Thursday, August 6, 2020
AS SCHOOLS REOPEN, TEACHERS, PARENTS, AND STUDENTS ARE PUSHING BACK
On the National Day of Resistance, activists say “going back to normal” isn’t good enough.
Rachel M. Cohen
August 3 2020, 1:14 p.m.
https://theintercept.com/2020/08/03/reopening-schools-coronavirus/
ON MONDAY, in more than 25 states, thousands of parents, educators, students, and community members are participating in the National Day of Resistance, staging in-person and virtual actions to call for safe, well-funded, and racially just school reopening plans. The actions come in response to pressure from state governments and the White House to resume in-person learning so that kids can get back to the classroom and their parents back to work, but are also being tied to the ongoing pushback against school privatization from the Trump administration.
In New York City, parents, students, and teachers will be marching from their union headquarters down to the Department of Education. In Los Angeles, activists are organizing a car caravan, first outside the LA Chamber of Commerce and then around the Los Angeles Unified School District building. “We’re kicking it off at the LA Chamber because even during Covid, this is a time when a lot of corporations and Wall Street are making record-breaking profits,” explained Sylvana Uribe, a spokesperson for Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a progressive group participating in the protest. In Philadelphia and Baltimore, teacher unions are calling on Comcast to improve the quality of its service and make it more affordable for families. In Phoenix, activists are planning to demonstrate outside their state capitol building, where educators can write letters to their elected officials about how they feel going back to school or, if they want, write their imagined obituaries.
“Monday is Arizona’s first day back to school, so that’s why we know we have to lead in organizing because people across the country will be watching us and learning what happens with reopenings,” said Rebecca Garelli, a parent and science educator participating in the Phoenix protest.
In Chicago, activists are rallying outside of City Hall and Illinois’s state government building. Among them will be Jitu Brown, the national director for the Journey for Justice Alliance, a network of 30 grassroots organizations that helped conceive of the Day of Resistance. “When we look at the fact that these same communities have shuttered public schools and opened up new jails, do we really think they will prioritize the health and safety of Black and brown children when it comes to reopening?” Brown asked. “We say no, or only if we make them do so.”
As part of their organizing, Journey for Justice and the 501(c)(4) affiliate of the Center for Popular Democracy sent a letter Monday morning to President Donald Trump laying out 15 demands for a safe and equitable reopening, including fully functioning air conditioning and ventilation units, free laptops and internet access for every student, regular coronavirus testing, and an elimination of police in schools. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, members of Congress, and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden were also copied on the letter.
Over the last month, the question of how and whether to reopen schools has become one of the most pressing and wrenching political questions. While Trump and DeVos both have sought to push schools to reopen in person, even threatening to withhold funding from those that don’t, majorities of educators, school administrators, and parents have expressed ambivalence about the safety of children and staff returning to school. One new estimate from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin found that more than 80 percent of Americans live in a county where at least one person with Covid-19 would be expected to show up at a school of 500 students and staff if school started today.
In late June, the Council of Chief State School Officers, a national nonprofit group comprised of heads of state departments of education, said as much as $245 billion in federal support will be needed in order to safely reopen schools, with the funding going primarily toward personal protective gear and cleaning supplies, as well as digital devices. Senate Republicans unveiled their latest Covid-19 relief proposal last week, which included $70 billion for K-12 school districts and private schools, but most of that money would be conditioned on schools reopening for in-person instruction.
Meanwhile, scientists and public health experts have been issuing conflicting advice, complicated by the fact that the public’s understanding of Covid-19 transmission among children has continued to evolve. While it was originally thought that the risk among children of catching or transmitting the virus was very low, especially among younger children, new research has recently challenged those assumptions. In late June, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued interim guidance on the importance of in-person schooling, but a few weeks later, the group released a new statement, in partnership with national teacher unions and the School Superintendents Association, urging against a “one-size-fits-all approach” to reopenings. “We should leave it to health experts to tell us when the time is best to open up school buildings, and listen to educators and administrators to shape how we do it,” the groups said.
Recently in Indiana, on the first day of school, administrators learned that a middle school student had tested positive for the virus. The student and others they came in contact with were ordered to quarantine for 14 days. A similar situation just happened with a high schooler in Mississippi.
“You can spend an entire year asking kids to walk in the hall, and yet we somehow expect them to wear masks for six hours?” asked Marilena Marchetti, a public school occupational therapist participating in New York City’s march. “It’s a joke.”
IN ADDITION TO some of the more familiar safety demands around PPE, Covid-19 testing, and ventilation, parents and educators have also been circulating a petition with demands for direct cash assistance to those who cannot work or are unemployed and police-free schools, as well as moratoriums on “punitive” standardized testing, vouchers, charter schools, evictions, and foreclosures.
Garelli, the science educator from Arizona, said the logic around the charter, voucher, and testing moratoriums is that “everything that drains” or “siphons” money from public schools should be avoided. “Standardized testing alone costs millions of dollars, and we need that money for PPE, ventilation, and sanitation,” she said.
“Our point is we don’t want to just go back to normal because normal wasn’t good at all,” added Marchetti.
Dmitri Holtzman, director of Education Justice Campaigns at the Center for Popular Democracy, said the hope is for the progressive movement to “double down” with “transformative” demands to help counter the fact that DeVos and Trump are also trying to use the pandemic to push school privatization.
The demand for police-free schools, though not new, has seen a recent surge in political momentum in the wake of protests around George Floyd’s killing. In June, Minneapolis Public Schools cut ties with its city police department and Milwaukee Public Schools followed shortly after. In LA, the Los Angeles Unified School District voted in July to cut its school police budget by $25 million and redirect those funds into hiring more counselors and social workers.
One of the grassroots groups participating in the Day of Resistance is Latinos Unidos Siempre, a youth-led organization in Salem, Oregon. “We’ve been focusing on the school-to-prison pipeline for a long time, but we’ve definitely seen a surge in new support this summer,” said Sandra Hernández-Lomelí, the group’s director. “We’re planning a rally outside of the Salem-Keizer School District building.”
While some teacher unions are participating in the Day of Resistance, including the United Teachers Los Angeles and the Chicago Teachers Union, not all the demands outlined in the letter to Trump and the circulating petition are what the unions are actually negotiating over. Last week, UTLA had to issue a statement pushing back on media reports that said LA educators were refusing to return to school until charter schools and the police were abolished. “This is incorrect and damaging,” the union stated. “Defunding police to redirect money to education and public health and a moratorium on allocating school classrooms to charter companies so that public schools have space for safe physical distancing are just two” ways the district could raise revenue to safely reopen schools.
Other news reports have tried to frame opposition to school reopening as driven primarily by teacher unions, despite polls showing clear opposition from other stakeholders like parents and school administrators. One Axios-Ipsos poll released in mid-July found that most parents, including a majority of Republican parents and 89 percent of Black parents, thought returning to school would be risky, and just one-third of principals expressed confidence in their school’s ability to keep adults and children safe, according to a poll conducted by the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Importantly, while one of the demands for the Day of Resistance is to have no reopening “until the scientific data supports it,” activists acknowledge that different communities will define those public health metrics differently. “We don’t have a singular firm position on this,” said Holtzman. “For some people, it’s not until there’s a vaccine, for others, it’s 14 days with no new cases, and others, it could be a certain amount of days with no new deaths.”
Marchetti, who is part of the social justice caucus within the United Federation of Teachers, said its demand in New York City is to not reopen until there are no new cases for 14 days. “We don’t have a demand to wait for a vaccine, but people shouldn’t be afraid to go to back to work,” she said. While teacher union strikes are illegal in New York, educators have broached the idea of calling in sick en masse to protest unsafe reopenings. “We’re still feeling betrayed by how slow it took [city officials] to close schools in March,” Marchetti added, pointing to a Columbia University study that found thousands of lives would have been saved had New York put its control measures in place just one week earlier.
In Los Angeles, activists are calling for at least 21 days of no new Covid-19 cases before reopening schools. In Arizona, protesters are asking for leaders to put out some kind of public health metric, which currently no one has. “Some educators want to wait for a vaccine, and others just really want to have some kind of standard, like how New York set a [reopening] threshold of the coronavirus positivity rate staying below 3 percent,” said Garelli.
The American Federation of Teachers recently passed a resolution saying that schools should only reopen in places where the average daily community infection rate among those tested is below 5 percent and transmission rate is below 1 percent. “Nothing is off the table when it comes to the safety and health of those we represent and those we serve, including supporting local and/or state affiliate safety strikes on a case-by-case basis as a last resort,” the resolution stated.
Garelli rejected the argument that teachers returning to school should be viewed similarly to other essential workers who have had to return to their workplaces. “No other essential worker has to spend 7 hours a day in a small room with poor ventilation with 30 other kids,” she said. “There’s just no comparison.”
Brown, of Journey for Justice, said his affiliate groups plan to push over the next month for the funding and conditions to safely reopen school, because ultimately their goal is for students and educators to return. “We see the harm that our young people face not having access to school and the socialization that comes with it,” he said. “We understand the need for them to academically grow. But we also understand the need for them to live.”
US GDP COLLAPSES AND ECONOMIC REBOUND FADES
By JackRasmus.com.August 4, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/us-gdp-collapses-and-economic-rebound-fades/
This past week US economy collapsed in the 2nd quarter by 32.9% at annual rate and nearly 10% just for the April-June period. Never before in modern US history—not even in the worse quarters of the 1930s great depression—has the US economy contracted so quickly and so deeply!
All the major private sectors of the US economy—Consumption, Business Investment, Exports & Imports—collapsed in ranges from -30% to -40% in the April-June period. That followed first quarter prior declines in single digits as well. More than $2 trillion in real economic activity was wiped from the economy. Consumption collapsed by more than -1.5 trillion. Business investment by nearly -$600 billion. Ditto net trade and even state & local government spending.
Even more foreboding is that the April-June collapse came as the economy opened up in June virtually everywhere and in many states even before in May. So the 2nd quarter collapse—as deep as unprecedented as it was—reflects a rebound of economic activity during the last six weeks of the quarter.
More worrisome still, even the weak May-June rebound has begun showing signs of stalling out as of mid-July, according to latest economic indicators.
Fading 3rd Quarter US Economy
Here’s some emerging evidence of that stall-out now beginning:
• Jobs Deteriorating Once Again
Weekly initial unemployment claims began to rise after mid-July. The numbers of new jobless claims are now consistently in the 2.2m-2.4m per week range as the economy enters August. Officially more than 32m are now collecting benefits. Millions more are still trying, or running out of them. Add to that the more than 5 million more workers who simply dropped out of the labor force since February. They’re not even calculated in the unemployment rate, according to official US government practices. So there’s easily 40m jobless out there in America—a number that’s remained pretty constant for months now. 40m unemployed is roughly a 25% unemployment rate, same as that during the worst of the 1930s great depression.
On Friday, August 7 the US Labor Dept. will report jobs and unemployment numbers for July. The reported consensus among economists is that it will likely show only 1.6m new jobs created, according to a survey reported by Reuters—a sharp slowdown after June’s numbers showed 4.8m. But 3 million of June’s new jobs represented workers returning to restaurants, hospitality, and retail work as the economy was reopened (prematurely) in May-June. Now, as the Covid virus has surged again in July, many of those 3 million who returned to work in May-June are being re-laid off in July or returning to sheltering as 30 states have again re-initiated partial shutdowns.
In addition to the Covid surge effect on jobs, scores of large companies have, independently of the virus effect, begun announcing mass layoffs by the thousands and tens of thousands. They have determined the economy’s situation is far worse than reported by the media or Trump administration and are planning for a long recession. Their layoffs will be mostly permanent due to long term restructuring.
If the 32m now collecting jobless benefits, plus those waiting to still get them, plus those who gave up and dropped out of work altogether equal 25% unemployment, how is it then that the US government keeps saying unemployment is only 11.1%?
It’s because that 11.1% is a cherry-picked low ball number for public consumption that conveniently represents only full time workers unemployment. If part timers laid off were included, even per the government’s own figures that’s 18%. Those numbers also don’t accurately count those who left the labor force or reflect the number of ‘gig’ jobs that are picked up as part of the 25% unemployed in the unemployment benefits numbers.
Another indicator of the renewed deterioration of the labor markets is the number of job openings reported by the government. That too has begun to trend down once again after mid- July just as the unemployment benefits claims began to rise in tandem.
• US Manufacturing & Construction Stagnant At Best
Manufacturing and construction account for roughly 20% of the US economy and GDP. The spin since the US economic reopening began late May has been all sectors of the economy have been bouncing back—services, manufacturing, construction. Facts show otherwise.
In Manufacturing jobs have continued to decline every month, according to Purchasing Managers Indexes (PMI) More companies continued to lay off workers in manufacturing than hire them during May-June. Manufacturing output continued to contract through June, with a reading of 49.8 (less than 50 indicates contraction). That rose to 51.3 in first half of July, but contracted again at the close of July finishing the month of July essentially stagnant at 50.9, according to the business research firm, HIS Markit.
The condition was roughly the same for construction. Per the US Commerce Dept., construction activity continued to decline by -1.7% in May and another -0.7% in June during the period of the economy’s reopening.
So with services’ industries and occupations re-shutting down in July once again, and with Manufacturing and Construction, stagnating at best—by end of July 2020 the US is teetering on the edge of faltering and ending the brief, weak and tentative economic rebound of late May to early July.
• Household Income & Consumption in Trouble
Consumption spending by households represents 70% of the US economy and GDP. The main determinant of household spending for the more than 100 million US working/middle class households is their wage income or, for working class retiree households, their pensions, social security benefits, & other income. Household income for tens of millions is now in a precarious state and is being reflected in reduced spending already.
According to a US Census Bureau report in July, 22% of households report that they now, as of July, can’t make their rent or mortgage payments. There are roughly 70 million renting households in the US. That’s more than 15 million US households and more than 30 million Americans!
According to Urban Institute research, it will cost $7.3B a month to keep renters and homeowners in their homes. That’s a little more than $50B for the next six months. But Republicans—Mnuchin, McConnell & Trump—all adamantly refuse to provide any of the $7.3B assistance. On the other hand, they quickly approved roughly $20B in the March Cares Act for Defense corps making billions in profits, passed the $760B in new money for the Pentagon in one day last week, and now propose another $30B for their Pentagon-Defense Corp. friends in their HEALsAct stimulus proposal announced in July.
Apart from the $760B new record Pentagon budget just passed in the blink of a political eye, that’s roughly $50B in new money for the Pentagon instead of $50B to keep tens of millions of working class households in their homes for another six months!
Already evictions of renters and foreclosures of homeowners are rising fast. It’s something of a myth that even the Cares Act of last March introduced a moratorium on rent evictions. First of all, that addressed only one third of the available rents—i.e. those backed by US government financing. Two-thirds have always been exempt. Even the one-third was not enforceable, moreover. Many areas of the US have continued with evictions throughout the pandemic period.
And now evictions are accelerating even faster in July, now that the Cares Act measure expired on July 25. No fewer than 12.3 million renters covered by the Cares Act lost their moratorium late July. That evictions acceleration, now underway, has resulted in reduced spending and consumption since mid-July and will no doubt depress spending even more into August and beyond.
In addition to the Housing crisis depressing income and consumer spending, there’s the parallel crisis of more than 15 million newly unemployed having no medical insurance. Studies show clearly those without insurance tend to spend less to save for medical expenses. A Commonwealth Health Care Fund survey in late June found that 21% of workers laid off lost all health insurance coverage from their employer and all sources during layoff since March. That means at least 8 million additional US households without health insurance since March. 8 million more—and rising as new unemployment claims also rise—who will spend less and compress consumption further and therefore US GDP in 3rd quarter.
Yet another major factor portends a slowing of household spending and consumption, further dampening any economic rebound: Congress’s reduction of unemployment benefits.
Debate is now intensifying in Congress on the scope and magnitude of a so-called ‘5th stimulus’ legislative package. At the heart of the debate is whether to continue the $600/week federal supplemental unemployment benefits instituted last March under the Cares Act. The cost of the $600/wk. benefit was estimated in March at $340 billion, for a period of four months. Were the $600 eliminated altogether, it would thus take roughly $85B a month out of the US economy.
Republicans in the Senate have proposed an immediate reduction of the $600 benefit to $200. Hidden in the proposal is a further reduction after two months at $200, by integrating the federal benefit with state unemployment benefits and capping both at $500. So at least 3/4s of the $600 would end, taking nearly $65B a month in spending out of the economy starting in August and for however long the benefit continue.
It is not surprising given the rising unemployment claims, pending evictions, growing ranks of health uninsured, and prospects of ending significant unemployment benefits—not to mention the resurge of the virus and growing partial re-shutdowns across dozens of states—that household consumer confidence shows evidence of fading in July as well. University of Michigan’s survey—considered the gold standard of the confidence research—recently reported that consumers’ expectations for the US economy over the next six months continue to slip further. In March 2020 the overall index fell to only 72.5, a historic low (>100 means positive; <100 means failing confidence). That remained at 73.2 in June despite the economy reopening. The next six months expectations index in June was 72.3 but by mid-July had deeply contracted further to only 65.9. Clearly, consumers are not optimistic where the economy is about to go and, to the extent their expectations affect their spending, the latter is not likely to recover soon.
In short, escalating housing evictions, more loss of health insurance coverage, and reduction of weekly unemployment benefits for tens of millions of Americans and households can only further significantly depress household consumption—70% of the economy—and thus undermine the already weak and fading May-June economic rebound.
Fading US Economic Rebound In Historical Perspective
During the depths of the crash in March-April, Trump, his administration spokespersons, much of the mainstream media, and many economists were predicting the crash would soon produce a just as rapid snap back of the economy beginning in June. That was called the ‘V-Shape’ recovery.
But recoveries are sustained, whereas ‘rebounds’ are not. This writer was publicly predicting last March the V-shape prediction was a fiction. At best, the trajectory of the US economy would prove to be ‘W-Shape’—as have all great recessions of which the current contraction has proven to be among the more severe. (Other ‘great recessions’ have occurred the last century in 1908-13, 1929-30, and 2008-11. None were V-shape. All were to some degree ‘W-shape’. And in one case, the ‘W’ transformed into an extended ‘U’ and the great depression of the 1930s.
W-shape trajectories are typical of great recessions. W-shape means a deep initial contraction of the economy is followed by a weak rebound, which then dissipates and produces a subsequent economic relapse in terms of growth and GDP. The relapse may take the form of a dramatic slowdown in the rebound or in the economic growth rate totally stalling out and economic stagnation occur next quarter. Or, yet a third possibility is that the relapse may prove even more severe and result in a renewed contraction once again—i.e. a double dip recession. In a W-shape typical great recession trajectory, the stagnation or double dip is in turn followed by another brief and weak ‘rebound’. And that rebound followed by yet another relapse. Triple dips are not impossible. That’s what happened to Japan after 2008 and almost to Europe as well after 2014.
This ‘bouncing along the bottom’ trajectory following the deep initial crash may go on for months and years—as was the case in the US after 1908 and again after 2009 as well.
Or, alternatively, the stagnation or further economic contractions may lead to a subsequent financial and banking crash that drives the economy even deeper, ratchet-like, to become a de facto economic depression. That was the case after 1930.
What’s happened to date in the US, from early March through July 2020, shows the US economy has clearly fallen into a great recession again–and this time three times deeper than in 2008-09 and in one third less the time!
It is unprecedented. And it represents totally new territory that mainstream economists have no analog experience from which to speculate as to its medium and longer term trajectory into 2021. Indeed, the mainstream economics community has no clue. They are content, as they typically are won’t to be, with predicting the present instead of the future—although very few now bother to say it’s a V-shape recovery. Only the polyannas in the Trump administration still adhere to that nonsense and that fiction.
The first phase of the 2020 Great Recession has passed. That was the deep and rapid contraction of 10% (32.9% annualized). The second phase began with the weak June rebound that continued into early July. The question now is whether that weak rebound will transform into a relapse in the form of a rapid slowing of the economy once again—i.e. a third phase. Or perhaps just a second phase, with the weak rebound of May-June representing a juncture or transition between phases.
Beyond the coming 3rd quarter the central question is whether the US economy will experience yet another weak, short and shallow economic rebound? If so, the W-shape trajectory of the current Great Recession 2.0 will be further confirmed. Another possibility is the contraction will even out and settle into a longer term stagnation. Yet a third outcome is further shocks to the economy will drive it into yet another sharp and deep contraction.
There are three possible ‘drivers’ that would result in the latter outcome: a failure of Congress and policy makers to introduce a sufficient fiscal stimulus directed at household consumption stimulus; a major political and constitutional crisis occurring surrounding the November 3 national presidential elections; or a chain reaction contagion in financial markets provoked by spreading business defaults and bankruptcies—either in the US or abroad.
The nation should know fairly shortly whether Congress—driven by Republican and conservative-radical ideologues—fails to pass sufficient fiscal stimulus as the economy fades in the 3rd quarter.
The second outcome is becoming increasingly likely by the day. Trump clearly has no intention of leaving office by normal processes. A close electoral college vote will further ensure a political crisis in the US of dimensions never before experienced. The economic consequences will prove severe. Those possible scenarios will be described shortly in another article.
Third, although a major financial instability event is not yet imminent, the longer the W-shape great recession trajectory continues, the more likely such an instability event becomes. Moreover, when it does, it will appear swiftly, unexpectedly, and no less severely in terms of its impact on the real economy of households, workers, and even businesses in general.
ASSANGE WINS AWARD, APPEARS IN COURT FACING NEW CHARGES
By Thomas Scripps, WSWS
August 4, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/assange-wins-award-appears-in-court-facing-new-charges/
Note: Julian Assange is being recogized for his work to promote unconditional press freedom. “Julian Assange Is Awarded the 2020 Stuttgart Peace Prize,” reports:
“Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks imprisoned in London for a year, received the Stuttgart Peace Prize 2020. It is awarded by Die Anstifter and aims to promote the right to unconditional freedom of information and of the press.
“Annette Ohme-Reinicke, president of Die Anstifter, said the crackdown on Assange was also against comprehensive political information for all.
“Heike Hänsel, Member of Parliament and Deputy Chair of the Die Linke parliamentary group, said:
‘I am very happy with this award given to Julian Assange, who has suffered political persecution from the United States for years due to his journalistic work and who is now in danger of extradition to the United States. This award recognizes investigative journalism and is a strong message in defense of press freedom. Recognizing the peaceful and political dimension of the work of the founder of WikiLeaks is for him a very important support. As British justice treats Julian Assange as a dangerous criminal and keeps him in the most secure prisons, Assange is awarded this tribute for the US war crimes revelations in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am waiting for the German government and the EU to stop being blind and finally offer political asylum to Julian Assange. ‘”
In our view, Assange is the most important journalist of this century. He exposed war crimes and wrongdoing by the United States, other countries, and transnational corporations. He democratized the media breaking the stranglehold of corporate control. These are the reasons he is being prosecuted by the United States and the UK is considering his extradition. We must do all we can to stop the extradition and get the charges dropped against him. – KZ
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s case management hearing yesterday continued the travesty of legal due process to which he has been subjected for more than a decade.
The journalist and publisher is fighting extradition to the United States, where he faces politically motivated frame-up charges of espionage with a combined potential sentence of 175 years. He has not attended hearings via videolink for the last three months on the advice of doctors, due to his fragile state of health and the threat of exposure to coronavirus.
At the previous hearing on June 29, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser had scolded Assange for not being present, demanding medical evidence to justify his non-appearance in future. But yesterday, Baraitser ruled the hearing could go ahead without Assange after Belmarsh prison disrupted his plans to attend. Prison authorities claimed to have forgotten to arrange videolink facilities for the world-famous political prisoner.
Edward Fitzgerald QC, the lead defence lawyer, said he would prefer his client to be present. The hearing was adjourned for ten minutes to allow him to contact Assange. When court resumed, Fitzgerald confirmed his wish to see his client attend. The hearing was then adjourned for another hour and a quarter.
When Assange was finally produced via videolink he appeared tired and downcast, according to reporters in the court room.
The brief exchanges between Fitzgerald, Baraitser and prosecuting lawyer Joel Smith, centred on the superseding indictment against Assange issued by the US Department of Justice on June 24.
The new indictment is based on the testimony of Sigurdur Thordarson, described by WikiLeaks as a “sociopath, convicted conman and sex criminal involved in an FBI entrapment operation against WikiLeaks.” It alleges that Assange recruited and incited hackers against a range of classified, official, and private computers between 2009 and 2015. It contains no new charges but significantly expands the scope of allegations against WikiLeaks, deepening the assault on freedom of the press being waged by the US government.
Assange’s support for whistleblower Edward Snowden and transparency of information are alleged in the superseding indictment to constitute solicitation and theft of classified information. Former WikiLeaks section editor Sarah Harrison and former WikiLeaks spokesperson Jacob Applebaum are targeted on the same basis.
But the new indictment had not been served in the UK courts at the time of the last hearing (June 29) and had still not been submitted as of yesterday. Baraitser noted, “As it stands no further superseding indictment is before this court.” Smith responded for the prosecution that “It has been disclosed to the defence” and Baraitser confirmed, “It has only been disclosed to the court via email from the defence but not formally.”
Smith said that he could not commit to a timeline for serving the new indictment, before absurdly claiming that the “usual procedures” would be followed. There is nothing “usual” about this case, including the procedures surrounding the new indictment. As Fitzgerald said during the hearing, “We’ve had it sprung on us.”
Kristinn Hrafnsson, Editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, explained in a statement yesterday, “What the US is doing is truly unprecedented. A new indictment is being introduced halfway into extradition proceedings, which have been a year in the making. The Assange extradition case started in February and was scheduled to resume in May but was then forced to adjourn until September due to the COVID lockdown.
“The ‘new’ superseding indictment actually contains nothing new. All the alleged events have been known to the prosecution for years. It contains no new charges. What’s really happening here is that despite its decade-long head-start, the prosecution are still unable to build a coherent and credible case. So, they’ve scrapped their previous two indictments and gone for a third try. They are wasting the court’s time and flagrantly disregarding proper process.”
As it stands, the UK courts are continuing with Assange’s extradition process based on an outdated indictment. The new version has been significantly adjusted and can only raise new and substantial legal issues that must be responded to. The defence are due to serve their skeleton argument on August 25. At the last case management hearing, Summers noted that that the superseding indictment “has the obvious capacity to derail the September date [for the next phase of the hearing].”
Fitzgerald told the court yesterday that it would be “improper” if the US government’s actions led to a delay in the case, particularly beyond the November US presidential election, in which he expected Assange to serve as a political football. He continued, “We are concerned about a fresh request being made at this stage with the potential consequence of derailing proceedings and that the US attorney-general is doing this for political reasons.”
Baraitser told him to “reserve his comments” on the new request, as it had not yet been served.
Fitzgerald indicated the defence may need a fourth week to fully present their arguments during the second phase of the extradition hearing—currently scheduled to last three weeks. Smith said that chief lawyer for the prosecution, James Lewis QC, would not be available for a fourth week and Baraitser agreed that it would be a “real concern” for the court if the case stretched to an additional week. Both parties agreed the court could decide later if a fourth week would be needed.
Journalists and monitors from political, legal, and medical organisations attempting to access the court via conference call were again unable to hear proceedings. The audio quality is routinely terrible, but on this occasion not even snatches of conversation where audible since, for the second time, the call was somehow left on hold after the adjournment. Space in the court is still strictly limited by social distancing measures.
As Assange appeared in court yesterday from Belmarsh prison, his partner Stella Morris gave evidence in a Spanish court over the spying activities of UC Global. The Spanish security company was hired by the CIA to spy on Assange and his closest associates during his final years of political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. It recorded Assange’s privileged meetings with lawyers, and his private consultations with medical doctors and journalists. The activities of UC Global, including plans to kidnap or murder Assange, expose the criminal and all-encompassing character of the US vendetta against Assange and WikiLeaks.
Assange’s final case management hearing will take place at 10am at Westminster Magistrates Court on August 14, ahead of the resumption of the extradition hearing proper on September 7 at Central Criminal Court. It was agreed that Assange, the judge, the defence, and the prosecution will all attend in person, but it remains unclear what the arrangements will be for the public, press and international observers.
https://popularresistance.org/assange-wins-award-appears-in-court-facing-new-charges/
Note: Julian Assange is being recogized for his work to promote unconditional press freedom. “Julian Assange Is Awarded the 2020 Stuttgart Peace Prize,” reports:
“Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks imprisoned in London for a year, received the Stuttgart Peace Prize 2020. It is awarded by Die Anstifter and aims to promote the right to unconditional freedom of information and of the press.
“Annette Ohme-Reinicke, president of Die Anstifter, said the crackdown on Assange was also against comprehensive political information for all.
“Heike Hänsel, Member of Parliament and Deputy Chair of the Die Linke parliamentary group, said:
‘I am very happy with this award given to Julian Assange, who has suffered political persecution from the United States for years due to his journalistic work and who is now in danger of extradition to the United States. This award recognizes investigative journalism and is a strong message in defense of press freedom. Recognizing the peaceful and political dimension of the work of the founder of WikiLeaks is for him a very important support. As British justice treats Julian Assange as a dangerous criminal and keeps him in the most secure prisons, Assange is awarded this tribute for the US war crimes revelations in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am waiting for the German government and the EU to stop being blind and finally offer political asylum to Julian Assange. ‘”
In our view, Assange is the most important journalist of this century. He exposed war crimes and wrongdoing by the United States, other countries, and transnational corporations. He democratized the media breaking the stranglehold of corporate control. These are the reasons he is being prosecuted by the United States and the UK is considering his extradition. We must do all we can to stop the extradition and get the charges dropped against him. – KZ
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s case management hearing yesterday continued the travesty of legal due process to which he has been subjected for more than a decade.
The journalist and publisher is fighting extradition to the United States, where he faces politically motivated frame-up charges of espionage with a combined potential sentence of 175 years. He has not attended hearings via videolink for the last three months on the advice of doctors, due to his fragile state of health and the threat of exposure to coronavirus.
At the previous hearing on June 29, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser had scolded Assange for not being present, demanding medical evidence to justify his non-appearance in future. But yesterday, Baraitser ruled the hearing could go ahead without Assange after Belmarsh prison disrupted his plans to attend. Prison authorities claimed to have forgotten to arrange videolink facilities for the world-famous political prisoner.
Edward Fitzgerald QC, the lead defence lawyer, said he would prefer his client to be present. The hearing was adjourned for ten minutes to allow him to contact Assange. When court resumed, Fitzgerald confirmed his wish to see his client attend. The hearing was then adjourned for another hour and a quarter.
When Assange was finally produced via videolink he appeared tired and downcast, according to reporters in the court room.
The brief exchanges between Fitzgerald, Baraitser and prosecuting lawyer Joel Smith, centred on the superseding indictment against Assange issued by the US Department of Justice on June 24.
The new indictment is based on the testimony of Sigurdur Thordarson, described by WikiLeaks as a “sociopath, convicted conman and sex criminal involved in an FBI entrapment operation against WikiLeaks.” It alleges that Assange recruited and incited hackers against a range of classified, official, and private computers between 2009 and 2015. It contains no new charges but significantly expands the scope of allegations against WikiLeaks, deepening the assault on freedom of the press being waged by the US government.
Assange’s support for whistleblower Edward Snowden and transparency of information are alleged in the superseding indictment to constitute solicitation and theft of classified information. Former WikiLeaks section editor Sarah Harrison and former WikiLeaks spokesperson Jacob Applebaum are targeted on the same basis.
But the new indictment had not been served in the UK courts at the time of the last hearing (June 29) and had still not been submitted as of yesterday. Baraitser noted, “As it stands no further superseding indictment is before this court.” Smith responded for the prosecution that “It has been disclosed to the defence” and Baraitser confirmed, “It has only been disclosed to the court via email from the defence but not formally.”
Smith said that he could not commit to a timeline for serving the new indictment, before absurdly claiming that the “usual procedures” would be followed. There is nothing “usual” about this case, including the procedures surrounding the new indictment. As Fitzgerald said during the hearing, “We’ve had it sprung on us.”
Kristinn Hrafnsson, Editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, explained in a statement yesterday, “What the US is doing is truly unprecedented. A new indictment is being introduced halfway into extradition proceedings, which have been a year in the making. The Assange extradition case started in February and was scheduled to resume in May but was then forced to adjourn until September due to the COVID lockdown.
“The ‘new’ superseding indictment actually contains nothing new. All the alleged events have been known to the prosecution for years. It contains no new charges. What’s really happening here is that despite its decade-long head-start, the prosecution are still unable to build a coherent and credible case. So, they’ve scrapped their previous two indictments and gone for a third try. They are wasting the court’s time and flagrantly disregarding proper process.”
As it stands, the UK courts are continuing with Assange’s extradition process based on an outdated indictment. The new version has been significantly adjusted and can only raise new and substantial legal issues that must be responded to. The defence are due to serve their skeleton argument on August 25. At the last case management hearing, Summers noted that that the superseding indictment “has the obvious capacity to derail the September date [for the next phase of the hearing].”
Fitzgerald told the court yesterday that it would be “improper” if the US government’s actions led to a delay in the case, particularly beyond the November US presidential election, in which he expected Assange to serve as a political football. He continued, “We are concerned about a fresh request being made at this stage with the potential consequence of derailing proceedings and that the US attorney-general is doing this for political reasons.”
Baraitser told him to “reserve his comments” on the new request, as it had not yet been served.
Fitzgerald indicated the defence may need a fourth week to fully present their arguments during the second phase of the extradition hearing—currently scheduled to last three weeks. Smith said that chief lawyer for the prosecution, James Lewis QC, would not be available for a fourth week and Baraitser agreed that it would be a “real concern” for the court if the case stretched to an additional week. Both parties agreed the court could decide later if a fourth week would be needed.
Journalists and monitors from political, legal, and medical organisations attempting to access the court via conference call were again unable to hear proceedings. The audio quality is routinely terrible, but on this occasion not even snatches of conversation where audible since, for the second time, the call was somehow left on hold after the adjournment. Space in the court is still strictly limited by social distancing measures.
As Assange appeared in court yesterday from Belmarsh prison, his partner Stella Morris gave evidence in a Spanish court over the spying activities of UC Global. The Spanish security company was hired by the CIA to spy on Assange and his closest associates during his final years of political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. It recorded Assange’s privileged meetings with lawyers, and his private consultations with medical doctors and journalists. The activities of UC Global, including plans to kidnap or murder Assange, expose the criminal and all-encompassing character of the US vendetta against Assange and WikiLeaks.
Assange’s final case management hearing will take place at 10am at Westminster Magistrates Court on August 14, ahead of the resumption of the extradition hearing proper on September 7 at Central Criminal Court. It was agreed that Assange, the judge, the defence, and the prosecution will all attend in person, but it remains unclear what the arrangements will be for the public, press and international observers.
US EMPIRE OF BASES IS SPREADER OF US COVID-19 DISASTER
By Andrea Mazzarino, Tom Dispatch.August 4, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/us-empire-of-bases-is-spreader-of-us-covid-19-disaster/
The Military Is Sick.
A Navy Spouse’s Take on Why We’re Not Getting Better
American military personnel are getting sick in significant numbers in the midst of the ongoing pandemic. As The New York Times reported in a piece buried in the back pages of its July 21st edition, “The infection rate in the services has tripled over the past six weeks as the United States military has emerged as a potential source of transmission both domestically and abroad.”
Indeed, the military is sick and I think of it as both a personal and an imperial disaster.
As the wife of a naval officer, I bear witness to the unexpected ways that disasters of all sorts play out among military families and lately I’ve been bracing for the Covid-19 version of just such a disaster. Normally, for my husband and me, the stressors are relatively mild. After all, between us we have well-paid jobs, two healthy children, and supportive family and friends, all of which allow us to weather the difficulties of military life fairly smoothly. In our 10 years together, however, over two submarine assignments and five moves, we’ve dealt with unpredictable months-long deployments, uncertainty about when I will next be left to care for our children alone, and periods of 16-hour workdays for my spouse that strained us both, not to speak of his surviving a major submarine accident.
You would think that, as my husband enters his third year of “shore duty” as a Pentagon staffer, the immediate dangers of military service would finally be negligible. No such luck. Since around mid-June, as President Trump searched for scapegoats like the World Health Organization for his own Covid-19 ineptitude and his concern over what rising infection rates could mean for his approval ratings, he decided that it was time to push this country to “reopen.”
As it turned out, that wouldn’t just be a disaster for states from Florida to California, but also meant that the Pentagon resumed operations at about 80% capacity. So, after a brief reprieve, my spouse is now required to report to his office four days a week for eight-hour workdays in a poorly ventilated, crowded hive of cubicles where people neither consistently mask nor social distance.
All of this for what often adds up to an hour or two of substantive daily work. Restaurants, dry cleaners, and other services where Pentagon staffers circulate only add to the possibility of his being exposed to Covid-19.
My husband, in other words, is now unnecessarily risking his own and his family’s exposure to a virus that has to date claimed more than 150,000 American lives — already more than eight times higher than the number of Americans who died in both the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that followed.
In mid-August, he will transfer to an office job in Maryland, a state where cases and deaths are again on the rise. One evening, I asked him why it seemed to be business as usual at the Pentagon when numbers were spiking in a majority of states. His reply: “Don’t ask questions about facts and logic.”
After all, unless Secretary of Defense Mark Esper decides to speak out against the way President Trump has worked to reopen the country to further disaster, the movement of troops and personnel like my husband within and among duty stations will simply continue, even as Covid-19 numbers soar in the military.
America’s Archipelago Of Bases
Global freedom of movement has been a hallmark of America’s vast empire of bases, at least 800 of them scattered across much of the planet. Now, it may prove part of the downfall of that very imperial structure. After all, Donald Trump’s America is at the heart of the present pandemic. So it’s hardly surprising that, according to the Times, U.S. troops seem to be carrying Covid-19 infections with them from hard-hit states like Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas, a number of which have had lax and inconsistently enforced safety guidelines, to other countries where they are stationed.
For example, at just one U.S. base on the Japanese island of Okinawa, the Marine Corps reported nearly 100 cases in July, angering local officials because American soldiers had socialized off-base and gone to local bars in a place where the coronavirus had initially been suppressed. No longer. In Nigeria, where official case counts are low but healthcare workers in large cities are reporting a spike in deaths among residents with symptoms, the U.S. military arms, supplies, and trains the national security forces. So a spike in cases among U.S. troops now places local populations (as well as those soldiers) at additional risk in a country where testing and contact tracing are severely lacking. And this is a problem now for just about any U.S. ally from Europe to South Korea.
What this virus’s spread among troops means, of course, is that the U.S. empire of bases that spans some 80 countries — about 40% of the nations on this planet — is now part of the growing American Covid-19 disaster. There is increasing reason to believe that new outbreaks of what the president likes to call the “Chinese virus” in some of these countries may actually prove to be American imports. Like many American civilians, our military personnel are traveling, going to work, socializing, buying things, often unmasked and ungloved, and anything but social distanced.
Public health experts have been clear that the criteria for safely reopening the economy without sparking yet more outbreaks are numerous. They include weeks of lower case counts, positive test rates at or beneath four new cases per 100,000 people daily, adequate testing capacity, enforcing strict social-distancing guidelines, and the availability of at least 40% of hospital ICU beds to treat any possible future surge.
To date, only three states have met these criteria: Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. The White House’s Opening Up America plan, on the other hand, includes guidelines of just the weakest and vaguest sort like noting a downward trajectory in cases over 14-day periods and “robust testing capacity” for healthcare workers (without any definition of what this might actually mean).
Following White House guidance, the Department of Defense is deferring to local and state governments to determine what, if any, safety measures to take. As the White House then suggested, in March when a military-wide lockdown began, troops needed to quarantine for 14 days before moving to their next duty station. At the close of June, the Pentagon broadly removed travel restrictions, allowing both inter-state recreational and military travel by troops and their families. Now, in a country that lacks any disciplined and unified response to the global pandemic, our ever-mobile military has become a significant conduit of its spread, both domestically and abroad.
To be sure, none of us knew how to tackle the dangers posed by this virus. The last global pandemic of this sort, the “Spanish Flu” of 1918-1919 in which 50 million or more people died worldwide, suggested just how dire the consequences of such an outbreak could be when uncontained. But facts and lived experience are two different things. If you’re young, physically fit, have survived numerous viruses of a more known and treatable sort, and most of the people around you are out and about, you probably dismiss it as just another illness, even if you’re subject to some of the Covid-19 death risk factors that are indeed endemic among U.S. military personnel.
Perhaps what the spread of this pandemic among our troops shows is that the military-civilian divide isn’t as great as we often think.
Protecting Life In The Covid-19 Era
Full disclosure: I write this at a time when I’m frustrated and tired. For the past month, I’ve provided full-time child care for our two pre-school age kids, even while working up to 50 hours a week, largely on evenings and weekends, as a psychotherapist for local adults and children themselves acutely experiencing the fears, health dangers, and economic effects of the coronavirus. Like many other moms across the country, I cram work, chores, pre-K Zoom sessions, pediatrician and dentist appointments, and grocery shopping into endless days, while taking as many security precautions as I can. My husband reminds me of the need to abide by quarantines, as (despite his working conditions) he needs to be protected from exposing top Pentagon officials to the disease.
Yet the military has done little or nothing to deal with the ways the families of service members, asked to work and “rotate,” might be exposed to infection. In the dizziness of fatigue, I have little patience for any institution that carries on with business as usual under such circumstances.
What’s more, it’s hard to imagine how any efforts to quarantine will bear fruit in a country where even those Americans who do follow scientific news about Covid-19 have often dropped precautions against its spread. I’ve noted that, these days, some of my most progressive friends have started to socialize, eat indoors at restaurants, and even travel out of state to more deeply affected places by plane. They are engaging in what we therapists sometimes call “emotion-based reasoning,” or “I’m tired of safety precautions, so they must no longer be necessary.”
And that’s not even taking into account the no-maskers among us who flaunt the safety guidelines offered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to indicate their supposed love of individual liberties. A relative, an officer with the Department of Homeland Security, recently posted a picture on Facebook of his three young children and those of a workmate watching fireworks arm in arm at an unmasked July 4th gathering. The picture was clearly staged to provoke those like me who support social-distancing and masking guidelines. When I talk with him, he quickly changes the subject to how he could, at any moment, be deployed to “control the rioters in D.C. and other local cities.” In other words, in his mind like those of so many others the president relies on as his “base,” the real threat isn’t the pandemic, it’s the people in the streets protesting police violence.
I wonder how the optics of American families celebrating together could have superseded safety based on an understanding of how diseases spread, as well as a healthy respect for the unknowns that go with them.
Sometimes, our misplaced priorities take my breath away, quite literally so recently. Craving takeout from my favorite Peruvian chicken restaurant and wanting to support a struggling local business, I ordered such a meal and drove with my kids to pick it up. Stopping at the restaurant, I noted multiple unmasked people packed inside despite a sign on the door mandating masks and social distancing. Making a quick risk-benefit assessment, I opened the car windows, blasted the air conditioning, and ran into the restaurant without my kids, making faces at them through the window while I stood in line.
A voice suddenly cut through the hum of the rotisseries: “Shameful! Shameful!” A woman, unmasked, literally spat these words, pointing right at me. “Leaving your kids in the car! Someone could take them! Shameful!” I caught my breath. Riddled with guilt and fearful of what she might do, I returned to my car without my food. She followed me, yelling, “Shameful!”
Aside from the spittle flying from this woman’s mouth, notable was what she wasn’t ashamed of: entering such a place, unmasked and ready to spit, with other people’s children also in there running about. (Not to mention that in Maryland reported abductions of children by strangers are nil.)
What has this country come to when we are more likely to blame the usual culprits — negligent mothers, brown and Black people, illegal immigrants (you know the list) — than accept responsibility for what’s actually going on and make the necessary sacrifices to deal with it (perhaps including, I should admit, going without takeout food)?
Typically in these years, top Pentagon officials and the high command are prioritizing the maintenance of empire at the expense of protecting the very bodies that make up the armed services (not to speak of those inhabitants of other countries living near our hundreds of global garrisons). After all, what’s the problem, when nothing could be more important than keeping this country in the (increasingly embattled) position of global overseer? More bodies can always be produced. (Thank you, military spouses!)
The spread of this virus around the globe, now aided in part by the U.S. military, reminds me of one of those paint-with-water children’s books where the shading appears gradually as the brush moves over the page, including in places you didn’t expect. Everywhere that infected Americans socialize, shop, arm, and fight, this virus is popping up, eroding both our literal ability to be present and the institutions (however corrupt) we’re still trying to prop up. If we are truly in a “war” against Covid-19 — President Trump has, of course, referred to himself as a “wartime president” — then it’s time for all of us to make the sacrifices of a wartime nation by prioritizing public health over pleasure. Otherwise, I fear that what’s good about life in this country will also be at risk, as will the futures of my own children.
https://popularresistance.org/us-empire-of-bases-is-spreader-of-us-covid-19-disaster/
The Military Is Sick.
A Navy Spouse’s Take on Why We’re Not Getting Better
American military personnel are getting sick in significant numbers in the midst of the ongoing pandemic. As The New York Times reported in a piece buried in the back pages of its July 21st edition, “The infection rate in the services has tripled over the past six weeks as the United States military has emerged as a potential source of transmission both domestically and abroad.”
Indeed, the military is sick and I think of it as both a personal and an imperial disaster.
As the wife of a naval officer, I bear witness to the unexpected ways that disasters of all sorts play out among military families and lately I’ve been bracing for the Covid-19 version of just such a disaster. Normally, for my husband and me, the stressors are relatively mild. After all, between us we have well-paid jobs, two healthy children, and supportive family and friends, all of which allow us to weather the difficulties of military life fairly smoothly. In our 10 years together, however, over two submarine assignments and five moves, we’ve dealt with unpredictable months-long deployments, uncertainty about when I will next be left to care for our children alone, and periods of 16-hour workdays for my spouse that strained us both, not to speak of his surviving a major submarine accident.
You would think that, as my husband enters his third year of “shore duty” as a Pentagon staffer, the immediate dangers of military service would finally be negligible. No such luck. Since around mid-June, as President Trump searched for scapegoats like the World Health Organization for his own Covid-19 ineptitude and his concern over what rising infection rates could mean for his approval ratings, he decided that it was time to push this country to “reopen.”
As it turned out, that wouldn’t just be a disaster for states from Florida to California, but also meant that the Pentagon resumed operations at about 80% capacity. So, after a brief reprieve, my spouse is now required to report to his office four days a week for eight-hour workdays in a poorly ventilated, crowded hive of cubicles where people neither consistently mask nor social distance.
All of this for what often adds up to an hour or two of substantive daily work. Restaurants, dry cleaners, and other services where Pentagon staffers circulate only add to the possibility of his being exposed to Covid-19.
My husband, in other words, is now unnecessarily risking his own and his family’s exposure to a virus that has to date claimed more than 150,000 American lives — already more than eight times higher than the number of Americans who died in both the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that followed.
In mid-August, he will transfer to an office job in Maryland, a state where cases and deaths are again on the rise. One evening, I asked him why it seemed to be business as usual at the Pentagon when numbers were spiking in a majority of states. His reply: “Don’t ask questions about facts and logic.”
After all, unless Secretary of Defense Mark Esper decides to speak out against the way President Trump has worked to reopen the country to further disaster, the movement of troops and personnel like my husband within and among duty stations will simply continue, even as Covid-19 numbers soar in the military.
America’s Archipelago Of Bases
Global freedom of movement has been a hallmark of America’s vast empire of bases, at least 800 of them scattered across much of the planet. Now, it may prove part of the downfall of that very imperial structure. After all, Donald Trump’s America is at the heart of the present pandemic. So it’s hardly surprising that, according to the Times, U.S. troops seem to be carrying Covid-19 infections with them from hard-hit states like Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas, a number of which have had lax and inconsistently enforced safety guidelines, to other countries where they are stationed.
For example, at just one U.S. base on the Japanese island of Okinawa, the Marine Corps reported nearly 100 cases in July, angering local officials because American soldiers had socialized off-base and gone to local bars in a place where the coronavirus had initially been suppressed. No longer. In Nigeria, where official case counts are low but healthcare workers in large cities are reporting a spike in deaths among residents with symptoms, the U.S. military arms, supplies, and trains the national security forces. So a spike in cases among U.S. troops now places local populations (as well as those soldiers) at additional risk in a country where testing and contact tracing are severely lacking. And this is a problem now for just about any U.S. ally from Europe to South Korea.
What this virus’s spread among troops means, of course, is that the U.S. empire of bases that spans some 80 countries — about 40% of the nations on this planet — is now part of the growing American Covid-19 disaster. There is increasing reason to believe that new outbreaks of what the president likes to call the “Chinese virus” in some of these countries may actually prove to be American imports. Like many American civilians, our military personnel are traveling, going to work, socializing, buying things, often unmasked and ungloved, and anything but social distanced.
Public health experts have been clear that the criteria for safely reopening the economy without sparking yet more outbreaks are numerous. They include weeks of lower case counts, positive test rates at or beneath four new cases per 100,000 people daily, adequate testing capacity, enforcing strict social-distancing guidelines, and the availability of at least 40% of hospital ICU beds to treat any possible future surge.
To date, only three states have met these criteria: Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. The White House’s Opening Up America plan, on the other hand, includes guidelines of just the weakest and vaguest sort like noting a downward trajectory in cases over 14-day periods and “robust testing capacity” for healthcare workers (without any definition of what this might actually mean).
Following White House guidance, the Department of Defense is deferring to local and state governments to determine what, if any, safety measures to take. As the White House then suggested, in March when a military-wide lockdown began, troops needed to quarantine for 14 days before moving to their next duty station. At the close of June, the Pentagon broadly removed travel restrictions, allowing both inter-state recreational and military travel by troops and their families. Now, in a country that lacks any disciplined and unified response to the global pandemic, our ever-mobile military has become a significant conduit of its spread, both domestically and abroad.
To be sure, none of us knew how to tackle the dangers posed by this virus. The last global pandemic of this sort, the “Spanish Flu” of 1918-1919 in which 50 million or more people died worldwide, suggested just how dire the consequences of such an outbreak could be when uncontained. But facts and lived experience are two different things. If you’re young, physically fit, have survived numerous viruses of a more known and treatable sort, and most of the people around you are out and about, you probably dismiss it as just another illness, even if you’re subject to some of the Covid-19 death risk factors that are indeed endemic among U.S. military personnel.
Perhaps what the spread of this pandemic among our troops shows is that the military-civilian divide isn’t as great as we often think.
Protecting Life In The Covid-19 Era
Full disclosure: I write this at a time when I’m frustrated and tired. For the past month, I’ve provided full-time child care for our two pre-school age kids, even while working up to 50 hours a week, largely on evenings and weekends, as a psychotherapist for local adults and children themselves acutely experiencing the fears, health dangers, and economic effects of the coronavirus. Like many other moms across the country, I cram work, chores, pre-K Zoom sessions, pediatrician and dentist appointments, and grocery shopping into endless days, while taking as many security precautions as I can. My husband reminds me of the need to abide by quarantines, as (despite his working conditions) he needs to be protected from exposing top Pentagon officials to the disease.
Yet the military has done little or nothing to deal with the ways the families of service members, asked to work and “rotate,” might be exposed to infection. In the dizziness of fatigue, I have little patience for any institution that carries on with business as usual under such circumstances.
What’s more, it’s hard to imagine how any efforts to quarantine will bear fruit in a country where even those Americans who do follow scientific news about Covid-19 have often dropped precautions against its spread. I’ve noted that, these days, some of my most progressive friends have started to socialize, eat indoors at restaurants, and even travel out of state to more deeply affected places by plane. They are engaging in what we therapists sometimes call “emotion-based reasoning,” or “I’m tired of safety precautions, so they must no longer be necessary.”
And that’s not even taking into account the no-maskers among us who flaunt the safety guidelines offered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to indicate their supposed love of individual liberties. A relative, an officer with the Department of Homeland Security, recently posted a picture on Facebook of his three young children and those of a workmate watching fireworks arm in arm at an unmasked July 4th gathering. The picture was clearly staged to provoke those like me who support social-distancing and masking guidelines. When I talk with him, he quickly changes the subject to how he could, at any moment, be deployed to “control the rioters in D.C. and other local cities.” In other words, in his mind like those of so many others the president relies on as his “base,” the real threat isn’t the pandemic, it’s the people in the streets protesting police violence.
I wonder how the optics of American families celebrating together could have superseded safety based on an understanding of how diseases spread, as well as a healthy respect for the unknowns that go with them.
Sometimes, our misplaced priorities take my breath away, quite literally so recently. Craving takeout from my favorite Peruvian chicken restaurant and wanting to support a struggling local business, I ordered such a meal and drove with my kids to pick it up. Stopping at the restaurant, I noted multiple unmasked people packed inside despite a sign on the door mandating masks and social distancing. Making a quick risk-benefit assessment, I opened the car windows, blasted the air conditioning, and ran into the restaurant without my kids, making faces at them through the window while I stood in line.
A voice suddenly cut through the hum of the rotisseries: “Shameful! Shameful!” A woman, unmasked, literally spat these words, pointing right at me. “Leaving your kids in the car! Someone could take them! Shameful!” I caught my breath. Riddled with guilt and fearful of what she might do, I returned to my car without my food. She followed me, yelling, “Shameful!”
Aside from the spittle flying from this woman’s mouth, notable was what she wasn’t ashamed of: entering such a place, unmasked and ready to spit, with other people’s children also in there running about. (Not to mention that in Maryland reported abductions of children by strangers are nil.)
What has this country come to when we are more likely to blame the usual culprits — negligent mothers, brown and Black people, illegal immigrants (you know the list) — than accept responsibility for what’s actually going on and make the necessary sacrifices to deal with it (perhaps including, I should admit, going without takeout food)?
Typically in these years, top Pentagon officials and the high command are prioritizing the maintenance of empire at the expense of protecting the very bodies that make up the armed services (not to speak of those inhabitants of other countries living near our hundreds of global garrisons). After all, what’s the problem, when nothing could be more important than keeping this country in the (increasingly embattled) position of global overseer? More bodies can always be produced. (Thank you, military spouses!)
The spread of this virus around the globe, now aided in part by the U.S. military, reminds me of one of those paint-with-water children’s books where the shading appears gradually as the brush moves over the page, including in places you didn’t expect. Everywhere that infected Americans socialize, shop, arm, and fight, this virus is popping up, eroding both our literal ability to be present and the institutions (however corrupt) we’re still trying to prop up. If we are truly in a “war” against Covid-19 — President Trump has, of course, referred to himself as a “wartime president” — then it’s time for all of us to make the sacrifices of a wartime nation by prioritizing public health over pleasure. Otherwise, I fear that what’s good about life in this country will also be at risk, as will the futures of my own children.
UNITED STATES STEALING SYRIAN OIL
By Amberin Zaman, and Joe Snell, Al-Monitor.August 4, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/united-states-stealing-syrian-oil/
US Oil Company Signs Deal With Syrian Kurds
Sources told Al-Monitor the agreement to market oil in territory controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces was signed “with the knowledge and encouragement of the White House.”
The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria has signed an agreement with an American oil company, well-placed sources with close knowledge of the deal told Al-Monitor. One of the sources said the agreement to market oil in territory controlled by the US-backed entity and to develop and modernize existing fields was inked last week “with the knowledge and encouragement of the White House.” The sources named the company as Delta Crescent Energy LLC, a corporation organized under the laws of the state of Delaware. The sources gave no further details about the company but would only say they had been in talks for “a long time” and that it had received an OFAC license to operate in Syria.
Sinam Mohamad, the Syrian Democratic Council representative to the United States, confirmed via Whatsapp that Delta Crescent had signed an agreement with the autonomous administration but said she had no further details.
Oil is the autonomous administration’s principal source of income.
The sources briefing Al-Monitor confirmed that Lindsay Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina who is close to President Donald Trump, had spoken to Mazloum Kobani, the commander in chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) yesterday and that Kobani had informed Graham of the deal and asked him to relay details of it to the US president.
Graham confirmed that he had heard about the oil agreement from Kobane to CBS reporter Christina Ruffini, who then relayed this in a tweet.
During his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Graham he was “OK” with the deal. “The deal took a little longer senator than we had hoped, and now we’re in implementation,” he said.
The sources told Al-Monitor that the US government had also agreed to provide two modular refineries to the autonomous administration but that these would only meet 20% of its refining needs. Delivery of the refineries has been held up by logistical hitches related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the sources said.
The Kurdish-led entity controls most of Syria’s oil wealth, which is concentrated in and around the Rmelain fields close to the Turkish and Iraqi borders and in the Al-Omar fields further south. Before Syria’s civil conflict erupted in 2011, the country used to produce around 380,000 barrels of crude per day. Production is down to around 60,000 barrels per day, much of it refined in makeshift refineries and transported by leaky pipelines causing massive environmental pollution.
Oil is a politically radioactive topic, with the central government in Damascus accusing the United States of stealing its oil after Trump declared last year in the wake of Turkey’s October incursion against the SDF that he was keeping some 500 US Special Forces in the Kurdish governed space “for the oil.” Despite steadily tightening sanctions on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, the United States has turned a blind eye to ongoing oil trade between the Kurds and Damascus. A fair amount of the oil is also sold at cut-rate prices to the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
Ankara is every bit as sensitive about the oil as it’s seen as the vehicle for cementing the Syrian Kurds’ self-rule project. Turkey has since 2016 been launching military operations against the SDF to disrupt its perceived attempts to establish a contiguous zone of control from the Iraqi border all the way to Afrin to the west of the Euphrates river and beyond. Turkey claims the SDF and its affiliates are “terrorists” because of their links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the rebel group that has been fighting for Kurdish self rule inside Turkey since 1984 and is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.
The sources said US Special Envoy for Syria engagement reportedly had informed Turkey about the oil deal and that Ankara had not reacted negatively. Russia was also informed and had not expressed a view, though certain fields were kept outside the deal, so as to ensure that the Syrian people outside the Kurdish zone were “not deprived of their share of the oil,” one of the sources said.
Turkey Joins Syria In Slamming Oil Agreement Between US Firm, Syrian Kurds
Ankara has spoken out against a new oil agreement between an American-based company and the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
Turkey condemned a new oil agreement between an American-based company and the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, according to a release Monday by the country’s Foreign Ministry. Turkey now joins Syria in criticizing the deal after a Syrian state media announcement on Sunday by the country’s Foreign Ministry called the deal illegal and accused the agreement of stealing Syria’s crude.
The oil deal — as first reported by Al-Monitor — was signed with Delta Crescent Energy LLC, a corporation in the state of Delaware. Sources with close knowledge of the deal told Al-Monitor’s Amberin Zaman that the agreement was made “with the knowledge and encouragement of the White House.” The region is not officially recognized as autonomous by any international state.
Turkey’s condemnation of the deal arrives only days after US Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., spoke to Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Commander in Chief Mazlum Kobane to confirm the deal had taken place. The US-backed SDF is the largely Kurdish military force in the region.
Graham and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referred to the oil deal during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on July 30.
Turkey said they deeply regretted the US support that disregards international law and violates territorial integrity. The efforts are considered within the scope of financing terrorism, the ministry claimed.
“By this step, the PKK/YPG terrorist organization has clearly demonstrated its ambition to advance its separatist agenda by seizing the natural resources of the Syrian people,” read the statement. “The natural resources of Syria belong to the Syrian people.”
The deal comes amid increasing US sanctions against Syria. A new wave of sanctions were imposed in July under the Caesar Act, legislation that sanctions the Syrian government, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and some members of his family, for alleged war crimes against the Syrian population.
The agreement is to market oil in the territory controlled by the SDF and develop and modernize existing fields. The US government has also agreed to provide two modular refineries to the autonomous region’s administration. Delivery of the refineries, however, may be impeded due to the coronavirus pandemic, sources told Al-Monitor.
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