World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

I doubt that I will ever be able to comprehend fully how bankrupt US politics has become. 6 of 8 Republican Party presidential candidates indicated that they would support ex-President Trump even if he were convicted of the crime of subverting the Constitution.

It’s hard to articulate how profoundly mindless and evil this position is. For most people, being convicted of a crime is evidence of a character flaw or a moment of irrationality or an arrogant sense of entitlement. If Trump is convicted of the crimes for which he is accused, those crimes transcend Trump’s degraded character. Those crimes point to an effort to destroy the very institutions and values to which these candidates purportedly aspire.

That makes no sense at all.

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 25

“This little orchard will be a part of a great holding next year, for the debt will have choked the owner.

“This vineyard will belong to the bank. Only the great owners can survive, for they own the canneries, too. And four pears peeled and cut in half, cooked and canned, still cost fifteen cents. And the canned pears do not spoil. They will last for years.

“The decay spreads over the State, and the sweet smell is a great sorrow on the land. Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can find no way to let the hungry people eat their produce. Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow.

“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit—and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.

“And the smell of rot fills the country.

“Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

“There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate—died of malnutrition—because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.

“The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

Professor Jenny Bulstrode of University College in London has just published an extraordinary article in the journal, History and Technology entitled “Black metallurgists and the making of the industrial revolution”. The argument of the article is clear and is based on evidence not easily accessible to many researchers and from sources that required persistence and imagination to find:

“This paper identifies the Black metallurgists in Jamaica as the authors of one of the most significant innovations of the British industrial revolution, but this identification is only possible because the paper engages with the practices and purposes of those Black metallurgists on their own terms….Between 1783 and 1784, British financier turned ironmaster, Henry Cort, patented a process of rendering scrap metal into valuable bar iron that has been celebrated as one of the most important innovations in the making of the modern world. Here, the concern is the 76 Black metallurgists in Jamaica, who developed the process for which Cort took credit.”

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of wrought iron to the Industrial Revolution and how Britain used technological innovation to become the leading industrial state in the 18th and 19th centuries. But iron of great strength was difficult to manufacture. Bulstrode identifies 76 enslaved Jamaicans who developed a technique to produce efficiently iron with very few impurities in a foundry owned by John Reeder who did not know very much about producing iron. In Britain, Henry Cort was an iron producer who

“…learned of the Jamaican ironworks from a visiting cousin, a West Indies ship’s master who regularly transported “prizes” – vessels, cargo and equipment seized through military action – from Jamaica to England. Just months later, the British government placed Jamaica under military law and ordered the ironworks to be destroyed, claiming it could be used by rebels to convert scrap metal into weapons to overthrow colonial rule….

“The machinery was acquired by Cort and shipped to Portsmouth, where he patented the innovation. Five years later, Cort was discovered to have embezzled vast sums from navy wages and the patents were confiscated and made public, allowing widespread adoption in British ironworks.”

One of the most crucial elements of the British rise to power was its control over the metallurgical process. But the innovation was developed by enslaved people. The British stole the intellectual property of slaves and used the profits to enslave even more.

The University of Maine has a website entitled “Climate Reanalyzer” which has an extraordinary amount of data on climate change. The site has recorded three successive days (3, 4, and 5 July ) in which the highest global temperatures ever measured occurred. Maine’s records are very good but they do not meet the international criteria for climate data, so we should not consider the matter decided. Nonetheless, the average global temperature is close to the mark for what matters other than record-keeping:

“Thursday’s planetary average surpassed the 62.9-degree mark (17.18-degree mark) set Tuesday and equaled Wednesday, according to data from the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure the world’s condition. Until Monday, no day had passed the 17-degree Celsius mark (62.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in the tool’s 44 years of records.”

The graphic demonstration of the records is dramatic (remember–the Southern Hemisphere is currently experiencing winter):

There are several climate anomalies this year. The sea ice surrounding Antarctica is currently at its lowest recorded level for this time of year. The North Atlantic ocean is “nearly 2 degrees (1.09 Celsius) above the mean dating back to 1982, the earliest year with comparable data.” Perhaps the most frightening anomaly occurred in Algeria: “the nighttime low in Adrar, Algeria, was 39.6C (103.3F) on Thursday.”

Climate change is unquestionably the most urgent issue facing humanity today. But the current politics of the world make an effective response improbable. The answers will not be found in the current ruling generation–its interests and ideologies are too deeply entrenched in preventing change.

The American people have been subjected to an intense campaign designed to persuade them that the Federal budget deficit represents a serious threat to the future of the country. Axios reports on the latest analysis on the subject by the Congressional Budget Office:

“The federal deficit is on track to be 5.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the 2023 fiscal year, before declining to 5% in 2027 — but the shrinkage will be short-lived.

• It will grow every year after before reaching 10% of GDP by 2053, per the CBO.
• From 2023 to 2053, deficits will average 7.3% of GDP — more than double their average over the past half-century.
• Federal debt held by the public will hit 98% of GDP this year, and is on track to surpass an all-time high in 2029 when it reaches 107% of GDP.”

This projection assumes that there will be no tax increases in the future and that the political sentiment in the US makes tax increases impossible. In 2021 the Gallup Organization found that:

“Gallup, over the years, has done interesting research on the “rich,” and the conclusion I keep coming back to is that Americans, in some ways, like having a rich class. The majority of Americans themselves would like to be rich someday. Further, Americans believe that having rich people in society is good for that society.

“Americans thus do not harbor the heavy resentment toward the rich that might be assumed from their agreement that income inequality should be reduced. It appears that while Americans think the rich should pay more into the tax system, Americans don’t broadly view them as evil or as of no benefit to our society. Demonizing the rich thus may not be the most advisable course of action for politicians — even as they propose to raise their taxes.”

The taxes on the poor and middle class in the US are unquestionably high (and many of those taxes, like Social Security, are deliberately regressive so that those taxes barely touch the rich). But there is an incredible pool of wealth that the Federal Government has decided to exempt from taxation. According to The Guardian:

“The world’s 722 biggest companies collectively are making more than $1tn a year (£780bn) in windfall profits on the back of soaring energy prices and rising interest rates, according to research by development charities.

“The companies made $1.08tn this way in 2021 and $1.09tn last year, according to analysis of Forbes magazine data by the charities Oxfam and ActionAid. The collective profits were 89% higher than the previous four-year average covering 2017-2020.

“Windfall profits are defined as those exceeding average profits in the previous four years by more than 10%.”

The article goes on:

“Katy Chakrabortty, Oxfam’s head of advocacy, said ‘These eye-watering excess profits are not only immoral, We are also seeing increasing evidence that a corporate bonanza is supercharging inflation, leaving millions of people in the UK and around the world struggling to pay their bills and feed their families.

“’When the windfall profits of 18 food and beverage corporations are more than twice the amount needed to cover the shortfall in life-saving assistance to tens of millions of people facing hunger in east Africa, it is clear governments need to act.

“’We need to see windfall taxes introduced across the board and an end to this racket, where rich shareholders are rewarded at the expense of everyone else.’”

We need to ignore the political tripe spouted by those who seek to avoid inconveniencing the rich. There is plenty of money to protect the poor,

A new research paper, entitled “Earlier collapse of Anthropocene ecosystems driven by multiple faster and noisier drivers”, was just published and it is truly a depressing report. Most climate change studies have looked at changes in human behavior that directly impact the environment. This particular study analyzes how some of these changes actually accelerates the process of change and its conclusion is that

“We conduct experiments on four models that simulate abrupt changes in the Chilika lagoon fishery, the Easter Island community, forest dieback and lake water quality—representing ecosystems with a range of anthropogenic interactions. Collapses occur sooner under increasing levels of primary stress but additional stresses and/or the inclusion of noise in all four models bring the collapses substantially closer to today by ~38–81%. “

This conclusion is somewhat problematic since the model used is new and has not yet been employed by other researchers. My own thinking, however, closely parallels the logic of the paper. Moreover, the study uses four actual case studies of environmental degradation (the Chilika lagoon fishery, the Easter Island community, Lake Phosphorus, and forest dieback that matches the dynamic acceleration of climate change).

The researchers outline the significant differences between their model and previous climate change models:

“Previous studies of interactions between tipping elements have focused on large-scale systems and suggest substantial social and economic costs from the second half of the twenty-first century onwards^42,56. Our findings suggest the potential for these costs to occur sooner. For example, it is not clear whether the IPCC estimate for a tipping point in the Amazon forest before 2100 (ref. ¹¹) includes the possibility for interacting drivers and/or noise; if not, our findings suggest that a breakdown may occur several decades earlier (Supplementary Introduction). This would occur where local-scale failures in elements (such as species populations, fish stocks, crop yields and water resources) combine with more extreme events (such as wildfires and droughts) to precondition the large-scale system, already vulnerable to the influence of other large-scale tipping elements, to collapse earlier—a meeting of top-down and bottom-up forces (Supplementary Introduction). This vertical integration of forces is reinforced by the rising trend in global warming that already represents a spatial integrator which may be expected to strengthen before it subsides.”

Even though we already have substantial evidence that climate change is already occurring, the troubling conclusion is that the more horrific consequences of climate change will unfold even earlier than previous studies have suggested.

The current brouhaha over the deficit ceiling has a markedly surreal context which highlights the absurdity which qualifies as a debate in national discourse: Apparently both the Republicans and the Democrats has decided that there is no need to question the budget for what they regard as national security matters. The actual debate in Washington is focused on what is called the “discretionary” budget. That part of the budget includes the Pentagon budget as well as nuclear weapons, federal immigration enforcement, law enforcement, and prisons. Those items constitute $1.1 trillion out of a total of $1.8 trillion which includes social spending such as “primary and secondary public education, housing programs, childcare programs, federal disaster relief, environmental programs, and scientific research.” In other words, 62% of the discretionary budget is off limits. Indeed, the Republicans are lobbying for an increase in defense spending even as the social programs are being eviscerated.

The Institute for Policy Studies and the National Priorities Project, both highly regarded but definitely lefty think tanks, have just released an important Study entitled “The Warfare State: How Funding for Militarism Compromises our Welfare“. According to the report: “The U.S. military budget is currently $920 billion, the highest level on record during peacetime, and higher than the next 10 countries’ military spending combined.”

There is a lot in the defense budget that could be cut. For example, the costs associated with the Pentagon’s newest fighter plane, the F-35, are astronomical. According to NBC News:

“With an estimated lifetime cost of $1.6 trillion, the F-35 Lightning II, conceived as a versatile, super stealthy next-generation fighter plane, is the most expensive weapon system ever built. When the program began way back in 1992, the F-35 was supposed to be an affordable one-size-fits-all solution for the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy. It took until this February for the Air Force to publicly admit that the F-16 replacement failed the affordability test.

Another expenditure within the Pentagon is the costs associated with private contractors doing the work that used to be done by soldiers within the ranks:

“Reduce reliance on contractors, who account for half of the Pentagon budget each year. Over the ten-year period from
2011-2020, Pentagon contractors took in $3.4 trillion in public funds. Studies have shown that Pentagon contractors
provide the same services at a higher cost than government workers.”

There is no reason for the defense budget to be sacrosanct. If cuts need to be made (and I am not sure why that is true–the Democrats have plans to increase revenues by increasing tax rates on the very wealthy and that is a better solution than to cut social service spending), then the military should take cuts instead of poor Americans.

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Today I mourn the loss of Tina Turner, one of Rock and Roll’s greatest performers. She had a tough life but never lost her passion for music. Her performance with Mick Jagger for the Live Aid Concert in 1985 was truly extraordinary–it displayed all the raunchiness of Rock and Roll that my parents abhorred. But the total immersion of both Turner and Jagger in the music was, for me, breathtaking. Since it was a benefit concert, the two singers did not have much time to rehearse. But it seems clear that there was no need–they both became the song.

Freddie Mercury and Queen also performed at the concert. Mercury was quite gifted and he died at a young age in 1991. He also gave himself completely to the music.

The concert raised a lot of money to alleviate the horrible famine in Ethiopia. Some 40% of the global population watched parts of the concert which was streamed via satellite connections (quite a feat in a world without the internet). The finale was deeply moving when all the performers came together to sing “We Are the World”. It’s sad to know that many of these performers have since died.

Ultimately, a studio version of “We Are the World” was produced. It, too, is deeply moving, but in a very different way from the concert performance. Rock and Roll does, at times, attempt to save the world. When it does, it is a powerful genre.

One of the responses to the recent mass killing in Texas reveals how deeply moronic the whole gun debate has become.

This situation is far removed from anything one might describe as a healthy society. It is time for those who support this unconstrained interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to provide a solution to these mass killings. To those of us who support gun control, we have a partial solution. The supporters of the 2nd Amendment apparently believe that mass killings ought to be accepted as a “normal” part of life. The burden of a solution ought to be on them if they think that mass killings are bad.