Sharice Davids is in the U.S. House of Represenatives!

NDNCollective

January 3, 2019

Watch out, world. Sharice Davids is in the House!

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MoveOn
January 3, 2019

The Blue Wave was just sworn into Congress. Meet the most diverse and most progressive House of Representatives in history!

Blue Wave Democrats Take the House

The Blue Wave was just sworn into Congress. Meet the most diverse and most progressive House of Representatives in history!

Posted by MoveOn on Thursday, January 3, 2019

The 7 economic fundamentals in our economy.

Robert Reich

January 3, 2019

It’s time to face the truth about our economy. Here’s are 7 economic fundamentals to remember in 2019.

7 Economic Fundamentals

It's time to face the truth about our economy. Here's are 7 economic fundamentals to remember in 2019.

Posted by Robert Reich on Tuesday, January 1, 2019

‘Capitalism without competition is not capitalism.’

NowThis Politics

January 3, 2019

‘Capitalism without competition is not capitalism.’ — The hidden reason economic inequality is on the rise is right in front our noses

Author Denise Hearn on the Hidden Cause of U.S. Inequality

‘Capitalism without competition is not capitalism.’ — The hidden reason economic inequality is on the rise is right in front our noses

Posted by NowThis Politics on Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Money has corrupted our politics!

Robert Reich

January 3, 2019

As Democrats take control of the House, they must make getting big money out of politics a top priority. It’s a prerequisite to accomplishing everything else. Big money continues to corrupt American politics, creating a vicious cycle that funnels more wealth and power to those at the top and eroding our democracy.

Why We Must Get Big Money Out of Politics

As Democrats take control of the House, they must make getting big money out of politics a top priority. It’s a prerequisite to accomplishing everything else. Big money continues to corrupt American politics, creating a vicious cycle that funnels more wealth and power to those at the top and eroding our democracy.

Posted by Robert Reich on Thursday, January 3, 2019

Mitt Romney: Trump’s Character Falls Short!

Washington Post – Opinions

Mitt Romney: The president shapes the public character of the nation. Trump’s character falls short.

By Mitt Romney               January 1, 2018


President Trump speaks during an interview with Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey in the Oval Office at the White House on Nov. 27. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah and the party’s 2012 nominee for president, will be sworn into the U.S. Senate on Thursday.

The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December. The departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, the appointment of senior persons of lesser experience, the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the president’s thoughtless claim that America has long been a “sucker” in world affairs all defined his presidency down.

It is well known that Donald Trump was not my choice for the Republican presidential nomination. After he became the nominee, I hoped his campaign would refrain from resentment and name-calling. It did not. When he won the election, I hoped he would rise to the occasion. His early appointments of Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Nikki Haley, Gary Cohn, H.R. McMaster, Kelly and Mattis were encouraging. But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions last month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.

It is not that all of the president’s policies have been misguided. He was right to align U.S. corporate taxes with those of global competitors, to strip out excessive regulations, to crack down on China’s unfair trade practices, to reform criminal justice and to appoint conservative judges. These are policies mainstream Republicans have promoted for years. But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency.

To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation. A president should unite us and inspire us to follow “our better angels.” A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. As a nation, we have been blessed with presidents who have called on the greatness of the American spirit. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent’s shortfall has been most glaring.

The world is also watching. America has long been looked to for leadership. Our economic and military strength was part of that, of course, but our enduring commitment to principled conduct in foreign relations, and to the rights of all people to freedom and equal justice, was even more esteemed. Trump’s words and actions have caused dismay around the world. In a 2016 Pew Research Center poll, 84 percent of people in Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Sweden believed the American president would “do the right thing in world affairs.” One year later, that number had fallen to 16 percent.

This comes at a very unfortunate time. Several allies in Europe are experiencing political upheaval. Several former Soviet satellite states are rethinking their commitment to democracy. Some Asian nations, such as the Philippines, lean increasingly toward China, which advances to rival our economy and our military. The alternative to U.S. world leadership offered by China and Russia is autocratic, corrupt and brutal.

The world needs American leadership, and it is in America’s interest to provide it. A world led by authoritarian regimes is a world — and an America — with less prosperity, less freedom, less peace.

To re-assume our leadership in world politics, we must repair failings in our politics at home. That project begins, of course, with the highest office once again acting to inspire and unite us. It includes political parties promoting policies that strengthen us rather than promote tribalism by exploiting fear and resentment. Our leaders must defend our vital institutions despite their inevitable failings: a free press, the rule of law, strong churches, and responsible corporations and unions.

We must repair our fiscal foundation, setting a course to a balanced budget. We must attract the best talent to America’s service and the best innovators to America’s economy.

America is strongest when our arms are linked with other nations. We want a unified and strong Europe, not a disintegrating union. We want stable relationships with the nations of Asia that strengthen our mutual security and prosperity.

I look forward to working on these priorities with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other senators.

Furthermore, I will act as I would with any president, in or out of my party: I will support policies that I believe are in the best interest of the country and my state, and oppose those that are not. I do not intend to comment on every tweet or fault. But I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions.

I remain optimistic about our future. In an innovation age, Americans excel. More importantly, noble instincts live in the hearts of Americans. The people of this great land will eschew the politics of anger and fear if they are summoned to the responsibility by leaders in homes, in churches, in schools, in businesses, in government — who raise our sights and respect the dignity of every child of God — the ideal that is the essence of America.

This is who America has been?

New York Magazine – Intelligencer

American Exceptionalism Is a Dangerous Myth

An American soldier stands before a burning oil well in Rumayla, Iraq, on March 27, 2003. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images.

Donald Trump has done more to elevate the left’s critique of U.S. foreign policy than any politician in modern memory.

As a presidential candidate, the mogul told Republican primary audiences that George W. Bush had lied the United States into Iraq; that said war had done a “tremendous disservice to humanity”; and that America could have saved countless lives by investing $5 trillion in domestic infrastructure instead. As commander-in-chief, Trump has suggested that there is no moral distinction between the U.S. and other great powers; that American foreign policy in the Middle East is largely dictated by the interests of arms manufacturers; and that the U.S. judges foreign regimes by their utility to American economic interests, not their commitment to human rights.

But if Trump’s descriptions of geopolitics echo Noam Chomsky, his prescriptions owe more to Attila the Hun. The president does see the invasion of Iraq as a criminal waste — but only because the U.S. failed to expropriate the region’s oil fields. He does imply that, in the eyes of the American state, Raytheon’s profits count more than journalists’ lives —but he sees that as a good thing. And when Trump suggests our country isn’t “so innocent,” he isn’t imploring neoconservatives to hold America to higher moral standards, but rather, to hold foreign autocrats to lower ones.

In other words, the Trump presidency can be read as an object lesson in the virtues of hypocrisy. Having a global hegemon that preaches human rights — while propping up dictators and incinerating schoolchildren — is bad. But having one that does those things while preaching nihilism is worse; not least because even a nominal commitment to liberal values can function as a constraint against their violation. Trump’s distaste for the whole “shining city on a hill” shtick has, among other things, enabled the Pentagon to tolerate higher levels of civilian casualties in the Middle East, the Israeli government to accelerate settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, and the Saudi crown prince to take a bonesaw to international law.

It’s understandable, then, that many liberal intellectuals are eager to revive the national myths that Trump has busted. Such thinkers concede that Trump has highlighted flaws in the triumphalist, Cold War narrative about American global leadership. And they acknowledge the necessity of rethinking what “leading the free world” truly requires of the United States. But they nevertheless insist that America’s self-conception as an exceptional power — which is to say, as a hegemon whose foreign policy is shaped by universal ideals (as opposed to mercenary interests) — isn’t just a beneficent fiction, but an actual fact. And that compulsion is unfortunate; because it will be difficult for liberals to realize their vision for America’s exceptional future, if they refuse to grapple with its unexceptional past.

In the current issue of The Atlantic, former Hillary Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan presents one of the more compelling cases for making America exceptional again. Against Dick Cheney’s arrogant, unilateralist approach to world leadership — and Trump’s nihilistic disavowal of America’s international obligations — Sullivan offers a call for restoring the U.S. to its former role as a benevolent hegemon, one whose global supremacy is legitimated by its demonstrable commitment to spreading peace, democracy, and shared prosperity.

Crucially, Sullivan recognizes that this restoration is contingent on sweeping reform. He acknowledges that, in recent decades, U.S. foreign policy has often betrayed both its putative ideals and the concrete material interests of ordinary Americans — thereby inviting the cynicism of young idealists, and the xenophobic resentment of aging nationalists. Further, policymakers have habitually overreached militarily, while grossly under-investing in cyber security, diplomacy, foreign aid, and other forms of soft power.

To rectify these errors, Sullivan argues that America should strive to build (and/or fortify) multilateral institutions of global governance; shape its geopolitical strategy around the interests of working people (by, among other things, cracking down on tax havens and international corruption); shift resources away from military pork and toward diplomacy, development, and technology; and exercise more humility when contemplating foreign intervention.

And yet, while Sullivan’s prescriptions for U.S. foreign policy are broadly consistent with those of progressive darlings like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, his description of American grand strategy, pre-Trump, is as delusional as that of the median neoconservative.

Sullivan argues that the case for American leadership rests on the existence of American exceptionalism, which he defines as “the idea that the United States has a set of characteristics that gives it a unique capacity and responsibility to help make the world a better place.”

That America has such a responsibility should not be controversial. For anyone who subscribes to universalist values (or those of Spider-Man), the notion that the world’s wealthiest nation has an obligation to concern itself with the well-being of global humanity is self-evident. But whether America has proven itself uniquely qualified for this task is less clear.

Here is how Sullivan makes the case:

From the republican ideas of the Founders—in particular, from their notion of interdependence—flows an attitude. Alexis de Tocqueville called it “self-interest rightly understood.” Today, we might call it positive-sum thinking.

This attitude guided America’s grand strategy after the Second World War, as the U.S. rebuilt vanquished foes, protected the sea lanes, and responded to natural disasters halfway around the world. For centuries, European states waged war with grim regularity. The fact that the major powers have not returned to war with one another since 1945 is a remarkable achievement of American statecraft. Meanwhile, China’s extraordinary development was the result not of failures in U.S. foreign policy but of its successes. The U.S. maintained the security that helped drive remarkable economic growth across the Asia-Pacific region.

He then contrasts America’s enlightened, positive-sum approach to leadership with the crass imperialism of other great powers:

At some level, most of the world knows that America’s positive-sum approach is valuable and unusual. At a gathering of Asian nations in 2011, I heard the Chinese foreign minister address the issue of Beijing’s ambitions in the South China Sea this way: “China is a big country, and other countries here are small countries. Think hard about that.” This is China’s way, and Russia’s way. It generally has not been America’s way.

That is, it wasn’t until Trump came along. He treats foreign policy in simple terms: us against them.

Now, Sullivan is no arrogant Chenyite; he acknowledges that the “story” of American exceptionalism is “incomplete.” There have always been “the mistakes, the complexities, the imperfections — things like covert regime change across Latin America, support for brutal dictators, the invasion of Iraq, and the tragedies (despite the best of intentions) of Somalia and Libya.”

But what if “things like covert regime change across Latin America” weren’t deviations from “the American way,” but expressions of it? Sullivan doesn’t entertain the question. In lieu of an explanation for how a great power uniquely committed to republican values came to organize so many authoritarian coups against republics, Sullivan offers a single quote from Reinhold Niebuhr: “Hypocrisy and pretension are the inevitable concomitants of the engagement between morals and politics.”

This is a means of evasion, not an argument. And it is utterly insufficient for countering the copious evidence disputing Sullivan’s narrative. For one thing, if Trump introduced zero-sum thinking into American grand strategy in 2016, how does one account for George Kennan’s authorship of the following quote, in a State Department “policy planning” document, circa 1948?

[W]e have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.

The history of American foreign policy over the past seven decades has been more consistent with Kennan’s summation of national purpose than Sullivan’s. More specifically, U.S. foreign policy has more consistently reflected the economic interests of American capital than it has the ideals of republicanism — which makes intuitive sense. Generally speaking, one would assume that a government’s policies would reflect the interests of whoever controls said government. And when State Department wonks like Sullivan analyze the intentions of foreign nations, they avail themselves of this basic insight. American exceptionalism is rooted in the improbable notion that the the United States is uniquely unbeholden to the logic of power.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that America is unexceptional in this respect. Let’s say that our nation’s foreign policies are shaped, above all, by the material interests of those who enjoy the most power over our government. And let’s further stipulate that all American corporations, combined, invest more time and money into trying to influence public policy — and enjoy more intimate access to D.C. policy-makers — than do human-rights activists.

From these (highly plausible) premises, one would expect the U.S. to pursue a foreign policy that prioritizes the interests of corporate America over the promotion of democracy or human rights. Or, put differently: One would conclude that, in its glory days as “leader of the free world,” America’s primary beef with Communism wasn’t that it threatened the civil liberties of Eastern Europeans (or Southeast Asians, or Cubans), but rather, that it threatened the prerogatives of American capitalists.

It is much easier to reconcile the historical record with this theory, than with the opposite one. As the critic George Scialabba has observed:

In the nineteenth century, as Henry Cabot Lodge acknowledged, the United States compiled “a record of conquest, colonization, and expansion unequaled by any other people.” Its record in the twentieth century was no less execrable. The idealistic Woodrow Wilson made war on both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, killing thousands, in order to block constitutional rule and fortify the position of international investors and domestic elites. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, the US military occupied Nicaragua and Honduras for the same purpose. In the 1950’s the US organized the ouster of a moderate democratic regime in Guatemala, likewise in the Dominican Republic in the 1960’s, resulting, both times, in horrendous violence and retarded development. In Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1973, and Argentina in 1976, the US instigated or welcomed the overthrow of democratic governments by murderously repressive (but investor-friendly) military juntas. In the 1980’s the US orchestrated fanatically bloody insurgencies and counterinsurgencies throughout Central America, invariably against movements or governments with more popular support than the US client.

Scialabba’s litany is limited to the Western hemisphere. But the same pattern can be discerned in America’s activities the world over: Given the choice between supporting democratic governments that threaten the interests of major American corporations and investors — and authoritarian governments that don’t — the U.S. has almost invariably opted for the latter.

To be sure, every foreign policy adopted by the U.S. is not a mechanical translation of the aggregated interests of American capital. Beyond the fact that many policy question bitterly divide corporate America — and that there are many well-funded, non-corporate lobbies that exert significant influence over American foreign policy — there is also always contingency in human affairs. Policy-makers have agency, and, as we’ve seen over the past two years, unusual individuals sometimes make policy. Corporate control of American grand strategy isn’t an absolute rule; but it is the path of least resistance.

Acknowledging this reality does not require one to deny America’s various contributions to global well-being. It doesn’t even (necessarily) refute the notion that America has been a more benevolent hegemon than previous imperial powers. Our nation’s many crimes do not erase the past decades of peace in Europe, or poverty reduction in Asia. That American foreign policy is principally driven by corporate interests is not inconsistent with the idea that it has produced some positive-sum outcomes. The Marshall Plan created highly profitable markets for American exporters and investors; it also helped birth unprecedented prosperity in Japan and Western Europe.

But the fact that American exceptionalism is a myth does have important implications for anyone who wishes to bend reality in its direction. Put simply, if one wishes to reform an institution, it’s best not to begin by wildly misconstruing how it works.

To appreciate this point, consider the following passage from Sullivan’s Atlantic piece:

Jennifer Harris, a former State Department colleague, posed an arresting question when I spoke with her recently: How is it that the domestic economic agenda of the Obama administration could be so different in its values and priorities from President George W. Bush’s—so much more focused on the needs of working people—while its international economic agenda was nearly identical? The answer is that both political parties came to treat international economic issues as somehow separate from everything else.

Sullivan’s answer is neither accurate nor an answer. Both parties do not treat “international economic issues” as “separate from everything else” — rather, the Democratic Party behaves as though it is (almost) as unaccountable to working-class constituencies in the foreign policy realm, as Republicans are in the domestic one. And it is. The fine details of trade agreements and investment pacts — which are negotiated unilaterally by the Executive branch — are much less visible to the public than are the fine details of major legislation debated by Congress. An administration official bartering with other diplomats in some foreign capital is insulated from popular influence and scrutiny to much a greater degree than a Democratic senator is, when negotiating with Republicans (even as the latter is also quite insulated from popular influence and scrutiny). But multinational corporations have the resources (i.e. lobbyists) to keep a watchful eye on all dimensions of policy-making. If a White House’s posture in trade negotiations compromises the interests of American patent holders, they will raise holy hell; if it compromises the interests of all non-super-rich Americans — by neglecting to make “stopping plutocrats from stashing 10 percent of all global wealth in tax havens” a top-tier priority — virtually no voters will even notice.

Sullivan’s call for reorienting U.S. foreign policy around the interests of working Americans is constructive. But his failure to recognize America’s unexceptional characteristics jeopardizes that project. If the default setting of American foreign policy is to pursue its enlightened “national” interest, then re-centering U.S. grand strategy around progressive economic principles is a simple task: Make a persuasive argument that it is in America’s national interest to raise the median worker’s wages, and a new consensus will take shape. By contrast, if America’s default setting is to safeguard the interests of its most powerful individuals and entities, then durably reorienting foreign policy in the manner Sullivan prescribes will require drastically shifting the balance of power between capital and labor within the United States. If liberal elites adhere to an exceptionalist understanding of the American state, they will miss the central importance of domestic economic reform to any progressive reorientation of foreign policy.

And that is not all they will miss. The exceptionalist narrative is most dangerous for the way it implies that assertions of American power on the world stage should be presumed well-intentioned, until proven otherwise. If the consensus view among liberal elites circa 2003 had been that American foreign policy is typically shaped by the mercenary interests of corporations (not least, arms manufacturers), they would likely have treated George W. Bush’s plans for Iraq with less credulity. Instead, in that instance (and many others), liberals championed a just, humanitarian intervention — only to find, to their shock and awe, that those prosecuting the war did not, in fact, have the purest of hearts. So long as progressive forces do not have a firm grip on the national security state, progressives mustn’t presume that the worst thing that state can do in the face of injustice overseas is nothing.

Relatedly, the myth of American exceptionalism functions as rationale for the U.S. to subordinate international law to its own enlightened judgement. If one presumes America’s beneficence, then one will prize its freedom of action over adherence to the (often arbitrary) dictates of treaties. Tellingly, the phrase “international law” appears nowhere in Sullivan’s essay (and his remarks on the Syrian civil war suggest that scrupulous observance of international law does not figure into his vision for a progressive foreign policy).

Finally, the myth of American exceptionalism might do more to strengthen Trumpism than to undermine it. No small portion of our country’s xenophobia is informed by ubiquitous ignorance of our national sins. If one shares Sullivan’s faith in the beneficence of American global leadership, then it’s easy to conclude that Americans owe little to people in other countries. After all, we selflessly tried to bring freedom to Iraq and Afghanistan — and look how those ungrateful Muslims responded; we saved Central Americans from the tyranny of Communism, and now they’re showing up at our border asking for more help. American exceptionalism suggests that the entire world owes a debt to the United States. Trumpism suggests the same — and then demands the world pay up.

Donald Trump has rebranded U.S. foreign policy in his image. Which is to say, he has put the ugliest possible face on American empire. For liberals, there is a strong temptation to call this hideous visage a mask; to insist that “this isn’t who we are.”

But it would be more accurate to say that this is who we’ve too often been. This hateful sociopath, immune to all human sentiments save fear and greed, devoid of all principles save a will to power, incapable of seeing the world from anyone’s perspective but his own — this is who we were to the peasants of Vietnam, and to the people of Jacobo Árbenz’s GuatemalaSalvador Allende’s ChileMohammad Mosaddegh’s IranJoão Goulart’s Brazil, and so many other fragile republics yearning to breathe free.

Trump’s great gift to the American people is that he has made our government’s ugliest features easier to see — and thus, to change. But if we respond by burying Uncle Sam’s deformities beneath the concealer of American exceptionalism, the change we make won’t even be skin deep.

A woman accused of drunken driving and jailed really had suffered a stroke

USA Today

She was jailed for drunk driving. Instead she had suffered a stroke, didn’t get help for days

Andrew Binion, USA TODAY     January 2, 2018

 

Mandarin ducklings fly through the air!

EcoWatch

January 1, 2019

Mandarin ducklings have to jump 3.5 meters through the air when they’re just 24 hours old! 🦆

Nature is absolutely breathtaking.

Mandarin ducklings fledge the nest

Mandarin ducklings have to jump 3.5 metres through the air when they're just 24 hours old! 🦆BBC Springwatch

Posted by BBC Earth on Thursday, June 7, 2018

6 Reasons for Hope in Trump Times.

Robert Reich

January 1, 2019

As we begin the new year, here are 6 reasons for hope.

6 Reasons for Hope in Trump Times

As we begin the new year, here are 6 reasons for hope.

Posted by Robert Reich on Monday, December 31, 2018

Making Thousands a day scamming folks credit cards!

VICE News

January 1, 2019

A credit card scammer explains how he makes thousands in one day.

Making Thousands a Day from Credit Card Scams

A credit card scammer explains how he makes thousands in one day.

Posted by VICE News on Tuesday, December 18, 2018