And, some have “pitched a deeper examination of entitlements,” which is a euphemistic way of saying they want cuts to Social Security and Medicare.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Aggressively bombarding women, transgender people, Black people, immigrants, and people of color over their bodily autonomy and their gender and racial identity is a tactic that Republicans hope will keep conservative voters loyal to the GOP and lets them off the hook on regressive economic policies. It’s a classic bait and switch—one that we ought not to fall for.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="">Author Bio:&nbsp;</strong>Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “<a href="https://risingupwithsonali.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Rising Up With Sonali</a>,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her forthcoming book is&nbsp;<a href="https://citylights.com/city-lights-published/rise-up-the-power-of-narrative-in-pursu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice</a>&nbsp;(City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the&nbsp;<a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Economy for All</a>&nbsp;project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/authors/sonali-kolhatkar" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Yes! Magazine</a>. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.afghanwomensmission.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Afghan Women’s Mission</a>&nbsp;and is a co-author of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sevenstories.com/books/2947-bleeding-afghanistan" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Bleeding Afghanistan</a>. She also sits on the board of directors of&nbsp;<a href="https://justiceactioncenter.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Justice Action Center</a>, an immigrant rights organization.</p><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">sonali an 1 23</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/nepotism-babies-myth-american-meritocracy/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/nepotism-babies-myth-american-meritocracy/</a></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">There is a common feeling that many of us have experienced in professional or academic environments, especially when we struggle against gender or racial bias. It’s called “imposter syndrome”—the feeling that one doesn’t deserve one’s position and that others will discover this lack of competence at any moment. I felt this way as a female graduate student in a science field in the 1990s. I felt it as a young journalist of color in a white-dominated industry.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">This article was produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Economy for All</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">The rich and the elite among us appear to feel the opposite—that they are deserving of unearned privilege. A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vulture.com/the-year-of-the-nepo-baby/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">recent series of stories</a>&nbsp;in New York Magazine headlined “The Year of the Nepo Baby” has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/nepo-babies-are-melting-down-over-that-new-york-mag-expose" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">struck a chord</a>&nbsp;among those who are being outed for having benefited from insider status. Nepo babies are the children of the rich and famous, the ones who are borne of naked nepotism and whose ubiquity exposes the myth of American meritocracy. Nepo babies can be found everywhere there is power.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">The New York Magazine stories have predictably generated defensive responses from nepo babies. Jamie Lee Curtis, actor and daughter of famed Hollywood stars Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, wrote a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmgx-KRLwlJ/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">lengthy post on Instagram</a>&nbsp;defending her status. Although she admitted that she benefitted from her parents’ fame—“I have navigated 44 years with the advantages my associated and reflected fame brought me, I don’t pretend there aren’t any”—she also clapped back at critics, saying she was tired of assumptions that a nepo baby like her “would somehow have no talent whatsoever.” Curtis went further in claiming that the current focus on people like her was “designed to try to diminish and denigrate and hurt.”</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Curtis is clearly a talented actor, of that there is no doubt. But, in defending her privilege from critique, she reveals just how deserving she considers herself. It is the converse of imposter syndrome—the insider syndrome.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">The act of calling out nepotism doesn’t necessarily imply that nepo babies are not talented. (Nepo babies are sometimes talented—and sometimes not.) It means pointing out that some talented people are able to benefit from family connections and fame that other equally talented people are not able to.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">The critique is intended to call out elitism, not “diminish,” “denigrate” or “hurt,” as Curtis accuses journalists of doing. Journalism that exposes power and its corruptive influence among elites punches up, not down. Curtis is hardly a disadvantaged person whose well-being will suffer from such coverage. Rather, stories pointing out her parental advantages could potentially help to even the playing field so that it is unacceptable in the future to consider family connections in film and TV auditions.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Recall the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/us/college-admissions-cheating-scandal.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">college admissions scandal</a>&nbsp;of 2019 when it was revealed—again through good journalism—that wealthy parents like TV star Lori Loughlin used all the power and money at their disposal to bend the rules of elite school admissions for their children. Many of those children may well have deserved to get into the schools they attended. But, in the face of stiff competition, untold numbers of equally deserving youth who did not have powerful and wealthy parents willing to break rules were not admitted. Now, many of those same nepo babies’ parents who were tried and convicted are using their money and connections to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/us/college-admissions-scandal-consultants.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">win shortened prison sentences</a>.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">But Hollywood celebrities, however much they enjoy prestige and privilege, are an easy target. Nepotism is rife in&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;the halls of power—in the world of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/nyc-art-world-gallery-families.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">art</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/sports-nepotism-babies-examples.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">sports</a>, and even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/nepotism-babies-magazine-interns.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">journalism</a>, and especially in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/life-of-the-walton-family-behind-walmart-and-sams-club-2018-12" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">corporate</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/majority-of-lawmakers-millionaires/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">political</a>&nbsp;circles.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Billionaires (especially those in tech) may propagate the myth of the merit-based American dream, but some of the most dramatic success stories began with a parent using their wealth or connections to give their child the upper hand. Take Bill Gates,</b>&nbsp;the founder of Microsoft, who became one of the world’s wealthiest people in his 30s. Gates’s early success was largely due to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/how-bill-gates-mother-influenced-the-success-of-microsoft.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">well-documented</a>&nbsp;connections that his parents flexed on his behalf to get his fledgling company off the ground. Other&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/31/small-business-entrepreneurs-success-parents" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">tech nepo babies</a>&nbsp;include&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose father loaned him $100,000 to start his company, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose parents were early investors in his online retail business to the tune of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/02/how-jeff-bezos-got-his-parents-to-invest-in-amazon--turning-them-into.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">nearly $250,000</a>.</span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Nepotism is part of the fabric of capitalism. For centuries, unfair advantages were available to those who have historically faced fewer hurdles, through the sheer luck of being born into a family with wealth, connections, or respect within their field. Indeed, in order to beat back the imposter syndrome, many advise&nbsp;<a href="https://wealthofgeeks.com/have-the-confidence-of-a-mediocre-white-man/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">channeling the unearned confidence</a>&nbsp;of a&nbsp;<a href="https://slate.com/culture/2016/09/jessica-bennetts-feminist-fight-club-reviewed-by-laura-kipnis.html#:_{:text=thought%20of%20him.%20%E2%80%9C-,what%20would%20josh%20do%3F,-%E2%80%9D%20became%20Bennett%E2%80%99s%20mantra}" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">mediocre</a>&nbsp;straight white man.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Our economy is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/substantial-income-of-wealthy-households-escapes-annual-taxation-or-enjoys" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">rigged</a>&nbsp;to encourage nepotism by ensuring that the already wealthy pass their wealth—and by extension the power that their money buys—to their children. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/substantial-income-of-wealthy-households-escapes-annual-taxation-or-enjoys" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Center on Budget and Policy Priorities</a>&nbsp;(CBPP) pointed out how the tax code is written in order to benefit the moneyed classes. According to a CBPP report, “High-income, and especially high-wealth, filers enjoy a number of generous tax benefits that can dramatically lower their tax bills.”</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Nepo babies who defend their status reinforce the notion that wealth, fame, and privilege equal brilliance, talent, and genius. The reality is that the privileged among us simply have the means to cheat. The rest of us are sold the lie that working hard will bring rewards—rather than unearned wealth.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">This, in turn, encourages cheating among those who cannot rely on nepotism to gain power. One well-known example of the “fake-it-till-you-make-it” approach is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/12/arts/television/inventing-anna-true-story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Anna Sorokin</a>, a woman whose fabricated lies about wealth and power landed her in prison and made her the focus of a Netflix show. Sorokin faked being a nepo baby—a German heiress—in order to live a lavish lifestyle. Sorokin learned that to gain the edge that moneyed elites have, one must internalize the insider syndrome.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Republican Congressman&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/opinion/letters/george-santos-falsehoods.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">George Santos</a>, who was recently exposed as a fraud for lying about his work experience, wealth, and even ethnicity, is another prime example. His political party has made a habit of encouraging (real or fake) nepo babies like Donald Trump, who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/26/trump-brags-about-not-paying-taxes-that-makes-me-smart.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">openly admitted to tax avoidance</a>&nbsp;in a debate and whose company was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140756394/former-president-donald-trumps-company-found-guilty-criminal-tax-fraud" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">convicted</a>&nbsp;of criminal tax fraud.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">The GOP has for years led the charge to&nbsp;<a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/10/22/republicans-are-the-party-of-the-wealthy-elite-2/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">protect the interests of the wealthy</a>&nbsp;while insisting on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.americanprogressaction.org/article/maga-republicans-plan-to-force-social-security-and-medicare-cuts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">means testing</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/05/11/republicans-are-allowing-states-to-drug-test-people-applying-for-unemployment-benefits/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">drug testing</a>&nbsp;for the rest of us to receive benefits.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">In truth, the emperor has no clothes. The meritocracy of American capitalism is a myth built on smoke and mirrors, on lies and false confidence. The current long-overdue conversation around nepo babies may help to further class consciousness among Americans who may see a bit more clearly now just how scantily clad the emperor really is.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><strong>Author Bio</strong>: Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “<a href="https://risingupwithsonali.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Rising Up With Sonali</a>,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her forthcoming book is&nbsp;<a href="https://citylights.com/city-lights-published/rise-up-the-power-of-narrative-in-pursu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><em>Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice</em></a>&nbsp;(City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the&nbsp;<a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Economy for All</a>&nbsp;project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/authors/sonali-kolhatkar" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Yes! Magazine</a>. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.afghanwomensmission.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Afghan Women’s Mission</a>&nbsp;and is a co-author of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sevenstories.com/books/2947-bleeding-afghanistan" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Bleeding Afghanistan</a>. She also sits on the board of directors of&nbsp;<a href="https://justiceactioncenter.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Justice Action Center</a>, an immigrant rights organization.</p></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 10 22</font><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>It turns out that many of today’s billionaires are selfish, lonely men fantasizing about how they will survive the end times they have played a part in creating.</strong></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In mid-September, for just a few days, Indian industrialist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/09/17/1123648824/richest-person-billionaire-jeff-bezos-gautam-adani" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Gautam Adani</a>&nbsp;entered the ranks of the top three richest people on earth as per Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. It was the first time an Indian, or, for that matter, an Asian, had enjoyed such a distinction. South Asians in my circle of family and friends felt excited at the prospect that a man who looked like us had entered such rarefied ranks.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This article was produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Economy for All</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Adani was deemed the second richest person, even richer than Amazon founder Jeff Bezos! A&nbsp;<a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/times-special/meet-gautam-adani/articleshow/94426787.cms" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Times of India profile</a>&nbsp;fawningly quoted him relaying his thought process in the early days of his rags-to-riches story. “‘Dreams were infinite but finances finite,’ he says with engaging frankness,” according to the profile. There was no mention of the serious&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/16/adani-mining-giant-faces-financial-claims-as-it-bids-for-australian-coal-loan" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">accusations he faces</a>&nbsp;of corruption and diverting money into offshore tax havens, or of the entire website,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.adaniwatch.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">AdaniWatch</a>, devoted to investigating his dirty deeds.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Adani made his money, in part, by investing in digital services, leading&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/2022/09/12/how-indias-gautam-adani-became-the-worlds-third-richest-person/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">one economist to say</a>, “Wherever there is a futuristic business in India, I think… [Adani] has a stronghold.”</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The moment of pride that Indians felt in such an achievement by one of their own was short-lived. Quickly Adani slipped from second richest to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/business/story/gautam-adani-bloomberg-billionaires-index-jeff-bezos-elon-musk-2005366-2022-09-27" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">third richest</a>, and, as of this writing, is in the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">number four slot</a>&nbsp;on a list dominated by people who have made money from the digital technology revolution.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In fact, ranking multibillionaires is a meaningless exercise that obscures the absurdity of their wealth. This year alone, a number of tech billionaires on Bloomberg’s list&nbsp;<em>lost</em>&nbsp;hundreds of billions of dollars as the gains they made during the early years of the pandemic were&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/9/29/23377578/tech-billionaires-pandemic-wealth-2022" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">wiped out</a>&nbsp;because of a volatile stock market. But, as Whizy Kim of Vox points out, whether or not they’re losing money or giving it away—as Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie Scott has been doing—their wealth remains insanely high, and most are worth more today than before the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>What are they doing with all this wealth?</b></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b style="">It turns out that many are quietly plotting their own survival against our demise.</b> Douglas Rushkoff,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.teamhuman.fm/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">podcaster</a>, founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism, and fellow at the Institute for the Future, has written a book about this bizarre phenomenon,&nbsp;<b style=""><a href="https://onezero.medium.com/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires</a>.</b></span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In an&nbsp;<a href="https://risingupwithsonali.com/survival-of-the-richest-escape-fantasies-of-the-tech-billionaires/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">interview</a>, Rushkoff explains that billionaires worry about the end of humanity just like the rest of us. They fear catastrophic climate change or the next pandemic. And, they know their money will likely be of little value when civilizations decline. “How do I maintain control over my Navy Seal security guards once my money is worthless?” is a question that Rushkoff says many of the world’s wealthiest people want to know the answer to.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He knows they ask such questions because he was invited to give private lectures by those who think his expertise in digital technology gives him unique insight into the future. But Rushkoff was quietly studying&nbsp;<em>them</em>&nbsp;instead and has few flattering things to say about these wielders of economic power.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“How is it that the wealthiest and most powerful people I’d ever been in the same room with see themselves as utterly powerless to affect the future?” he asks. It seems as though “the best they can do is prepare for the inevitable calamity and then just, you know, hang on for dear life.”</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Rushkoff explores this tech billionaire “mindset” that he says has resulted in a generation of people who are “almost comedic monsters, who really mean to leave us all behind.” Adani is a perfect example of this, having invested in the very fossil fuels that are destroying our planet. He has large holdings in Australia’s coal mining industry and has sparked a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.stopadani.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">massive grassroots movement</a>&nbsp;intent on stopping him.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The admiration that some Indians feel for Adani’s ascension on Bloomberg’s list of billionaires is based on an assumption of cleverness. Surely, he must be one of the smartest people in the world in order to be one of the richest? Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man by far (with twice as much wealth as Bezos), has enjoyed&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/aug/29/the-smartest-person-in-any-room-anywhere-in-defence-of-elon-musk-by-douglas-coupland" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">such a reputation</a>&nbsp;for years.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Those who are invested in the idea of merit-based capitalism can justify the unimaginable wealth of the world’s richest people only by assuming they are intelligent enough to deserve it.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is a façade. Rather than smarts, the wealthiest people on the planet appear to be rather small-minded idiot savants who share a common disdain for the rest of us.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">After being around tech billionaires in private, Rushkoff concludes that they are invested in “this notion that they really can, like puppeteers, kind of control society from one level above,” and that this approach is “different than the era of Alexander the Great, or Caesar.” If the question that vexes them most of all is how, in a disastrous future, will they control the guards they hire to protect their hoardings, then our economic system is a farce.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Even if we call them genius technologists, most of them were plucked from college when they were freshmen,” says Rushkoff. “They came up with some idea in their dorm room before they’d taken history, or economics, or ethics, or philosophy” classes, and so they lack the wisdom needed to oversee their own perverse amounts of wealth.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Having spent time with many tech billionaires, Rushkoff worries that “their education about the future comes from zombie movies and science fiction shows.”</b></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Billionaires are not simply drawing their wealth from a vacuum. According to data from the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/global-income-inequality-gap-report-rich-poor/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">World Economic Forum</a>, “the world’s richest have captured a disproportionate share of global wealth over recent decades.” This means that, if you were rich to begin with a decade or two ago, you are likely to have seen your wealth multiply by a greater amount than middle-class or lower-income people.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Not only are tech billionaires undeserving of their wealth, but they also are fleecing the rest of us—and fantasizing about hoarding that wealth in the worst-case scenarios while the rest of humanity struggles to survive.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The danger is that if society valorizes such (mostly) men, we are in danger of internalizing their childish, selfish mindset and giving up on solving the climate crisis or building resiliency on a mass scale.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Instead of relating to them, we ought to feel sorry for a group of people so cut off from humanity that their vision of the future is a very lonely one.</p><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">“Let’s look at these tech-bro billionaire lunatics. Let’s laugh at what they’re doing… so they look small rather than big,” says Rushkoff. He thinks it is critical to adopt the perspective that “the disaster they’re so afraid of looks entirely manageable by more reasonable people who are willing just to help each other out.”</span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an 922</font></div><div><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>As Pakistan drowns, as Puerto Rico is cast into darkness, and as Jacksonians remain thirsty, it’s past time for a climate tax on fossil fuel companies.</strong></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What do Pakistan, Puerto Rico, and Jackson, Mississippi, have in common? They’ve all recently experienced climate-related catastrophic rains and flooding, resulting in the loss of homes, electricity, and running water. But, even more importantly, they are all low-income regions inhabited by people of color—the prime victims of climate injustice. They face inaction from negligent governments and struggle to survive as</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> fossil fuel companies reap massive profits—a status quo that United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has&nbsp;<a href="https://press.un.org/en/2022/sgsm21228.doc.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">called</a>&nbsp;a “moral and economic madness.”</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>This article was produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Economy for All</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</b></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Pakistan, which relies on yearly monsoons to enrich its agricultural industry, has had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/unthinkable-pakistans-record-rainfall-now-happen-century-rcna47902" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">unprecedented floods</a>&nbsp;since June,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/25/pakistan-floods-have-affected-over-30-million-people-minister" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">impacting 30 million people</a>&nbsp;and killing&nbsp;<a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1127051" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">more than 1,500—a third of them children</a>.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://twitter.com/zulfiqarkunbhar" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Zulfiqar Kunbhar</a>, a Karachi-based journalist with expertise in climate coverage,&nbsp;<a href="https://risingupwithsonali.com/how-climate-change-is-fueling-pakistans-devastating-floods/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">explains</a>&nbsp;that “things are very critical” in the rain-affected areas of his nation. Kunbhar has been visiting impacted regions and has seen firsthand the massive “agricultural loss and livelihood loss” among Pakistan’s farming communities.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sindh, a low-lying province of Pakistan, is not only one of the most populous in the nation (Sindh is home to about 47 million people), but it also produces about a third of the agricultural produce, according to Kunbhar. Twenty years ago, Sindh was stricken with extreme&nbsp;<a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/pakistan/act-alert-pakistan-22002-five-sindh-districts-badly-affected-drought" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">drought</a>. In the summer of 2022, it was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/06/we-screamed-our-hearts-out-for-help-homeless-escape-pakistan-floods" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">drowning</a>&nbsp;in chest-deep water.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The&nbsp;<a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1127051" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">UN</a>&nbsp;is warning that the water could take months to recede and that this poses serious health risks, as deadly diseases like cerebral malaria are emerging. Kunbhar summarizes that provinces like Sindh are facing both “the curse of nature” and government “mismanagement.”</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Climate change plus government inaction on mitigation and resilience equals deadly consequences for the poor. This same equation plagues Puerto Rico, long relegated to the status of a United States territory. In September 2022, on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico in 2017 and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45338080" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">killed nearly 3,000</a>&nbsp;people, another storm named&nbsp;<a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/09/23/puerto-rico-hurricane-fiona-bankruptcy-prepa-luma" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Fiona knocked out power</a>&nbsp;for the entire region.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Julio López Varona, chief of campaigns at&nbsp;<a href="https://cpdaction.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Center for Popular Democracy Action</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://risingupwithsonali.com/puerto-rico-devastated-by-fiona-5-years-after-maria/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">spoke to me</a>&nbsp;from Puerto Rico, saying, “the storm was extremely slow, going at like 8 or 9 miles an hour,” and as a result, “it pounded the island for more than three days” with relentless rain. “Communities were completely flooded; people have been displaced,” he says. Eventually, the electrical grid completely failed.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Days after the storm passed, millions of people remained without power—some even lost running water—leading the&nbsp;<a href="https://weather.com/news/news/2022-09-20-hurricane-fiona-puerto-rico-dominican-republic-turks" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">White House to declare a major disaster</a>&nbsp;in Puerto Rico.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Even on the U.S. mainland, it is poor communities of color who have been hit the hardest by the impacts of climate change. Mississippi’s capital of Jackson, with an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/21/1030272290/jackson-miss-lives-in-a-world-of-high-poverty-and-higher-expectations" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">82 percent Black population</a>&nbsp;and growing numbers of Latin American immigrants, struggles with adequate resources and has had problems with its water infrastructure for years.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lorena Quiroz, founder of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.iajems.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity</a>, a Jackson-based group doing multiracial grassroots organizing,&nbsp;<a href="https://risingupwithsonali.com/when-will-jackson-mississippis-residents-have-clean-water/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">told me</a>&nbsp;how the city’s residents have been struggling without clean running water since&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/31/1120223500/heavy-rain-and-flooding-leave-jackson-miss-residents-without-running-water" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">major rains and resulting floods</a>&nbsp;overwhelmed a water treatment plant this summer.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“It’s a matter of decades of disinvestment in this mostly Black, and now Brown, community,” says Quiroz. In a state run by white conservatives, Jackson is overseen by a Black progressive mayor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, who is now&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/21/jackson-mississippi-water-lawsuit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">suing the state government over inaction</a>&nbsp;on the city’s water infrastructure.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Quiroz says it’s “painful to see how government is not doing what they should, how the state government is neglecting its most vulnerable populations.”</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Over and over, the same pattern has emerged on a planet experiencing catastrophic climate change. Setting aside the fact that we are still&nbsp;<a href="https://unfccc.int/news/united-in-science-we-are-heading-in-the-wrong-direction" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">spewing greenhouse gases</a>&nbsp;into the atmosphere as the world burns and floods, the impacts of a warming climate are disproportionately borne by poor communities of color as evidenced in Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Jackson, and elsewhere.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The UN head, Guterres is doing what he can in using his position to lay blame precisely on the culprits,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-general-assembly-climate-change-cb3e386316a2fbd8ebab602f505b42f6" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">saying</a>&nbsp;in his opening remarks to the UN General Assembly in New York recently, “It is high time to put fossil fuel producers, investors, and enablers on notice. Polluters must pay.” Guterres specifically touted the importance of taxing fossil fuel companies to cover the damage they are causing in places like Pakistan. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to the Associated Press, “Oil companies in July reported unprecedented profits of billions of dollars per month. ExxonMobil posted three months profits of $17.85 billion, Chevron of $11.62 billion, and Shell of $11.5 billion.”</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Contrast this windfall with the countless numbers of people who lost their homes in Pakistan and are now living in shanties on roads where they have found some higher ground from the floods. “If you lose a crop, that’s seasonal damage, but if you lose a house, you have to pay for years to come,” says Kunbhar.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Kunbhar’s view of what is happening in Pakistan applies equally to Puerto Rico and Jackson: <b>Society is “divided between the haves and have-nots,” he says. “The poorest of the poor who are already facing an economic crisis from generation to generation, they are the most vulnerable and the [worst] victims of this crisis.”</b></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In Puerto Rico, Varona sees displaced communities losing their lands to wealthier communities. He says that the local government in Puerto Rico is “allowing millionaires and billionaires to come and pay no taxes and to actually take over many of the places that are safer for communities to be on.” This is an “almost intentional displacement of communities… that have historically lived here,” he says.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And in Jackson, Quiroz says she is aghast at the “mean-spiritedness” of Mississippi’s wealthier enclaves and state government. “It is so difficult to comprehend the way that our people are being treated.”</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Although disparate and seemingly disconnected from one another, with many complicating factors, there are stark lines connecting climate victims to fossil fuel profits.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Pakistan’s poor communities are paying the price for ExxonMobil’s billions.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Puerto Rico remains in the dark so that Chevron may enjoy massive profits.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Jackson, Mississippi, has no clean drinking water so that Shell can enrich its shareholders.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When put in such terms, Guterres’s idea for taxing the perpetrators of climate devastation is a no-brainer. It’s “high time,” he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/20/un-secretary-general-tax-fossil-fuel-companies-climate-crisis" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">said</a>, “to put fossil fuel producers, investors and enablers on notice,” so that we can end our “suicidal war against nature.”</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>Author Bio</strong>: Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “<a href="https://risingupwithsonali.com/" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Rising Up With Sonali</a>,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations</p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">5 22 an</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">c<strong style="">limate change is the result of a deadly calculus: human lives are worth risking and even losing over the profits of global corporations.</strong></font><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently dropped a&nbsp;<a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/wmo-update-5050-chance-of-global-temperature-temporarily-reaching-15%C2%B0c-threshold" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">bombshell announcement</a>&nbsp;that should have garnered news headlines in the major global and U.S. media, but did not. New WMO research concludes that “<b>[t]here is a 50:50 chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial level for at least one of the next five years.”</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas explained, “The 1.5 degree Celsius figure is not some random statistic. It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet.”</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2015, the likelihood of reaching that threshold within five years was nearly zero. In 2017 it was 10 percent, and today it is 50 percent. As we continue to spew greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.iea.org/news/global-co2-emissions-rebounded-to-their-highest-level-in-history-in-2021" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">dizzying amounts</a>, that percentage spikes with every passing year and will soon reach 100 percent certain</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ty.</span></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When average global temperatures hit the tipping point of 1<b>.5 degrees Celsius, climate scientists predict that most of the Earth’s&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/safe-havens-for-coral-reefs-will-be-almost-non-existent-at-1-5-c-of-global-warming-new-study-176084" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">coral reefs</a>&nbsp;will die off</b>. At 2 degrees Celsius, all will die off. This is the reason why&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/11/08/1052198840/1-5-degrees-warming-climate-change" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">United Nations members coalesced</a>&nbsp;around staving off an average global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius at the last global climate gathering in 2021.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The planet has already heated up by&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-official-the-last-five-years-were-the-warmest-ever-recorded-133056" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">1.1 degrees Celsius</a>, and the consequences are dire across the globe.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.vox.com/23057267/india-pakistan-heat-wave-climate-change-coal-south-asia" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">India</a>&nbsp;is experiencing its worst heat wave in 122 years, and neighboring Pakistan has broken a 61-year-old record for high temperatures. Dozens of people have already died as a result of the extreme heat.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/environment/20220511-france-s-unprecedented-drought-shows-climate-change-is-spiralling-out-of-control" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">France</a>, farmers “can see the earth cracking every day,” as a record-breaking drought has thrown the country’s agricultural industry into crisis mode.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here in the United States, across the central and northeastern parts of the country, there is a&nbsp;<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/climate-change-heat-wave-northeast-record-breaking-united-states-194418560.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">heat wave</a>&nbsp;so large and so severe that people from Texas to Maine experienced triple-digit temperatures in May.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Even the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/11/weather/orange-county-california-fire-evacuations/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">wealthy enclave of Laguna Niguel</a>&nbsp;in Orange County, Southern California, is on fire, and dozens of homes have been destroyed</b>. Although moneyed elites have far more resources to remain protected from the deadly impacts of climate change compared to the rest of us, occasionally even their homes are in the path of destruction, indicating that nowhere on Earth will be safe on a catastrophically warming planet.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ironically, as extreme heat waves become more likely with global warming, humans will burn more fossil fuels to power the air conditioning they need to cool off and survive, thereby fueling the very phenomenon that leads to more extreme heat wa</b>ves.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In such a scenario, it is a massive no-brainer for the world to quickly and without delay transition to renewable energy sources. Instead, President Joe Biden in April&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/climate/biden-drilling-oil-leases.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">announced</a>&nbsp;the sale of new leases for oil and gas companies to drill on public lands, reneging on his campaign platform’s climate pledges.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Biden did so apparently in order to increase domestic fuel supplies and thereby lower gas prices. He also raised the percentage of royalties that companies pay the federal government from 12.5 percent to 18.75 percent. But no amount of dollars saved by consumers or earned in royalties by the federal government can halt the laws of physics and protect the climate.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The New York Times’s&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/climate/biden-oil-gas-lease-sales.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Lisa Friedman</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;explained, “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The burning of fossil fuels extracted from public land and in federal waters accounts for 25 percent of the greenhouse gases generated by the<b> United States</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>, which is the planet’s second biggest polluter, behind China</b>.” Here is one area where the federal executive branch has control, and yet financial considerations have been dictating responses rather than existential ones.</span></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After&nbsp;<a href="https://truthout.org/articles/climate-activists-decry-bidens-reopening-of-oil-and-gas-leases-on-public-lands/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">climate activists</a>&nbsp;vocally denounced the move,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/climate/biden-oil-gas-lease-sales.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Biden did finally cancel the drilling leases</a>&nbsp;for Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. The Interior Department cited a “lack of industry interest” and “conflicting court rulings,” rather than pressure from activists, as the reason for the cancellation. Regardless, it is a small measure of relief for a planet that is on its way to burning to a crisp.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Biden (and other lawmakers) claim they are driven by rising inflation and the impact of high gas prices on voters’ pocket books, it turns out the public doesn’t actually&nbsp;<em>want</em>&nbsp;a glut of oil and gas to help lower costs.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">A new poll by the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.muhlenberg.edu/aboutus/polling/climateenvironmentsurveys/archivedpolls/winter2022-energyenvironmentsurvey/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">National Surveys on Energy and the Environment</a>&nbsp;found that there is <b>no longer skepticism among the public that the effects of climate change are real, as 76 percent of respondents—the highest on record since the poll started</b>—“believe there is solid evidence that temperatures on the planet have risen over the last four decades.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The poll also notably concluded that “Americans continue to favor reducing greenhouse gas emissions as their preferred approach for staving off the worst impacts of climate change,” and that they “remain skeptical of any pivot from mitigation toward climate policy that prioritizes adaptation, use of geoengineering or subterranean carbon storage.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>So, rather than invest in mitigating climate change or adapting to it—which is what market-driven economies favor—people, sensibly, want to stop the planet from warming in the first place.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, there is&nbsp;<a href="https://phys.org/news/2022-04-halve-energy-climate-catastrophe.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">growing concern among climate scientists</a>&nbsp;that it may already be too late for a transition to renewables. In spite of energy sources like solar and wind becoming rapidly cheaper and more accessible, overall energy consumption is increasing about as fast, as per one recent study. Mark Diesendorf, the author of the study, explained, “it is simply impossible for renewable energy to overtake that retreating target. And that’s no fault of renewable energy. It’s the fault of the growth in consumption and the fact that action has been left too late.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Because corporate profit-based considerations have constantly dictated our energy use and climate policies, we have effectively decided that major sacrifices of lives—most likely poor people of color—will be worth the pain of relying on fossil fuels for energy.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is an analogy to be found in the COVID-19 pandemic. For months,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01394-0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">scientists sounded the alarm</a>&nbsp;over prevention, endorsing lockdowns, masks, and vaccines to stop the spread of the deadly virus, just as climate scientists issued warnings against global warming for decades. Both science-based campaigns faced uphill battles, each with its own challenges in recommending the most rational guidelines to maximize public safety in spite of financial sacrifices (closing down most businesses and restaurants and canceling major sporting and entertainment events, in the case of COVID-19; promoting solar power subsidies, switching to wind energy, and manufacturing hybrid and electric vehicles, in the case of the climate crisis). All the while, corporate interests and right-wing political opportunists successfully pushed their own agenda in the halls of power, insisting that economic growth was the most important consideration.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today, even as COVID-19&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-cases-are-surging-hospitalizations-may-not-rcna28515" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">infection rates are skyrocketing</a>, with cases having risen by 58 percent in the last two weeks alone, mask mandates are being dropped all over the country and COVID-19-related restrictions are ending. This is not because the virus is under control—it is clearly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/?itid=hp_pandemic_gfx/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">not</a>—but because it’s no longer financially viable for corporate America to sacrifice profits for lives. So, it will sacrifice lives for profit—<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/28/1082564304/billions-of-people-are-in-danger-from-climate-change-u-n-report-warns" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">just as is the case with the climate crisis</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is worth spelling out this equation so that we know where we are headed.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the climate changes, we begin to see where the bodies are buried—literally. Water levels in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.iflscience.com/environment/more-human-remains-have-been-revealed-by-climate-change-at-lake-mead/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Nevada’s Lake Mead</a>&nbsp;have fallen so dramatically that the remains of at least two human bodies were recently discovered. What other disturbing discoveries are in store for us?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Author Bio</strong>: Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">“Rising Up With Sonali,”</a>&nbsp;a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. She is a writing fellow for the&nbsp;<a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Economy for All</a>&nbsp;project at the Independent Media Institute.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">&nbsp;no lnx</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">2/13</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.newsclick.in/fossil-fuel-firms-and-their-mouthpieces-offer-net-zero-logic-climate-change">https://www.newsclick.in/fossil-fuel-firms-and-their-mouthpieces-offer-net-zero-logic-climate-change</a>
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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">everywhere around us there is evidence of climate change, from the increase in winter storms such as New England’s late January blizzard, to California’s recent record-breaking winter heat wave. Meanwhile, the world’s biggest oil and gas companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, and BP, whose products directly fuel global warming, have done little to counter the disastrous trend. While they have made promises that sound constructive on the surface, a cursory examination reveals them to be hollow. Perhaps worried about their deception being exposed, the executives and board members of these fossil fuel companies snubbed members of Congress at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on <b>February 8, 2022.</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>The hearing was entitled “Fueling the Climate Crisis: Examining Big Oil’s Climate Pledges.” Lawmakers were interested in whether companies were actually enacting their widely touted climate actions and were following up from a hearing last fall organized by the same committee which focused on the corporate cover-up of the climate crisis. The top oil executives did show up to that hearing in what was considered a historic appearance, and were subjected to a rare level of interrogation during which they generally refused to take responsibility for their actions.</div><div>
</div><div>We can only assume they did not want a repeat of such harsh scrutiny at the February hearing. Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) explained in her opening statement that these companies “have spent millions to advertise these plans [to combat climate change] and greenwash their images.” Surely, they would want to publicize the work they were supposedly doing to mitigate the climate crisis. But, according to Maloney, “when the committee invited board members of these companies to come in today and explain their pledges, they declined to appear on the date we requested.” She added, “[n]one of them showed up today. Not a single one.”</div><div>
</div><div>For decades, oil and gas companies engaged in outright denial, saying there was no such thing as global warming. ExxonMobil in particular was caught having buried its own internal research. Now that the game is up, the company has recast itself as a leader on the climate by claiming to support the Paris Accord and embracing the idea of “net-zero emissions.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">To promote the fantasy of how it will curb climate change, ExxonMobil launched a slick-looking website featuring a quote by CEO Darren Woods, saying, “We respect and support society’s ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, and continue to advocate for policies that promote cost-effective, market-based solutions to address the risks of climate change.” This sentence could only have been written by a committee of lawyers and public relations experts.</span></div><div>
</div><div>First, in Woods’ worldview, society is aiming for reduced emissions, not his company, which apparently sees itself as above society.</div><div>
</div><div>Second, “net-zero emissions” is a pie-in-the-sky goal that looks really good on paper, until it becomes apparent that it is based on entirely unproven, untested, emerging technologies that may or may not work. The idea is akin to saying that it’s okay to litter all over your neighbourhood if you also pick up trash elsewhere in the future because the net amount of trash you will have thrown onto the street will someday be zero. Oh, and the technology for picking up trash is only now being invented, so we just have to wait and see if it works.</div><div>
</div><div>Third, Woods says that ExxonMobil wants “cost-effective, market-based solutions”—this in spite of the fact that the predictable outcome of a cost-effective, market-based solution to meeting energy demands was climate change. Why would a market-based solution give us anything different this time around?</div><div>
</div><div>Fourth, the CEO says he is interested in “solutions to address the risks of climate change,” not to actually ensure that the climate doesn’t change. He also doesn’t specify whose well-being is at risk (ours) and who is risking our well-being (ExxonMobil).</div><div>
</div><div><b>Woods’ entire statement can be summed up as “net-zero” logic, spewing enough sincere-sounding fallacies about fixing climate change while balancing them out with just enough vagueness so as to provide legal cover for doing absolutely nothing.</b></div><div>
</div><div>It was this sort of trickery that the recent congressional hearing was aimed at exposing. Since the oil and gas executives were too chicken to show up and face the music, the committee instead invited climate experts such as Dr. Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University, and Tracey Lewis, climate and energy policy counsel with Public Citizen, to answer questions about the climate pledges. Over the course of three hours, lawmakers including Ro Khanna of California and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan delved deep into the various euphemisms that companies like ExxonMobil employ to gloss over their inaction.</div><div>
</div><div>The most egregious example was revealed to be ExxonMobil’s accounting trick to hide its carbon footprint. Not only is the idea of net-zero emissions an unrealistic diversion, but the company also wants to apply it only to the production side of its operations, not to the oil and gas it sells. Representative Khanna said it was “like an automaker pledging to eliminate emissions from their manufacturing but doing nothing to improve their cars’ fuel efficiency.”</div><div>
</div><div>Conservatives have risen to the defense of fossil fuel companies. Although oil and gas company executives were absent (by their own choice), Republican lawmakers such as Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and a witness named <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Katie Tubb from the Heritage Foundation were eager mouthpieces for the industry. The only defenses left in the face of certain climate catastrophe are couched in imperialist thinking—such as, “the industry’s health is a measure of American prestige, and curbing it will mar the U.S.’s global standing”—and false equivalencies, like, “given all the beneficial outcomes of oil and gas products, curbing fossil fuels will destroy civilization.” Congresswoman Foxx and Ms. Tubb employed both.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Foxx raised the favorite Republican idea of the United States achieving “energy independence” or “energy freedom,” which is code for gobbling up fossil fuel resources more quickly and cheaply than competitor nations, no matter what the consequences.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And Tubb bizarrely cited how her contact lenses that are made from fossil fuel products are a gift. She said, “I’m very thankful for that; it’s improved the well-being and productivity of my life,” as if to say that if we want the convenience of contact lenses, we need to embrace ExxonMobil’s profit-driven desire to destroy our planet. In Tubb’s view, if it’s her lenses or life on earth, she chooses lenses.</span></div><div>
</div><div>This is exactly the logic employed by former President Donald Trump, who deftly relied on his supporters’ ignorance of how wind energy works when he claimed that the television wouldn’t work as soon as the wind died down.</div><div>
</div><div><b>There was a time when the likes of Trump, Foxx and Tubb simply cast doubt on the science of climate change. Now that that doesn’t work—given how apparent the change is to most of us—the response has morphed into a version of “So what? Should we live like barbarians?”</b></div><div>
</div><div>The pro-fossil fuel view is that if we want to embrace Western living standards, climate catastrophe is the price we must pay. Otherwise, we relegate ourselves to living like those unfortunate residents of third world nations who routinely live without electricity or contact lenses.</div><div>
</div><div>Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute.</div><div>
</div><div>---</div><div>lnx</div><div>
</div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">erywhere around us there is evidence of climate change, from the&nbsp;<a href="https://phys.org/news/2022-02-climate-snowstorms.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">increase in winter storms</span></span></a>&nbsp;such as New England’s late January&nbsp;<a href="https://www.boston.com/news/snow/2022/01/30/boston-ties-its-single-day-snowfall-record-with-blizzard-of-22/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">blizzard</span></span></a>, to California’s recent record-breaking&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/09/california-winter-heatwave-record-temperatures-forecast" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">winter heat wave</span></span></a>. Meanwhile, the world’s biggest oil and gas companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, and BP, whose products directly fuel global warming, have done little to counter the disastrous trend. While they have made&nbsp;<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/as-oil-companies-make-emissions-pledges-congress-calls-hearing-on-climate-change-disinformation-185716380.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">promises</span></span></a>&nbsp;that sound constructive on the surface, a cursory examination reveals them to be hollow. Perhaps worried about their deception being exposed, the executives and board members of these fossil fuel companies snubbed members of Congress at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform&nbsp;<a href="https://oversight.house.gov/legislation/hearings/fueling-the-climate-crisis-examining-big-oils-climate-pledges" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">hearing</span></span></a>&nbsp;on February 8, 2022.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The hearing was entitled “Fueling the Climate Crisis: Examining Big Oil’s Climate Pledges.” Lawmakers were interested in whether companies were actually enacting their widely touted climate actions and were following up from a&nbsp;<a href="https://oversight.house.gov/legislation/hearings/fueling-the-climate-crisis-exposing-big-oil-s-disinformation-campaign-to" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">hearing</span></span></a>&nbsp;last fall organized by the same committee which focused on the corporate cover-up of the climate crisis. The top oil executives did show up to&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">that</em>&nbsp;hearing in what was considered a historic appearance, and were subjected to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/big-oil-ceos-deny-lying-public-climate-change-rcna4033" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">rare level of interrogation</span></span></a>&nbsp;during which they generally refused to take responsibility for their actions.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">We can only assume they did not want a repeat of such harsh scrutiny at the February hearing. Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/sKBoCCLDG2A?t=164" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">explained</span></span></a>&nbsp;in her opening statement that these companies “have spent millions to advertise these plans [to combat climate change] and greenwash their images.” Surely, they would want to publicize the work they were supposedly doing to mitigate the climate crisis. But, according to Maloney, “when the committee invited board members of these companies to come in today and explain their pledges, they declined to appear on the date we requested.” She added, “[n]one of them showed up today. Not a single one.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">For decades, oil and gas companies engaged in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-53640382" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">outright denial</span></span></a>, saying there was no such thing as global warming. ExxonMobil in particular was caught having&nbsp;<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">buried</span></span></a>&nbsp;its own internal research. Now that the game is up, the company has recast itself as a leader on the climate by&nbsp;<a href="https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/News/Newsroom/News-releases/2020/1214_ExxonMobil-announces-2025-emissions-reductions_expects-to-meet-2020-plan" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">claiming to support the Paris Accord</span></span></a>&nbsp;and embracing the idea of “net-zero emissions.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">To promote the fantasy of how it will curb climate change, ExxonMobil launched a slick-looking&nbsp;<a href="https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Sustainability/Emissions-and-climate" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">website</span></span></a>&nbsp;featuring a quote by CEO Darren Woods, saying, “We respect and support society’s ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, and continue to advocate for policies that promote cost-effective, market-based solutions to address the risks of climate change.” This sentence could only have been written by a committee of lawyers and public relations experts.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">First, in Woods’ worldview,&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">society</em>&nbsp;is aiming for reduced emissions, not his company, which apparently sees itself as above society.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Second, “net-zero emissions” is a pie-in-the-sky goal that looks really good on paper, until it becomes apparent that it is based on entirely&nbsp;<a href="https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/12/11/10-myths-net-zero-targets-carbon-offsetting-busted/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">unproven, untested, emerging technologies</span></span></a>&nbsp;that may or may not work. The idea is akin to saying that it’s okay to litter all over your neighbourhood if you also pick up trash elsewhere in the future because the net amount of trash you will have thrown onto the street will someday be zero. Oh, and the technology for picking up trash is only now being invented, so we just have to wait and see if it works.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Third, Woods says that ExxonMobil wants “cost-effective, market-based solutions”—this in spite of the fact that the predictable outcome of a cost-effective, market-based solution to meeting energy demands was climate change. Why would a market-based solution give us anything different this time around?</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fourth, the CEO says he is interested in “solutions to address the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">risks</em>&nbsp;of climate change,” not to actually ensure that the climate doesn’t change. He also doesn’t specify whose well-being is at risk (ours) and who is risking our well-being (ExxonMobil).</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Woods’ entire statement can be summed up as “net-zero” logic, spewing enough sincere-sounding fallacies about fixing climate change while balancing them out with just enough vagueness so as to provide legal cover for doing absolutely nothing.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">It was this sort of trickery that the recent congressional hearing was aimed at exposing. Since the oil and gas executives were too chicken to show up and face the music, the committee instead invited climate experts such as&nbsp;<a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/Mann%20Testimony%20Updated.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Dr. Michael Mann</span></span></a>, a professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University, and&nbsp;<a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/Lewis%20Testimony_0.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tracey Lewis</span></span></a>, climate and energy policy counsel with Public Citizen, to answer questions about the climate pledges. Over the course of three hours, lawmakers including Ro Khanna of California and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan delved deep into the various euphemisms that companies like ExxonMobil employ to gloss over their inaction.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The most egregious example was revealed to be ExxonMobil’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.axios.com/local/dallas/2022/01/25/exxonmobil-pledges-net-zero-2050" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">accounting trick</span></span></a>&nbsp;to hide its carbon footprint. Not only is the idea of net-zero emissions an unrealistic diversion, but the company also wants to apply it only to the production side of its operations, not to the oil and gas it sells. Representative Khanna&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/sKBoCCLDG2A?t=771" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">said</span></span></a>&nbsp;it was “like an automaker pledging to eliminate emissions from their manufacturing but doing nothing to improve their cars’ fuel efficiency.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Conservatives have risen to the defense of fossil fuel companies. Although oil and gas company executives were absent (by their own choice), Republican lawmakers such as Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and a witness named&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/staff/katie-tubb" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Katie Tubb from the Heritage Foundation</span></span></a>&nbsp;were eager mouthpieces for the industry. The only defenses left in the face of certain climate catastrophe are couched in imperialist thinking—such as, “the industry’s health is a measure of American prestige, and curbing it will mar the U.S.’s global standing”—and false equivalencies, like, “given all the beneficial outcomes of oil and gas products, curbing fossil fuels will destroy civilization.” Congresswoman Foxx and Ms. Tubb employed both.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Foxx raised the favorite Republican idea of the United States achieving “energy independence” or “energy freedom,” which is code for gobbling up fossil fuel resources more quickly and cheaply than competitor nations, no matter what the consequences.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">And Tubb bizarrely cited how her contact lenses that are made from fossil fuel products are a gift. She&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/sKBoCCLDG2A?t=3339" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">said</span></span></a>, “I’m very thankful for that; it’s improved the well-being and productivity of my life,” as if to say that if we want the convenience of contact lenses, we need to embrace ExxonMobil’s profit-driven desire to destroy our planet. In Tubb’s view, if it’s her lenses or life on earth, she chooses lenses.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">This is exactly the logic employed by former President Donald Trump, who deftly relied on his supporters’ ignorance of how wind energy works when he&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1108457187012214785?s=20&t=Tp8nuBVmyQ6aB3u_nprL9w" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">claimed</span></span></a>&nbsp;that the television wouldn’t work as soon as the wind died down.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">There was a time when the likes of Trump, Foxx and Tubb simply cast doubt on the science of climate change. Now that that doesn’t work—given how&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/13/record-number-americans-alarmed-about-climate-crisis" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">apparent</span></span></a>&nbsp;the change is to most of us—the response has morphed into a version of “So what? Should we live like barbarians?”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The pro-fossil fuel view is that if we want to embrace Western living standards, climate catastrophe is the price we must pay. Otherwise, we relegate ourselves to living like those unfortunate residents of third world nations who routinely live without electricity or contact lenses.</span></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/wealthy-countries-cop26/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/wealthy-countries-cop26/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div>Amazon is fighting hard to stop warehouse workers from unionizing</div><div>Sonali Kolhatkar Independent Media Institute</div><div>Thousands of warehouse workers at an Amazon plant in Bessemer, Alabama, are at the center of a potentially game-changing union vote taking place right now. On February 8,&nbsp;</div><div>=</div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/why-many-police-are-barely-distinguishable-from-racist-vigilantes/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/why-many-police-are-barely-distinguishable-from-racist-vigilantes/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Police in America, whose mottos claim to “protect and serve” us, have been openly declaring allegiance with the forces of white supremacy. It is no coincidence that this has become a hallmark of Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/08/31/908137377/trump-defends-kenosha-shooting-suspect" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">defended</a>&nbsp;Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old white suspect in the shooting deaths of two activists in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the days following the police shooting of a Black man named Jacob Blake. Implying that the suspected shooter was acting in self-defense against Black Lives Matter protesters, Trump said, “He was trying to get away from them, I guess, it looks like… He probably would have been killed.” Later,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/01/trump-missed-putt-analogy-keosha/3454010001/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">in a Fox News interview</a>, he defended police in a similar manner, saying they were “under siege” and using a golf analogy to explain why they routinely kill unarmed people: “just like in a golf tournament, they miss a three-foot putt.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Across social media, those claiming to “Back the Blue,” and that “Blue Lives Matter,” have taken their cues from the president and declared Rittenhouse a hero. The 17-year-old idolized police. And they clearly felt comforted by the presence of his armed group.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIhrm5HVoq4" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">video</a>&nbsp;capturing their close collaboration, Kenosha police officers were seen going out of their way to ensure that Rittenhouse and the vigilantes that had gathered in their city had plenty of water. At the same time, they were enforcing the city’s curfew against someone else, announcing aggressively over a bullhorn, “You are a civilian. This area is closed to all. You are trespassing. Leave. Leave now.” Seconds later, the same officer is heard saying to Rittenhouse and his colleagues, “We appreciate you guys—we really do.” If ever there was doubt that police and armed white vigilantes see themselves as part of the same club, this interaction dispelled it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Later, when the teenager&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-video.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">walked toward police with his hands up</a>&nbsp;soon after he allegedly shot protesters, officers ignored him, seeing him as no threat. Many have rightly questioned if law enforcement would have simply ignored a similarly clad Black teenager carrying a rifle that he was clearly too young to legally own.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><b>right-wing extremist armed vigilantes and police officers are cut from the same ideological cloth of American society that feels entitled to patrol the collective behavior of nonwhites, women, etc. </b>While not entirely white and male, both police and armed vigilantes are largely white men. In urban areas in particular,&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/04/urban-areas-police-are-consistently-much-whiter-than-people-they-serve/?arc404=true" target="blank" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">research shows</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;that law enforcement officers are far less racially diverse than the communities they police and are&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/17/female-police-officers-on-the-job-experiences-diverge-from-those-of-male-officers/" target="blank" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">overwhelmingly male</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">. They epitomize the white male authority that armed vigilante groups aspire to. When armed groups show up to protests, police embrace their presence and&nbsp;</span><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/06/19/militia-vigilantes-police-brutality-protests/" target="blank" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">see them as allies</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">new report</a>&nbsp;published by the Brennan Center for Justice explores the overlap between these two groups at length.</b> Written by former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Michael German, it traces the history of American police, which is more relevant than ever today. “Slave patrols were among the first public policing organizations formed in the American colonies,” writes German. He adds, “Put simply, white supremacy was the law these earliest public officials were sworn to enforce.” Judging by police actions, especially over the last several months, this historical framework of policing appears to be intact hundreds of years later. Even the FBI has warned that “White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence,” and German points out that in internal documents, the Bureau warns of the “active links” between extremist groups and law enforcement officials.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump is hardly responsible for creating the mess we find ourselves in. But he has&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/07/police-consent-decrees-trump-administration-oversight" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">ended the very modest police reforms</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;that were put into place under Obama, and law enforcement has in turn signaled that it appreciates Trump.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In fact, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-association-of-police-organizations-endorses-president-trump/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">National Association of Police Organizations</a>, which had previously endorsed Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden in 2008 and 2012, has now switched its support to Trump.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What’s worse is that there are few elected officials offering us protection from racist police violence, let alone armed white vigilantes. It is no coincidence that so many fatal incidents at the hands of police have taken place in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/democrats-police-reform" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">liberal, Democrat-run cities</a>&nbsp;where politicians pay lip service to safety but give a free pass to police. Even in liberal California, the Democrat-dominated state legislature&nbsp;<a href="https://lbpost.com/news/police-reform-state-legislature-passed-failed-vote-california?fbclid=IwAR1DZCgt6eDFVyvZF_aAf2fUy3IcHgLDXJMufGOafZ8gfIwrtkvghKCWWzM" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">could not bring itself to strip officers of their badges</a>&nbsp;when they commit crimes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Within such a context, the&nbsp;<a href="https://news.northeastern.edu/2020/07/16/the-research-is-clear-white-people-are-not-more-likely-than-black-people-to-be-killed-by-police/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">disproportionate killing of Black Americans by police</a>&nbsp;is rightly condemned as the ugly hallmark of a violently racist society. When Trump supporters claim that Black people are only killed because they resist instead of acquiescing to brutality, they conveniently overlook the fact that police manage to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.revolt.tv/2020/8/28/21406085/videos-violent-white-men-resisting-arrest-fighting-cops-they-werent-shot" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">preserve the lives of white people</a>&nbsp;who fight back when arrested.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">From California to New York and everywhere in between, police treat Black and Brown people like target practice at best, and animals at worse. A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/family-andr-s-guardado-killed-sheriff-s-deputy-files-lawsuit-n1239024" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy-turned-whistleblower</a>&nbsp;has detailed the existence of a violent gang within the department called the Executioners, which he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/9/3/headlines/did_an_la_sheriff_deputy_kill_a_teenager_as_part_of_police_gang_initiation#:_{:text=The%20family%20of%20a%20Salvadoran,Sheriff's%20Department%20over%20his%20killing.&text=A%20whistleblower%20within%20the%20Sheriff's,department%20known%20as%20the%20Executioners.}" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">said</a>&nbsp;requires aspiring members to kill someone or commit other violent acts as an initiation rite.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Two sheriff’s deputies&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/family-andr-s-guardado-killed-sheriff-s-deputy-files-lawsuit-n1239024" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">implicated</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;in the shooting death of an 18-year-old Latino man named Andres Guardado were apparently prospective members of the gang. Guardado was shot five times in the back. In New York, a video emerged recently of&nbsp;</span><a href="https://apnews.com/5c2f0cf366e560b7f41ebb3c964b099c?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP&fbclid=IwAR1OAZO0KbLmtvuYblJXsP0UonnwcVF1VykULZUUQ7nIDxG1UD5mbttxpVs" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Rochester police</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;covering the head of a Black man named Daniel Prude with a hood and suffocating him to death. Prude was naked and defenseless in the middle of the street when he was killed like an animal.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These are only two examples out of countless violent incidents where police have claimed the lives of people of color. And such incidents are precisely why white conservatives support and defend police. They see law enforcement as keeping Black and Brown masses in check. They see their own armed groups as supplementary paramilitary forces to bolster law enforcement. And they see Trump, their president, supporting these cozy ties and close collaboration.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Against a well-armed police force linked to white supremacists, what chance do communities of color have at leading dignified lives free of police harassment, targeting, and killing?&nbsp;<a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">According</a>&nbsp;to German, “the Justice Department has no national strategy designed to identify white supremacist police officers or to protect the safety and civil rights of the communities they patrol.” And this is precisely how Trump likes it.</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an 820</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The last four years have been deeply traumatizing to millions of Americans as we have watched our nation in the stranglehold of a maniacal, dictatorial and compulsively deceptive president. But it is worth examining the relationship that President Donald Trump has with his voters in order to understand why he won the 2016 election and why he continues to command such fervent loyalty a few months ahead of the next election. Willing to overlook his lies, improprieties, and corruption, Trump’s voters have a transactional relationship with the president that is practical, powerful, and surprisingly instructional to the rest of us.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While a majority of Americans might be stunned and horrified by Trump’s casual racism, unscientific claims, sexist attacks and more, his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202005/emperor-s-new-words-trump-insists-word-salad-is-steak" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">rambling rhetoric</a>&nbsp;matters little to his base, and perhaps Trump voters don’t even bother trying to make sense of his words. To them, it matters what he does and how loyal he is to them. Trump’s reelection campaign website is literally called “<a href="https://www.promiseskept.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Promises Kept</a>.” Although several of his claims of promises are not true, the point is that he touts decisive action and convinces his supporters that he has fulfilled his pledges to them. He works for them and they know it. They are willing to overlook the ugliness that accompanies his rule. It is a practical and effective approach to transforming America into the country they want.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s presidency has meant very clear-cut things to specific (but overlapping) communities, movements, and demographics. He offers his anti-abortion supporters a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.streetroots.org/news/2020/08/10/opinion-trump-appointing-anti-abortion-judges-fight-reproductive-freedom-critical" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">radical transformation of the judiciary</a>&nbsp;from lifetime federal judgeships to Supreme Court seats. To his anti-immigrant base, he has shown he is willing to go to any lengths to keep out migrants and refugees, going as far as&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/513025-white-house-officials-voted-by-show-of-hands-on-family-separations-in" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">separating children from parents</a>&nbsp;and even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/opinion/coronavirus-children-border-deportation.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">deporting them into the hands of their abusers</a>. To racist suburban white people, he is making good on a promise to keep&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2020/07/30/trump-in-trouble-revisits-his-tried-and-true-protecting-your-neighborhood-from-them/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Black and Brown people out of their neighborhoods</a>. To law enforcement, their families, and supporters, he has promised to uphold&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/16/politics/police-reform-order-donald-trump/index.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">police autonomy and immunity from prosecution</a>. And on and on.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Examined through the lens of such far-reaching promises that Trump has either kept his word on or aggressively pursued, it is no wonder that enough Americans are supporting him so as to make the election&nbsp;<a href="https://ktla.com/news/politics/cnn-poll-bidens-lead-over-trump-narrows-inching-ahead-in-key-battleground-states/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">competitive</a>. Trump has shown his base that he is willing to go as far as it takes to please them, including violating norms, pushing the boundaries of laws, and even breaking them. Such fealty is rare in a politician, let alone in a president.</font></p><div class="alt_ad_block true_ad_free story-page-in-content-graph-4" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_msg" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 10px; background: rgb(234, 234, 234);"><div class="header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AD REMOVED FOR SUBSCRIBED USER</font></div></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump offers his base clear-cut policies while his campaign hopes that voters look past his character flaws.</b> In contrast, the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden offers his voters few specific policies or sweeping changes, and his campaign hopes the Democratic Party base focuses mostly on his character, personality, and words and connects with him on a personal level.<b> The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/conventions-big-message-biden-is-a-good-guy/2020/08/19/5f9ab5f0-e150-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Washington Post</a>&nbsp;summarized that the Democratic National Convention (DNC)’s “big message,” is that, “Biden is a good guy”—not that Biden made specific bold promises to the party’s base to fundamentally transform America.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During his DNC speech,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/20/politics/biden-dnc-speech-transcript/index.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Biden’s words offered a salve</a>&nbsp;for the nation’s frayed nerves. He repeatedly touted his presidency as offering light over darkness and representing unity over division. He promised us that, “Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot.” And while he made some specific promises such as strengthening the Affordable Care Act, improving public education, and so on, there were very few bold and transformational plans.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In past years, we have been told that there are only so many things that a president can do to carry out real change. Even if politicians run on big, bold platforms—think of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/550007-barack-obama-2008-blueprint-for-change.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign</a>—once in office, they tone down their rhetoric and pull back on their sweeping promises. As president, Obama curbed his own ambition and was eventually met with Republican intransigence in Congress. Aside from a handful of legislative victories and executive orders, he fit his ambitions into bite-sized pieces. Then along came Trump, showing Americans who were disillusioned by this view of political leadership that it was possible to get very close to all the things they wanted if they had a president willing to fight tooth and nail for them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Even if Congress has not capitulated to many of Trump’s wildest demands, he has often found ways to achieve success.</b> For example, on the issue of immigration, Trump&nbsp;<a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/raise-act-dramatic-change-family-immigration-less-so-employment-based-system" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">backed a bill</a>&nbsp;in the early part of his presidency to dramatically cut family-based migration and some employment visas. Although it went nowhere in Congress, when the coronavirus pandemic hit this year, the Trump administration saw an opportunity and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.boundless.com/blog/trump-immigration-ban-who-is-affected/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">pushed through many aspects of that bill via executive order</a>. Even if the restrictions are temporary, it is an achievement he can tout to his anti-immigrant base.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Similarly, on the judiciary, many who back Trump do so because the stakes are so high they are willing to overlook everything else. Former Bush-era lawyer&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/30/supreme-court-trump-roberts-gorsuch-nominees/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">John Yoo</a>&nbsp;was quoted as saying that he knew Republicans, “who would normally be utterly turned off by a guy like Trump,” and yet they backed him “because of [the] appointment to Justice [Antonin] Scalia’s vacancy.” Their loyalty to Trump was rewarded with the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, a man who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/apr/7/neil-gorsuch-antonin-scalia-replacement-exceeds-co/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">one right-wing newspaper</a>&nbsp;said has, “exceeded… conservatives’ expectations.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>This strongly transactional relationship between Trump and his voters works both ways.</b> The president’s base does not care that his motivations are based in self-dealing and that he will do what it takes to preserve political and personal power, or that he is busy enriching himself and his friends in the process. They don’t care if he lies, vilifies the media, and attacks women and people of color on Twitter. Those are details that matter little in their day-to-day lives. All that matters is that Trump has made promises in line with their desires and will go to any lengths to fulfill them</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Trump’s racism, sexism, deception, and corruption are part of his charm to some segments of his base. To the rest who continue to stick by him, they are simply not deal breakers. They may weigh the good against the bad and decide it is worth it to have a president whose persona and rhetoric are embarrassing but who delivers the goods. A&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/26/883336183/poll-trump-disapproval-hits-all-time-high-and-he-trails-biden-by-8" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">new poll</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;found that “90 percent of Republicans approve of the job he’s doing and 91 percent say they would choose him over Biden.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meanwhile, what does the Democratic Party say to its supporters?&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Postpone your demands for Medicare for All, for defunding the police, and for a Green New Deal until after this election.</em>&nbsp;But left-leaning voters are given such lectures every four years, as if their hopes for sweeping policy changes are a mirage of water on a hot and dusty road. The farther the thirsty masses walk toward the water, the farther away it moves, and so it remains persistently out of reach. It’s no wonder Biden struggles with an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-biden-cbs-news-poll-analysis-enthusiasm-gap/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“enthusiasm gap.”</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Among Latinos,</b> a group that has been vilified by Trump repeatedly since his last campaign, one might expect strong support for Biden. But one commentator pointed out that simply claiming support for the reinstatement of the popular DACA program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) is not enough. Writing in the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/21/opinion/Democrats-Election-Latinos-Convention.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">New York Times</a>, immigrant justice activist Cristina Jiménez Moreta explained that, “Access to affordable health care was a top issue for Latinx voters who sided with Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries. Mr. Biden has refused to endorse Medicare for All—a popular solution to our nation’s health care catastrophe that would serve all people.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the Republican National Convention, Trump and his allies repeatedly cast Biden and the Democrats as “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/25/905895428/republicans-blast-democrats-as-socialists-heres-what-socialism-is" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">socialist</a>,” in spite of the fact that the party establishment has rejected popular government-led economic, environmental and social plans. No matter what Biden does or says to prove that he eschews socialism, Trump’s campaign will paint him as a radical socialist, and it will continue to make a compact with Trump’s base to fulfill specific promises.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is possible and perhaps likely that Biden will win based on many new polls that paint a favorable outcome for the Democrat. And indeed, for the future of the nation and especially women, immigrants, and people of color, it is imperative that Biden beats Trump. But if he does cinch the presidency, it will be in spite of his choice to offer character over concrete policies, not because of it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article was produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Economy for All</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sonali Kolhatkar</strong>&nbsp;</font></p><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/president-trump-is-the-child-trafficker-in-chief/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/president-trump-is-the-child-trafficker-in-chief/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald Trump thinks of himself as a champion against human trafficking. He addressed a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-white-house-summit-human-trafficking-20th-anniversary-trafficking-victims-protection-act-2000/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">White House Summit</a>&nbsp;on the issue in January claiming there was a “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-fighting-prevent-human-trafficking-southern-border/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">humanitarian crisis</a>” at the border fomented by criminal organizations and that “traffickers victimize countless women and children.” He signed an&nbsp;<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/anti-human-trafficking-groups-boycotting-ivanka-trumps-white/story?id=68615924" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">executive order</a>&nbsp;and diverted $400 million in funding to combat the issue, boasting in his usual manner that “we have signed more legislation on human trafficking than any other administration has ever even thought about.” But in recent months, the administration has been found to be flouting the United States’ own anti-trafficking laws by deporting thousands of children and families seeking asylum, practically delivering them into the hands of traffickers across the border in Mexico.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dr. Amy Cohen, executive director of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.everylastone.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Every Last One</a>, explained to me in an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/2020/08/18/how-trump-continues-to-brutalize-immigrant-children/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">interview</a>&nbsp;that under the Trump administration’s so-called “Remain in Mexico” program, “the United States has been essentially feeding vulnerable migrant children and families to cartel traffickers in Mexico continuously.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;The program, officially known by the Orwellian-sounding title of “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/29/qa-trump-administrations-remain-mexico-program" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Migrant Protection Protocols</a>” (MPP), sends immigrants seeking entry into the United States across the border to Mexico to await the adjudication of their cases. While the Department of Homeland Security&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/01/24/migrant-protection-protocols" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">claimed</a>&nbsp;that MPP would “decrease the… ability of smugglers and traffickers to prey on vulnerable populations,” in fact it does the opposite.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cohen elaborated on this horrific phenomenon, saying, “migrants are dropped off with nothing on the other side of the border, with no shelter, with no protection, with no food, with no money. And within minutes, they are picked up by cartel gangs that are waiting.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As a child and family psychiatrist who works closely with traumatized migrant children, she did not mince words, saying that families are, “kidnapped and used for extortion, which is a form of trafficking. Sometimes they are tortured. Sometimes they are raped. Children are compelled to watch. Sometimes children themselves are raped.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The only way to view the outcome of this policy is that the United States is actively participating in a trafficking operation. The Trump administration cannot claim ignorance of the outcome of MPP. According to Cohen, “This is happening in cities literally all along the border. This is not a secret; this is widespread.” So extensive is the abuse that according to her, “The vast majority of asylum seekers who we’ve placed into the MPP program have at one time or another experienced at least one, sometimes multiple, episodes of what I would consider trafficking, of kidnapping, and some form of psychological or physical torture."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">because of the extreme danger that the Trump administration has put families in, according to Cohen it has “forced many parents into a decision” about whether to keep their children with them or send them unaccompanied across the U.S. border.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But under cover of the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government has accelerated the expulsion of even unaccompanied children to Mexico and Central America—in violation of federal law. The&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/1144b498194cd6b6818acd04d7880e05" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Associated Press</a>&nbsp;explained that “More than 2,000 unaccompanied children have been expelled since March under an emergency declaration enacted by the Trump administration, which has cited the coronavirus in refusing to provide them protections under federal anti-trafficking and asylum laws.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now reports have emerged of the government hiring a private security and transportation firm to move immigrant families and children into hotels in the United States before expelling them. According to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/16/us/migrant-children-hotels-coronavirus.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">New York Times</a>, which broke the story, the Trump administration has created “a largely unregulated shadow system of detention and swift expulsions without the safeguards that are intended to protect the most vulnerable migrants.” Children, some as young as one year old, are being cared for in hotels like Best Western and Hampton Inn by private security personnel who have no childcare training.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Cohen says advocates like her believe that “this has been a way for the United States to try to hide a number of these children who they are deporting.” Those children held in government facilities have to be registered as having entered the United States, which then triggers legal protections for them. But by holding children in hotels, effectively off the books and out of public view, “</b>government attorneys are denying that they are actually in the custody” of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, says Cohen. Bizarrely, they are claiming that the children are in the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/10/border-patrol-rejects-migrant-children-cdc-rule-amid-covid-19/5333392002/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">custody of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>&nbsp;(CDC) over concerns of COVID-19, and thereby flouting the legal mandate known as the Flores Settlement to maintain the safety, care, and oversight of the children.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Where the children end up once they are removed from the U.S. is not known, and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency will not say. According to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-children/children-rapidly-deported-from-the-united-states-strain-guatemalan-shelters-idUSKCN2521V8" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Reuters</a>, “Between April and June, U.S. officials arrested more than 3,300 unaccompanied children on the southwest border, but CBP has declined to say how many have been expelled under the new process or give a breakdown of arrests by nationality for that time period.” During that same time frame, out of the thousands of children apprehended, only about 160 remain in U.S. custody.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is ironic, to say the least, that some of Trump’s most loyal followers are conspiracy theorists who label themselves&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-qanon.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">QAnon</a>&nbsp;claiming that the president is facing off against a “cabal of Democratic pedophiles.” So mainstream is this movement that one of its followers just&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/us/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-qanon-georgia-primary.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">won a GOP congressional primary</a>&nbsp;in Georgia. QAnon is now appropriating the social media hashtag&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/technology/qanon-save-the-children-trafficking.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">#SaveTheChildren</a>&nbsp;and promoting fantastical claims of a widespread child sex trafficking ring. Its followers have even joined the anti-trafficking movement in the United States. But they have entirely ignored the very real trafficking and exploitation of children at the U.S. border that their president has unleashed.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>More than two years ago,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-delivers-remarks-discussing-immigration-enforcement-actions" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions</a>&nbsp;claimed that the government cared about children when he officially announced Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, saying, “If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law.” It was a thinly veiled attempt to punish those fleeing poverty and violence for a better life in America</b>. And while mass public outrage forced Trump to back off (he signed an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/affording-congress-opportunity-address-family-separation/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">executive order</a>&nbsp;in June 2018 to end what his own discretionary policy initiated), in truth the torture and trauma facing immigrant families did not end. It was simply moved out of our view across the border into even more dangerous conditions.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As America hurtles toward November 3 with a desperation unlike any we’ve felt for previous presidential elections, the issue of how President Trump has treated immigrant families and children has been largely off the radar. But if we care about children and about protecting them from horrific torture and abuse, Trump’s role as Child-Trafficker-in-Chief ought to be central to our election discourse.</font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trumps-presidency-is-a-cult/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trumps-presidency-is-a-cult/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump’s presidency is a death cult</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Sonali Kolhatkar / Independent Media Institute August 7, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When President Donald Trump was challenged by Axios national political correspondent Jonathan Swan to respond to the fact that, “a thousand Americans are dying a day” due to COVID-19, the president responded as though the grim tally was perfectly acceptable, saying, “<b>They are dying, that’s true. And it is what it is.</b>” While observers were aghast at the callousness of his statement, it should not have surprised us. Trump had warned that the death toll would be high, and he had asked us months ago to get used to the idea. In late March, the White House Coronavirus Task Force had projected that 100,000 to 240,000 Americans would die from the virus. Rather than unveil an aggressive plan to tackle the spread and prevent the projected mortality figures, the president had said, “I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New York Times saw this warning as a contradiction to Trump’s stance in February and early March when he had said that “we have it totally under control” and “it’s going to be just fine.” The paper seemed to heave a sigh of relief that a few weeks later, “the president appeared to understand the severity of the potentially grave threat to the country.” But the report’s authors failed to grasp that Trump is willing to accept anything—including mass deaths—in service of his political career.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In fact, mass death appears to be part of Trump’s reelection strategy as per a July 30 Vanity Fair report on the administration’s strategy to contain the pandemic. The investigative piece explained that Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner was part of a group of White House staffers that corresponded frequently to discuss the rapidly spreading virus</b>. According to a public health expert who was described as being “in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force,” one of the members of&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kushner’s team had concluded that, “because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically.” The unnamed expert told Vanity Fair, “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If it is true that Kushner embraced the idea of COVID-19 deaths as part of a political strategy for Trump’s reelection, there can be no clearer evidence that the Trump presidency fits the definition of a “death cult.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Trump’s team is also deeply inept, and its macabre tactics appear to have backfired. If Kushner expected a highly contagious virus to follow his political rules and relegate itself to Democratic-run states, he was proven very wrong, very quickly with Republican-run states like Florida, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and Arizona being among the hardest hit.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For years, the Republican Party has cast itself as a self-righteous force for morality, embraced the “pro-life” movement, and claimed to align with “Christian values.” But just as Trump—arguably the most criminal of all U.S. presidents—has adopted a mantle of “law and order” with no hint of irony, the GOP as a whole has also shown time and again that its embrace of morality and law is a purely political tool.</span>&nbsp;Now, as the nation grapples with mass deaths from a disease that a Republican president spectacularly and willfully failed to contain, conservative politicians appear willing to simply accept it. Their silence is deafening compared to the angry denunciations many Republican lawmakers hurled at President Barack Obama over his response to the Ebola epidemic—a crisis that resulted in a nationwide total of 11 infections and two deaths.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ultimately it may be Trump’s own base that suffers as it internalizes the president’s mixed and confused messaging on ignoring social distancing guidelines, eschewing protective masks, swallowing hydroxychloroquine preventatively, and even accepting the inevitability of their own death (because “it is what it is” according to Trump).&nbsp;<b>Even after more than 150,000 Americans have died from the virus, a majority of Republicans trust Trump’s coronavirus comments.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>When Trump loyalist and former presidential candidate Herman Cain died of COVID-19, testing positive 11 days after attending Trump’s Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally without a mask on, his death did not change minds</b>. The 74-year-old was reportedly on a ventilator during his last days, but conservatives are vehemently opposed to “politicizing” Cain’s death. Right-wing commentator and talk show host&nbsp;<b>Ben Shapiro slammed those who made a connection between Cain’s refusal to take the virus seriously and his own infection and death. Shapiro said, “The kind of dunking on people after they die of COVID is pretty gross</b>.” Certainly, Cain did not deserve to be vilified for his own sad fate. But his death offers a cautionary tale about the dangers of the Trump death cult—a point Shapiro of course refused to acknowledge.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">We should hardly be surprised at this acceptance of death as inevitable. For years, conservatives have responded to gun violence with angry renunciations of any links to gun proliferation or lax gun control laws, offering instead “thoughts and prayers.” The one exception where Republicans express outrage is over the “death” of fetal cells inside women’s bodies—indicating that the fight is less about “murder,” as the anti-abortionists like to call it, than it is about controlling women’s bodies<b>. By and large, the nation’s right-wing factions have for years wanted us to accept mass deaths and preventable mortality as a price for our “freedom.</b>” They expect the same during a pandemic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But we do not have to all be members of the death cult. According to a new study, states where people live the longest also have the strictest environmental laws, stronger gun control and stronger protections for minorities. These are also states that tend to be run by Democrats. California, for example, which has among the most stringent protections for minorities and the environment, also has one of the highest average life expectancy rates in the United States.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">COVID-19 infections and deaths are hardly inevitable, and Americans are starting to see it. A Texas woman named Stacey Nagy penned an obituary for her late husband David that has garnered widespread attention. She wrote in her local paper that, “Family members believe David’s death was needless. They blame his death and the deaths of all the other innocent people, on Trump, [Gov. Greg] Abbott and all the politicians who did not take this pandemic seriously and were more concerned with their popularity and votes than lives.”<b>&nbsp;Nagy also blamed “the many ignorant, self centered and selfish people who refused to follow the advice of the medical professionals, believing their ‘right’ not to wear a mask was more important than killing innocent people.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perhaps the only way out of Trump’s death cult is to speak out as Nagy has done.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Washington Post, which interviewed Nagy, explained, “Feeling helpless, Stacey approached her husband’s obituary as a chance to speak out about how she felt her country had failed her family.” While Trump’s most loyal supporters might choose death in his service, the rest of us need not be bound by their blind, cultish and suicidal ideology.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sonali Kolhatkar&nbsp; is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-americas-wealthiest-are-profiting-in-the-time-of-the-pandemic/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-americas-wealthiest-are-profiting-in-the-time-of-the-pandemic/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) Michael Strain wrote an op-ed in the New York Times recently explaining how “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/opinion/inequality-american-dream.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The American Dream Is Alive and Well</a>,” and that in his opinion this nation has, “bigger issues than inequality.”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Strain’s piece is part of the paper’s new pandemic-era series called “The America We Need” and engages in a set of impressive mental gymnastics to conclude that it ought to be of no concern that the rich are getting richer and that it would be better to focus instead on, “the relatively slow rate of productivity growth,” or “the long-term decline in male employment.”</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Strain is incredulous over our fixation on the concentration of wealth at the top, asking, “Do Americans really care as much about inequality as the attention by media and liberal politicians suggest?” He adds, “<b>Given that income inequality has been stagnant or declining over the most recent decade, the timing… is odd” for a conversation “about whether inequality suggests that capitalism itself is broke</b>n.” However, inequality&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/us/politics/gao-income-gap-rich-poor.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">continues to steadily rise</a>—a fact it seems the pro-free-market American Enterprise Institute is hoping we ignore.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In his op-ed, Strain&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/opinion/inequality-american-dream.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">chants</a>&nbsp;a mantra that he and other proponents of capitalism want to realize through sheer repetition: “Capitalism isn’t broken. The game isn’t rigged. Hard work does pay off</span>.”&nbsp;<b>Most insultingly, he maintains that: “American workers are resilient and are accustomed to facing—and overcoming—economic challenges.” In other words, because American workers are used to being screwed over by the economy and most have seemingly managed to survive it, they will continue to do so in the face of ever-increasing hardship.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) during a Senate hearing on May 19 questioned Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/05/19/powell-mnuchin-senate-coronavirus-hearing-cares-act/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">asking</a>, “How many workers will die if we send people back to work without the protections they need, Mr. Secretary? How many workers should give their lives to increase our [gross domestic product] by half a percent?” Mnuchin responded, “I think your characterization is unfair,</span>”&nbsp;<b>but the Trump administration he attempted to defend has in fact forced people back to work, namely in the meatpacking industry. President Donald Trump invoked the&nbsp;</b><b><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/30/trump-executive-order-meat-processing-workers-coronavirus" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Defense Production Act</a>—not to direct the commercial production of much-needed medical and protective equipment, but rather to provide cover to the meat industry as it seeks to force workers back into a dangerous environment.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">T<a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/19/21259000/meat-shortage-meatpacking-plants-coronavirus" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">housands of workers have become infected</a>&nbsp;in recent months. But if meatpacking workers contract the disease and die, it is their fault as per Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who recently claimed that it was the “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/07/azar-coronavirus-meatpacking-workers-241915" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">home and social</a>” conditions in the lives of meatpacking plant workers that were responsible for their COVID-19 diagnoses.</span><b>&nbsp;He even went as far as suggesting more law enforcement surveillance of those communities where meatpacking workers live in order to police social distancing.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Making clear just how little Republicans in particular care about workers, Trump has opposed&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-expresses-opposition-to-extending-unemployment-benefits-enacted-in-response-to-pandemic/2020/05/19/19ae0e50-9a12-11ea-a282-386f56d579e6_story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">extending unemployment insurance</a>&nbsp;for laid-off workers. His&nbsp;<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/12/trump-labor-department-encourages-states-help-employers-report-workers-who-stay-home" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Labor Department</a>&nbsp;has encouraged companies to snitch on workers so that their unemployment benefits are cut off if they are too fearful of returning to work.</span>&nbsp;And, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-delays-return-to-capitol-amid-uncertainty-over-next-round-of-coronavirus-stimulus-11588091849" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">wants to protect corporations from liability</a>&nbsp;in coronavirus-related lawsuits by workers.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republicans have also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/19/politics/coronavirus-stimulus-congress/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">refused to take up any more stimulus bills</a>&nbsp;even as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/21/unemployment-claims-coronavirus/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">more than 38 million Americans</a>&nbsp;have lost jobs in just nine weeks. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, showing just how blind he is to the pain of workers,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/19/politics/coronavirus-stimulus-congress/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">said</a>, “I don’t see the need right now.” Senator McConnell echoed this,&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/497173-mcconnell-no-need-yet-for-fifth-coronavirus-bill" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">saying</a>, “I don’t think we have yet felt the urgency of acting immediately. That time could… [come], but I don’t think it has yet.” Time and again conservative politicians, in shilling for the rich, have indicated that American workers, rather than being essential, are simply expendable. This is their version of a class war.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The White House’s latest idea for helping workers is to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/15/white-house-floats-large-corporate-tax-cut-firms-that-bring-jobs-back-overseas/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">cut corporate taxes in half</a>&nbsp;as a way to incentivize overseas jobs to return to the U.S.&nbsp;Larry Kudlow, the White House’s top economic adviser, touted a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-tax/trump-wants-to-see-7-6-payroll-tax-cut-white-house-economic-director-idUSKBN22V1X3" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">payroll tax cut</a>&nbsp;as a way to put more money into Americans’ pockets. He failed to mention that cutting payroll taxes meant a cut in payroll-tax-funded programs like Medicare and Social Security—programs many Americans rely on that the class warriors have wanted to cut for years.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Amazingly, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-stock-markets-dow-update-5-20-2020-11589946351" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">stock market appears to not care</a>&nbsp;that there is record unemployment as week after week even with skyrocketing unemployment, the Dow Jones and Nasdaq indices remain buoyed</b>. Indeed, the indicators that are announced with much fanfare every day on the popular radio program Marketplace have never had a real bearing on the well-being of American workers, no matter how much enthusiasm host Kai Ryssdal musters during his announcements. To his credit, he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2019/09/30/the-stock-market-is-not-the-economy/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">has admitted as much</a>, explaining that the “wealthiest 10 percent of American households own 84 percent of all stocks.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before the pandemic, Trump bet his reelection on a low unemployment rate and the buoyancy of the stock market. Now, with official unemployment figures so incongruent with the stock market’s growth, he has a harder time making a claim of widespread economic prosperity. In fact, there was no prosperity even before the pandemic. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/063015/how-does-us-bureau-labor-statistics-calculate-unemployment-rate-published-monthly.asp" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">official unemployment rate</a>&nbsp;was low, but that did not indicate how many people had quit looking for work or how poor quality those jobs were. The pandemic has exposed the fact that Trump’s claims of financial triumph were always more of a mirage than a miracle.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the anguish of millions of American workers remains irrelevant to the corporate profiteers and their political benefactors, we are expected to rejoice in the fact that Jeff<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, could become the world’s&nbsp;<a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/jeff-bezos-could-be-worlds-first-trillionaire-by-2026-ambani-jack-ma-to-follow/worlds-first-trillionaire/slideshow/75801789.cms" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">first trillionaire</a>&nbsp;in a few years</span>. It would be convenient for Michael Strain and the American Enterprise Institute if we are convinced to ignore such obscenity and focus instead on workers remaining “resilient” as the rich wage their class war.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The only rational response to the absurd state of the U.S. economy is to insist that billionaires (and especially trillionaires) are simply not allowed to exist. After the first $100 million, there is no need to continue to amass any more wealth</b>. Congress could easily enact laws to tax billionaires heavily enough that they remained more than comfortable for the rest of their lives while funding necessary services that huge numbers of Americans could benefit from: paid sick leave, Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and so much more. There is no justification for individuals to hoard so much wealth compared to the rest of us. But they will never give up that wealth voluntarily. They will instead fight tooth and nail, lie and cheat, to preserve and expand their inconceivable riches. Against such a class war there is only one option.</font></p></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">victor picard sp democracy w/o journalism annenberg school</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAIQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFSgAMAB6BAgCEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.57;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFjAAegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /></font><h3 class="LC20lb" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 2px 0px 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.3;"><a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFjAAegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; 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text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFjAAegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFjAAegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFjAAegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFjAAegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; 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text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFjAAegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFjAAegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFjAAegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Democracy Without Journalism? Q&A with Victor Pickard ...</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3><div class="B6fmyf" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; height: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font><div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; line-height: 1.57; padding-bottom: 1px; padding-top: 1px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30 bc" style="font-style: normal; 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line-height: 1.57;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:L-FBeBlmF_cJ:https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:L-FBeBlmF_cJ:https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism%2B%26cd%3D1%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQIDAAegQIAhAG" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.57; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="f" style="line-height: 1.57;">Nov 25, 2019 -&nbsp;</span>In his new book,&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Democracy Without Journalism</span>? Confronting the Misinformation Society, Professor&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Victor Pickard</span>&nbsp;considers the historical&nbsp;...</font></span></a><div class="TXwUJf" style=""><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:L-FBeBlmF_cJ:https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:L-FBeBlmF_cJ:https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/democracy-without-journalism%2B%26cd%3D1%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQIDAAegQIAhAG" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Missing:&nbsp;<s>sp</s>&nbsp;‎| Must include:&nbsp;</font></a><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=victor+pickard+%22sp%22+democracy+without+journalism+annenberg+school&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQ5t4CMAB6BAgCEAk" style="text-decoration-line: none; 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</font></font><h3 class="LC20lb" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 2px 0px 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democracy without Journalism?: Confronting the ...</font></font></h3><div class="B6fmyf" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; height: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; line-height: 1.57; padding-bottom: 1px; padding-top: 1px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30 bc" style="font-style: normal; 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line-height: 1.57;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xbRHb7SB7yMJ:https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190946753.001.0001/oso-9780190946753+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:xbRHb7SB7yMJ:https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190946753.001.0001/oso-9780190946753%2B%26cd%3D2%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQIDABegQICBAG" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.57; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In underscoring these threats to&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">democracy</span>, the book also draws attention to ...&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Victor Pickard</span>&nbsp;... Associate Professor of Communication,&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Annenberg School</span>&nbsp;for&nbsp;...</font></span></a><div class="TXwUJf" style=""><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xbRHb7SB7yMJ:https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190946753.001.0001/oso-9780190946753+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:xbRHb7SB7yMJ:https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190946753.001.0001/oso-9780190946753%2B%26cd%3D2%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQIDABegQICBAG" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Missing:&nbsp;<s>sp</s>&nbsp;‎| Must include:&nbsp;</font></a><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=victor+pickard+%22sp%22+democracy+without+journalism+annenberg+school&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQ5t4CMAF6BAgIEAg" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sp</font></a></div></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAkQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFSgAMAJ6BAgJEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.57;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democracy-without-journalism-9780190946753" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democracy-without-journalism-9780190946753&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFjACegQICRAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /></font><div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; line-height: 1.57; padding-bottom: 1px; padding-top: 1px;"><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democracy-without-journalism-9780190946753" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democracy-without-journalism-9780190946753&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQFjACegQICRAB" style="cursor: pointer; 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</font></font><h3 class="LC20lb" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 2px 0px 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democracy without Journalism? - Hardcover - Victor Pickard ...</font></font></h3><div class="B6fmyf" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; height: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; line-height: 1.57; padding-bottom: 1px; padding-top: 1px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30 bc" style="font-style: normal; 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position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; white-space: nowrap; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s ease 0s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dv9WQF_uTfwJ:https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democracy-without-journalism-9780190946753+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:dv9WQF_uTfwJ:https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democracy-without-journalism-9780190946753%2B%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQIDACegQICRAG" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div></div></div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 1.57;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dv9WQF_uTfwJ:https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democracy-without-journalism-9780190946753+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:dv9WQF_uTfwJ:https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democracy-without-journalism-9780190946753%2B%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQIDACegQICRAG" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.57; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="f" style="line-height: 1.57;">Dec 2, 2019 -&nbsp;</span>As local media institutions collapse and news deserts sprout up across the country, the US is facing a profound&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">journalism</span>&nbsp;crisis. Meanwhile&nbsp;...</font></span></a><div class="TXwUJf" style=""><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dv9WQF_uTfwJ:https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democracy-without-journalism-9780190946753+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:dv9WQF_uTfwJ:https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democracy-without-journalism-9780190946753%2B%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQIDACegQICRAG" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Missing:&nbsp;<s>sp</s>&nbsp;‎| Must include:&nbsp;</font></a><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=victor+pickard+%22sp%22+democracy+without+journalism+annenberg+school&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQ5t4CMAJ6BAgJEAk" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sp</font></a></div></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; 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line-height: 1.57;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PHjhZEstVg4J:https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/category/featurestories/capitalism/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:PHjhZEstVg4J:https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/category/featurestories/capitalism/%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQIDADegQIBxAG" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.57; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Journalism</span>&nbsp;is essential to a&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">democracy</span>&nbsp;– can there be&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">democracy without journalism</span>?&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Victor Pickard</span>, Associate Professor at the&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Annenberg School</span>&nbsp;for ... His new book is The Consequential Frontier: Challenging the Privatization of Space.&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">SP</span>&nbsp;...</font></span></a></div></div></div></div></div><div><p><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PHjhZEstVg4J:https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/category/featurestories/capitalism/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:PHjhZEstVg4J:https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/category/featurestories/capitalism/%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQIDADegQIBxAG" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></a></p><p><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PHjhZEstVg4J:https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/category/featurestories/capitalism/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:PHjhZEstVg4J:https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/category/featurestories/capitalism/%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwie39vQ6r_nAhVRR60KHbu1AngQIDADegQIBxAG" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4/19</font></a></p><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/anti-vaxxers-are-just-as-bad-as-climate-deniers/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anti-vaxxers are just as bad as climate deniers</font></a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/sonali-kolhatkar/" title="Posts by Sonali Kolhatkar" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Sonali Kolhatkar</a>&nbsp;/&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/truthdig/" title="Posts by Truthdig " class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Truthdig</a></font></span></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There have been at least 555 confirmed cases of the highly contagious measles virus since January alone, prompting officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to call this…</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</span></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><p class="first" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; font-family: " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" max-width="max-width" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GUEST: Gordon Lafer, Associate Professor at the Labor Education and Research Center at the University of Oregon. He is the author of The Job Training Charade, and formerly served as Senior Policy Advisor to the US Congress. His new book is called The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; font-family: " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" max-width="max-width" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BACKGROUND: We are living at a time when corporations are dominant over so many aspects of our lives, especially our work lives. Companies like Uber and Lyft are bringing people on as "independent contractors" rather than employees with stable incomes and benefits. So-called "Right to Work" bills, which directly undermine unions, have been passed in states around the country. Efforts to kill bills raising the minimum wage have been coordinated and effective. In fact, in order to see clearly what corporations are doing to preserve their bottom line at our expense we have to see the patterns of their state-by-state approach. Those patterns are exposed in a new book called The One Percent Solution.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>