I have concerns regarding the proposed developments at 2801 Adeline, 2821 Shattuck, and 2900 Shattuck. NX Ventures have taken advantage of the federal Opportunity Zones program and, with Arris Studio Architects, will change the purpose of the buildings and probably the character of the neighborhood. 

Arris invited the neighborhood to a meeting held Monday evening at 6:00 pm at Gio’s Pizza & Bocce, 2420 Shattuck. Due to prior commitments, I could not attend, so here are my concerns: 

To address-specific concerns 

 

• 2801 Adeline (Walgreen’s site to be converted to a 7-story mixed-use building with a 215-room hotel, 84 market-rate residential units, 32,000 square feet of retail space over underground parking)
•  
  • Berkeley needs 1/3 - 1/2 of the residential units for low- and middle-income residents.
  • What about rent control?
  • What about provisions for disabled and/or retired residents?
  • The underground parking must be sufficient for hotel guests and residents and retail customers.

• 2821 Shattuck (Buggy Bank site to be converted to 50story mixed-use building with 67 market-rate residential units over +/- 8,500 square feet of retail space)
•  
  • Berkeley needs 1/3 - 1/2 of the residential units to be for low- and middle-income residents.
  • What about rent control?
  • What about provisions for disabled and/or retired residents?
  • Need underground parking sufficient for residents and retail customers.

• 2900 Shattuck (True Value site to be converted into a 6-story mixed-use building with 90 residential units at least half (45) of which will be “affordable”; units above 7,500 square feet of retail space with surface parking)
•  
  • This site needs underground parking sufficient for residents and retail customers. [Note that if underground parking is not possible — perhaps because of BART — then I submit that the intended development does not fit the location!]
  • What about rent control?
  • What about provisions for disabled and/or retired residents?

Area-specific concerns: Are there plans for neighborhood necessities? (Note the word necessities. These are not merely niceties.) 

• Has the developer made plans for green space — trees, grass, etc.? These are environmental, psychological, and civic necessities.

• Has the developer made plans for working with Berkeley government entities for the management of increased vehicular traffic on Shattuck, Adeline, and the east-west neighborhood streets? This is a necessity for pedestrians, bicyclists, and scooter users.

• Has the developer worked with the city, country, and EBMUD to deal with increased needs for water and sewage?

• All 3 addresses need sufficient underground parking because surface parking is already scarce. Many neighboring residents don’t have driveways and surface parking is often used by customers of existing retail establishments.

By the way, I did a cursory search about “opportunity zones”. Since this is part of a Federal program, I’m not sure whether citizens’ concerns will be taken into consideration by NX Ventures and Arris Studio Architects, the businesses involved. And I’m not sure that the powers-that-be in Berkeley — the Council, ZAB, and so on — have any influence. Still, I write t in hopes that readers attended the January 27th meeting to hear both the NX Ventures and Arris ideas and, more important — the residents’ concerns! Then, please publicize them. 

 

 

Neighbors to the proposed marijuana dispensary and "vaping lounge" at University and San Pablo discovered their local school was left off the map which, if included, would have precluded the dispensary's zoning certification. The Planning Department says the Berkeley Patients Group certification has been granted. They had no explanation for the omission of the school.

Teachers at the YMCA Headstart School were baffled when shown the map, which they claim leaves out not only their 10th Street location but three locations of Headstart programs as well. Headstart Schools serve families, pregnant women, and children from three years old through kindergarten. Educational services include "language development, literacy, mathematics, science, creative arts" among additional services.

The proposed marijuana dispensary has already caused concern because it is next to the West Branch Public Library. Most California cities with dispensaries include libraries in their buffer zones. 

None of the neighbors to the proposed site or the business owners nearby were consulted about the controversial proposal, which City of Berkeley representatives referred to as an "administrative matter." 

Another Telegraph Avenue dispensary relocation was put before the Berkeley City Council for discussion before granted a permit, but the Berkeley Patients Group, which has donated liberally to the Berkeley City Councilmembers, was granted the certification without any public notice to the neighborhood.

The Berkeley City Council voted Tuesday night to direct City Manager Dee Williams-Ridley to develop an emergency shelter somewhere in the city to try to ease the city's homeless crisis.

The plan by City Councilwoman Kate Harrison lists one possible site as being a homeless camp for up to 120 tents below a bridge on University Avenue that connects Fourth Street and the city's waterfront, but asks for Williams-Ridley to investigate other locations as well.

Harrison, whose plan was supported by Mayor Jesse Arreguin and Councilmembers Cheryl Davila and Rigel Robinson when it was presented to the council, says, "Ideal locations would be owned and/or managed by the city of Berkeley in non-residential zones and be accessible by public transit."

The City Council voted 7-0 to approve the plan, with Councilmembers Lori Droste and Rashi Kesarwani abstaining. 

After Williams-Ridley selects a preferred site for the emergency shelter, the matter will come back to the City Council for a public hearing and vote, according to an aide for Harrison. 

Harrison said in her proposal that the proposed emergency outdoor shelter "should be seen only as a temporary fix." 

But she said that even though there have been gains in building permanently affordable housing and provide services to lift people out of homelessness, "We are still unable to serve all homeless people in Berkeley simultaneously and there are still gaps in service." 

Harrison said, "An emergency outdoor shelter with durable tents and sanitation services is a short-term option that is safer and cleaner than the status quo of unsanctioned camping throughout the city." 

She said the intention of her proposal is to "create a limited number of sanctioned encampments operated in an organized fashion." 

The possible location below the University Avenue overpass is on land surrounded by light industry manufacturing to the north, south and east and Interstate Highway 80 to the west. 

Arreguin's spokesman Stefan Elgstrand said before the meeting Tuesday that half of that land is owned by the city and the other half is owned by Caltrans, which leases that section to the city for storage purposes. 

Elgstrand said questions have been raised about whether Caltrans property could be used for homeless services, but noted that Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order last week directing agencies under his command, such as Caltrans, to identify state land that could be used as temporary shelter locations for the homeless. 

Harrison's plan asks Williams-Ridley to consider amenities in the outdoor shelter such as climate-controlled, wind-resistant durable tents with wooden pallets for support, portable toilets and handwashing stations, shower and sanitation services, garbage pickup and needle disposal and an agency to manage the site, which would be open 24 hours a day. 

Harrison said Berkeley had about 1,100 people experiencing homelessness during the last official count, including 813 who were unsheltered, meaning they sleep in a tent, a street, a sidewalk or a park. 

Harrison proposes a 180-day suggested length of stay in the program and says the shelter could serve about 150 people annually. The estimated cost of the program is $615,000 a year.

Organizing folders and files, continued….

Instead of littering the desktop with endless files and folders, you can create special icons that often-used folders inside of Documents or Pictures. Such icons are called aliases, and they are really easy to make.

Navigate to a folder in your user account that you use frequently. Say it’s in Documents. Click on it while holding down the Control key to invoke a drop-down menu. About halfway down the menu is the command ‘make alias’. Click on it and a duplicate icon will appear just below the folder you are interested in, named ‘yourfoldername alias’.

The new icon will have a small arrow in the lower left corner, which tells you it is an alias and not the actual folder.

Drag the alias icon onto the desktop. Then when you want to work with the contents of that folder, double-click on the folder’s alias to open the actual folder—which still resides in your Documents folder.

Tech Notes

The State of the Internet

FCC chairman Ajit Pai was formerly Verizon Corp.’s lead counsel before the fool in the Oval Office put him in charge of rules governing America’s communication giants. At the top of Pai’s to-do list was axing the ‘Net Neutrality rule: the 2015 Open Internet Order, which said the Internet is a Public Utility, and that providers of fixed and mobile broadband cannot blocki, throttle, or create paid prioritization—so-called fast lanes. It reclassified broadband as a “telecommunications service” under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act, and in so granted itself the authority to regulate broadband service nationwide. Pai vacated this order in 2017. 

You would think that Pai still works for Verizon, instead of the American Public, judging by the way he has vacated this and other rules that protected citizens from communication corporations that care for nothing save extracting the final nickel from their customers’ pockets. 

The FCC is currently facing a number of lawsuits: from corporations that want to scuttle every last rule; and consumer advocacy groups that want to restore them. 

Stay Tuned…. 

Homework

Making aliases - https://kb.iu.edu/d/achy - Despite the caveat at the top of the page, these commands still work. 

FCC Lawsuits 

https://gizmodo.com/fcc-faces-off-in-net-neutrality-lawsuit-against-consume-1832269448 

https://www.fcc.gov/major-court-cases-fcc 

Write to Glen at: glen@machead.info

Each year Leftist Democrats, Socialists and Radicals are asked to hold their noses and vote for the lesser-of-two-evils. This is a false choice because we live in a rigged One-Party state – a plutocracy run by the Business Party, a Syndicate with Democratic and Republican wings. “Syndicate” is the proper word for our corrupt One-Party system because there is no real choice – only the appearance of choice. We are onlookers cheering for the villain or the babyface in a pro-wrestling spectacle we call elections orchestrated by a complicit mass media. We must open our eyes to this facade for “the first revolutionary act is to call things by their true name.” (Rosa Luxemburg) 

At both the state and national levels, the candidates offered up by the Syndicate are corporate-funded purveyors of empire whose primary loyalty is to the investor class that funds them. In fact, the only requirement the Syndicate makes on their candidates is that they are capable of raising massive amounts of money from corporations, or the corporate rich, to ensure they have the blessing of the investor class. There are no requirements on morality, voting record, or policy positions within the Business Party Syndicate. Mark Twain was correct when he wrote: "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress." This corruption is as true today as it was 150 years ago. And the higher that one is elevated in the party wings of the Syndicate, the more fundraising dominates their time and focus. It is this process that transforms politicians (who might initially believe they can honestly represent the public) into marketers whose role is to convince the public that there is no alternative to the capitalist system or the policies written by corporate-funded think tanks. “Corruption is not an anomaly but an essential element in the functioning of managed democracy.” (Sheldon Wolin) 

In addition to fundraising, rising in the Party Power Structure requires adherence to the status quo ideology of the Washington Consensus. To obtain backing in the Syndicate, candidates must first profess a belief in American mythology: that the U.S. is the “indispensable country” - a benevolent force where Americans are innocent in our hostilities, that capitalism is the only method for organizing an economy, that free markets and free trade function without government help and benefit all, that inequality is a natural state in a meritocracy, and that growth is necessary. One must also show fealty to the Pentagon and arms industry, to the financial interests of Wall Street, and to multinational corporate interests. Martin Luther King Jr. saw it clearly: “It means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.” 

Fealty to the Syndicate translates to support for endless wars, oil subsidies, bank bailouts, free trade agreements, environmental exploitation, and coups against any country that fails to embrace neoliberal ideology. This fealty also translates to lower wages, increased health care costs, poorer schools, soaring housing costs, growing homelessness, and massive student debt. It doesn’t matter which wing of the Syndicate the candidate chooses to join, they must embrace the core mythology designed to maximize corporate profits. And “if voting made any difference, they’d make it illegal.” (Emma Goldman) 

The continued lesser-of-two-evils voting by the Left has facilitated 50 years of neoliberal policies that have created the highest level of wealth inequality that the U.S. has ever seen, and a series of endless wars instigated and perpetuated by both wings of the Syndicate. Einstein stated, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” So why do Leftists continue to behave in this manner? Have we forgotten that “he who chooses for the lesser evil all too readily forgets having chosen evil.” (Hannah Arendt) Why do we continue to vote for false-choice candidates that move us farther and farther into a hegemonic empire of bases occupying the world? To answer this question, and envision a path forward, we must first understand the history and nature of the corruption and then ask what can be done differently. 

We begin by acknowledging that U.S. representative government was designed by the founding fathers to ensure that the wealthy, slave-owning elite controlled the State. James Madison wrote “Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability.” Representative government was never designed to be democratic – it was purposely designed to be anti-democratic in order to partner with property owners and assist their crimes of asset theft – primarily through slavery and land stolen from indigenous nations. 

Early on, the mythology of white supremacy was intertwined with our other mythologies of capitalism, meritocracy and rugged individualism to hide this immoral theft—this piracy. Together these myths act as a social glue that justifies the inequalities apparent throughout society. This mythology still blinds most Whites to various forms of institutional racism – racialized mass incarceration being the most obvious. “Understanding the foundation of capitalism requires a consideration of ‘the hidden abode of race’: the ontological distinction between superior and inferior humans – codified as race – that was necessary for slavery, colonialism, the theft of lands in the Americas, and genocide.” (Michael C. Dawson). Racism and impoverishment are the nature of our capitalist system. Neoliberal mythology developed over the last 50 years is just the latest form of propaganda used to justify a system that uses racist oppression to control and rob us of our labor, our assets, and our dignity.  

But this early system of government designed to partner with slavery has evolved into a system designed to partner with corporations: “Representative institutions no longer represent voters. Instead, they have been short-circuited, steadily corrupted by an institutionalized system of bribery that renders them responsive to powerful interest groups whose constituencies are the major corporations and wealthiest Americans. The courts, in turn, when they are not increasingly handmaidens of corporate power, are consistently deferential to the claims of national security. Elections have become heavily subsidized non-events that typically attract at best merely half of an electorate whose information about foreign and domestic politics is filtered through corporate-dominated media. Citizens are manipulated into a nervous state by the media’s reports of rampant crime and terrorist networks, by thinly veiled threats of the Attorney General and by their own fears about unemployment. What is crucially important here is not only the expansion of governmental power but the inevitable discrediting of constitutional limitations and institutional processes that discourages the citizenry and leaves them politically apathetic.” (Sheldon Wolin, “Democracy Incorporated”) 

We now live in a system of “Inverted Totalitarianism.” This is not classical totalitarianism where a strong leader seizes power. Paraphrasing Wolin: Today our leaders are products of a system—a system gradually created that retains old myths. It values corporate power over the public good, the economy dominates the political, and it uses economic instability to generate passivity in a demobilized society. The system is designed to seize the assets of the poor and funnel them to the rich, and then criminalize the poor to cover up the theft. We citizens are complicit in this process by accepting a passive spectator role. We are no longer involved in setting policy or choosing potential leaders, and a captured intelligentsia offers a false utopian vision while the ruling elite “manage democracy.” We are apolitical subjects not citizens, fixed irrevocably in childhood hoping that the leader-messiah will bring us to salvation. 

However there are moments when the public recognizes that they have been deceived, that the system is broken and corrupt. At these times our political leaders offer a salve of technical fixes using the obtuse language of economics to obscure both the reality of the problems and the cause. And when all else fails, they blame the bureaucrats of government rather than the beneficiaries of government corruption and largess. In this system of managed democracy, the “two major parties are very protective of their monopoly over US politics. Should any third party begin to gain a significant following that could compete with either party in the polls, they will make common cause in attacking and bringing about the dismantlement of the third party.” (Steve Martinot) 

Internal reform of the Business Party Syndicate, or either wing of that Syndicate, is prevented by the structure that governs promotion within each wing – a structure that is based upon fundraising from powerful corporations. Should any leftist candidate manage to bypass the corporate-controlled gates via small-donation fundraising, they are either destroyed via redistricting or from direct personal attacks by corporate-funded think tanks and corporate-owned mass media. Examples of the former are anti-war Rep. Dennis Kucinich, while examples of the latter are too numerous to list. Recent examples of these attacks include those on Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for her anti-war position, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her Green New Deal, and Rep. Ilhan Omar for criticizing Israel. 

When you examine the arc of history since WWII there is a consistency between the two wings of the Syndicate on both foreign and domestic policy. It is clear that our One-Party criminal system is designed to fund the military industrial complex, to support Big Oil so as to maintain the U.S. petrodollar as the global currency, and to destroy any liberation movements that threaten corporate profits and U.S. hegemony. Manifestations of this Syndicate include the endless wars for control of oil, coups carried out by the CIA to eliminate socialist programs, embargoes imposed on any countries that do not submit to neoliberal monetary policies, and the creation of a surveillance and police state to crush any dissent at home. Members of both wings of the Syndicate have judiciously carried out these actions. 

Tens of millions of people have been sacrificed by the Syndicate over the past decades in order to maintain U.S. hegemony, and we, a docile public are complicit in these acts. We need to understand that this ruthless clinging to power at all costs is no different than what is seen in other criminal syndicates. There appear to be no moral limits to the Syndicate’s piracy, including accelerating the global climate crisis to maintain power. This latter policy of the Syndicate is apparent in both wings, with Obama’s “all-of-the-above” energy policy and Trump’s climate change denials. U.S. hegemony and corporate profits depend on controlling the global demand for oil, and the Syndicate cannot allow any policy that is a threat to this power—including the Green New Deal. Most environmentalists still do not understand this and assume they can work within the system. They have been fooled. Media manipulation has produced an expectation that the Democratic wing of the Syndicate will adopt environmental policies to avoid this disaster. Unfortunately, “It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” (Mark Twain) 

Manipulation of Americans, by limiting the dialogue allowed around political problems and by only giving voice to a narrow range of solutions acceptable to the Syndicate, is a key element in maintaining “manufactured democracy.” This control is accomplished with commercial and social media organized by a handful of corporations that use “divide and conquer” propaganda techniques, honed over the last century, to sow fear, racism, xenophobia and misogyny. The planning and propaganda centers for the globalist policies that maintain this control are the decentralized corporate-funded think tanks whose mission is to maintain US hegemony, protect global capital, and defend neoliberal social policies of austerity. 

Within this system of propaganda, political campaigns work to construct an image least offensive to their wealthy benefactors and to the voters. This image is then marketed to us. Noam Chomsky writes: “It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.” Voters are bombarded with messages both from the not-so-independent corporate media and by political campaigns who now tailor their individualized messaging based on your Facebook and Google profiles. In this sea of propaganda, the voter is left to choose between Coke and Pepsi – or during the 2016 presidential campaign between Caligula and Nero. And by voting for members of the Syndicate, we give tacit approval to a corrupt system that robs us of our power, our assets, our labor, and our freedoms. 

What does it mean to choose between candidates that are incapable of addressing the primary existential threats to humanity – namely climate change and war? What does it mean to choose between candidates who are guaranteed to favor Wall Street over Main Street? What does it mean to choose between candidates that will continue to pursue policies designed by corporations that remove the last safety nets we have for health, education, food security, housing and retirement? By choosing between the Syndicate candidates, are we collaborating with a system that perpetuates economic and social inequality controlled by an ever-growing military and police-surveillance state? Can lesser-of-two-evil voting be justified in such a system? Does such participation indicate consent in a system of injustice? Is there a way to break the cycle? 

All attempts to reform the One-Party system over the past four decades have proved futile due to the structural reasons described above. In fact, corporate control of the Syndicate has strengthened. Any efforts to work within the corrupted structure, and that deviate from the Syndicate’s Washington Consensus, are crushed. Attempts thus far to run a non-Syndicate candidate in a winner-take-all election system have been futile both due to lesser-of-two-evils voting which causes small Party candidates to be ignored or, on the rare occasion when an outsider wins, because individual representatives within that system have no power. What is especially needed now is an effort to build something outside this system – something outside of the control of corporate money. Let’s call this something “The Movement” just to give it a name. 

The Movement must be broad-based and inclusive to face off against the Syndicate, therefore it must combine all the issues that the Left struggle against. No one issue can dominate. This uniting is possible because all the political struggles have a common enemy – namely the Syndicate – which is too powerful for any subset of organizations to challenge. In addition, all the various political objectives of the Left – preventing war and climate change, ending oppression and racism, promoting democratic participation, ending corporate control, preventing environmental degradation, dismantling capitalism, providing affordable health care and education, and ending poverty—are all intertwined with the power structure of the Syndicate. And because the Syndicate controls the current power structure, it will not allow any challenges to its power within that structure. The Movement must be built outside that system and in such a manner that the Syndicate is unable to control or destroy it. 

So what form can The Movement take and what role can existing progressive and leftist organizations have with regards to The Movement? First, the Left must acknowledge that all political organizations that currently exist will be unsuccessful in achieving their objectives if they require defeating the core objectives of the Syndicate. For example, any organizations attempting to impact policy as regards global climate change will fail because Syndicate power relies on maintaining an oil-based economy, and control of that oil maintains petrodollar hegemony. It doesn’t matter that this Syndicate control will result in the deaths of billions of people because the Syndicate’s corporate-machine structure will eliminate any member whose primary concern is not maintaining Syndicate power. 

Alternatively, any attempts to reduce global poverty and inequality will fail because Syndicate profits depend on that exploitation. And any attempts to move away from endless war will fail because the Syndicate’s control and profits depend on the maintaining a growing military industrial complex. Any targeted efforts at change will never be powerful enough. Only a combined effort that involves all Leftist interests with massive participation can be successful. And any organizations who choose to focus on a narrow set of goals, rather than topple the Syndicate, will fail over time and slowly become more concerned with maintaining their operations rather than reaching their goal—which would eliminate their reason for existence. In fact, such behavior can now be seen in many “leftist” or “progressive” organizations, with many environmental organizations fully captured and beholden to corporate funding. 

So what can organizations do to build The Movement? First, they must be willing to sacrifice their narrow political interests to the larger goals of The Movement. This should be declared openly and their education programs must address the interconnectedness of all our political problems. They must also identify the primary driver of these problems – namely the Business Party Syndicate with its Democratic and Republican wings. Organizations must focus on community building of democratic structures outside the Syndicate’s control. 

Organizations should spend little time on election-related issues except as outreach to educate and draw in others to The Movement, and should instead focus on building coalitions with other groups. Organizations must emphasize bottom-up democratic operations that build solidarity and interconnections with other organizations. The Movement will need to develop its own internal super-structure that is independent of the old systems of power, with safeguards to prevent power consolidation and disruption by the Syndicate. And The Movement must wait till it reaches a critical mass of people capable of challenging the Business Party Syndicate before it wields its political power.  

So what can be done by individuals now while the path to building The Movement is unclear? A first step is to do anything one can to disempower the Syndicate. One way is to demonstrate that your loyalty is not to the Business Party by registering to vote with a non-corporate Party. No Party Preference fails to do this since this does not demonstrate interest in building an alternative to the Syndicate. Second, vote for candidates who are not members of the Syndicate and who are not from corporate-funded Parties. Third, form local groups to discuss the history and structure of the Syndicate so we understand what we are up against. Fourth, join leftist organizations and begin a dialogue about the interconnected nature of all our social problems and the need to unite against a common enemy – namely the Syndicate. Fifth, in building The Movement we must focus on the ideology and vision that will unite us and not on candidate or leader personalities. Sixth, building The Movement means doing the hard work of community outreach and education, and in particular getting outside one’s comfort zone. This will include defending those who are attacked by the Syndicate and providing the needed economic and educational support to those communities who join The Movement. Seventh, dialogue is critical, so all members of The Movement must work to develop critical thinking and listening skills. Training must include recognition of the various propaganda techniques that the Syndicate will attempt to use to divide us.  

“We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.” (Ursula Le Guin) Therefore start doing the work to build The Movement today so we can do away with the corrupt Business Party Syndicate which is now the greatest existential threat humanity has ever experienced. Don’t be fooled into thinking that participation in elections means that we really have a choice or that this is democracy. Your choices are extremely limited and will not change the system nor will they help avert disaster. This can only be done by building The Movement and taking back our power from corporations. “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” (Martin Luther King Jr.) 

---

Dr. James McFadden is a research physicist at the University of California, Berkeley. For the past dozen years he has studied economics, political history, psychology, racism and climate change. He now spends most of his time as a political organizer working with the Green Party and other organizations on issues of democracy and social justice. Email: jpmcfadden925@yahoo.com

Each year Dispatches From The Edge gives awards to individuals, companies and governments that make reading the news a daily adventure. Here are the awards for 2019

Life Imitates Art Award to the US Border Control and the Trump administration that are currently holding between 11,000 and 14,000 immigrant children under the age of 18 in internment camps. According to the London Review of Books, a Border Patrol agent gave a three-year old the choice of being with her mother or her father. When the father was being taken away the child began to cry, only to be scolded by the Agent: “You said with Mom.” The child’s name: Sofi.

Dr. Strangelove Award to the US Defense Department for its unique solution to the problem of supplying troops in war zones. Between 2001 and 2010, US soldiers escorting fuel convoys in Afghanistan and Iraq accounted for more than half the casualties suffered by American forces. The solution? Portable nuclear power plants that would generate between 1 and 10 megawatts and service up to 1,000 troops. The “micro-nukes” would be “semiautonomous,’ that is, they wouldn’t need on-site operators. Even small reactors contain significant amounts of highly radioactive and long-lived isotopes, like cesium-137. I mean, what could go wrong? 

The Fake News Award to the US government’s Radio Marti. The station, run by the Agency for Global Media that also includes Voice of America, got caught faking a mortar attack during a broadcast from Managua, Nicaragua. One of the journalists involved in the deception, Tomas Regalado Jr., is the son of Tomas Regalado Sr., who oversees Radio and TV Marti.’ Radio Marti broadcast several shows last year that described philanthropist and Democratic Party donor George Soros as “a nonbeliving Jew of flexible morals.” 

Golden Jackal Award to the US arms company Raytheon, with a tip of the hat to Lockheed Martin and Boeing, for landing more than $1 billion in intermediate missile contracts. The contracts were awarded shortly after the Trump Administration withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Force Agreement (INF) in 2018. Intermediate missiles are considered especially destabilizing because their short flight time means all sides must keep their missiles on a hair trigger. 

“The withdrawal from the INF Treaty has fired the starting pistol on a new Cold War,” says Beatrice Fihn of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. 

Runner up is ArmorMe, a company that produces children’s backpacks. Field-tested by the Israeli military, the backpack includes a sheet of bullet resistant Kevlar. According to the company, the backpack “looks and feels like a regular eco-friendly canvas backpack—so your child will fit in with his or her friends.” But if a shooter shows up, it provides “protection for your child, peace-of-mind for yourself.” 

Catherine de’ Medici Award *to the Pentagon for contaminating drinking water at military bases with polyfluoroalkyl, or PFAS, a major ingredient of fire fighting foam. The chemical causes cancer, kidney failure, immune system suppression and other health problems. The military has known about the contamination for decades but failed to tell anyone about it until recently. Scientists have dubbed PFAS the “forever chemical,” because it if virtually indestructible. 

According to the Pentagon, the military is now moving on the problem. “I’m proud of what the Department of Defense has done in the last two-plus years,” says the military’s deputy assistant for the environment, Maureen Sullivan. But asked how many people could be affected, she replied that she “couldn’t hazard a guess—we’re tracking water sources—not people.” 

*Catherine de’ Medici 1519-1589 was known as the “great poisoner.” 

The Golden Grinch Award to the Trump administration for cutting food stamps for up to 750,000 people and limiting benefits for an estimated 3.7 million people, while spending $649 billion on this year’s military budget. While the government was handing out $28 billion to farmers hurt by the White House’s trade war with China (the vast majority of which, according to the Environmental Working Group, went to large, corporate farms), it was altering the poverty index to make it more difficult for the poor to receive nutritional assistance. 

In the meantime, Huntington Ingalls Industries was awarded $15.2 billion to build two aircraft carriers to add to the US’s 10-carrier fleet. The Russians have one (and it is small, old and recently damaged in a fire) and China has two (with plans for one more). 

Great Moments in Science has two winners: 

• Republican Senator Mile Lee (Utah), who contends that the solution to climate change won’t be found by governments or programs like the Green New Deal, but by having “more babies.”
• Republican Representative Mike Kelly (Pennsylvania) who says he is a “person of color, I’m white. I’m Anglo Saxon,” and proud to be from “Ireland.” Well, Kelly is right about the white and Irish part. The O’Kellys were from Tyrone in the north, but the Anglo Saxons (and Normans) invaded in 1169, drove the Kellys out of Tyrone and ruled the island for more than 800 years. A visit to Geni.com might help.

The Henry VIII Award to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who doubled the number of beheadings in 2018 and is on track to break that record in 2019. Before Salman came to power in 2017, the Saudis had beheaded 67 people in the preceding eight months. He increased the pace to 133 in 2018, and is on pace to behead over 170 people in 2019. While many are South Asians coerced into smuggling drugs, others are oppressed Shiites from Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich eastern provinces. Of the 37 beheaded on a single day in April, 33 were Shiites. 

Victims are not allowed lawyers and torture is an accepted way of carrying out investigations. Three were minors, a violation of international law. No American administration has protested the execution of the minors or the use of torture to extract confessions. 

The Terminator Award to the US, United Kingdom, South Korea, Russia, Israel and Australia for trying to torpedo a United Nations treaty banning “lethal autonomous weapons systems.” The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is trying to require “meaningful human control over the use of force” in such devices lest “Lives be taken based on algorithms.” Some 28 governments back a ban on such weapons. 

Marie Antoinette Award to Francios de Rugy, president of the French Assembly and close ally of President Emmanuel Macron. The Macron administration is trying to increase the age of retirement and cut pension plans. Macron also sliced unemployment benefits and public services, while cutting taxes for the wealthy. 

In the meantime, Mr. de Rugy has been hosting lavish dinners for friends and family at his official residence, the Hotel de Lassay, featuring lobster tails and bottles of 2004 Mouton-Rothschild at $560 a pop.  

Runner up in this category is the British Foreign Office, which spent $15.8 million to purchase a full-floor apartment in New York City to house the British Consul General. In the meantime, the Conservative government refuses to pay for re-housing the survivors of the terrible 2017 Grenfell fire that incinerated more than 70 people. 

And when British Foreign Office rescues women who are forced into marriages in places like Pakistan and Somalia, the victims are billed for services. Four women, whom the Foreign Office saved from a religious institution in Somalia, where they were chained and whipped to force them into marriage, billed them $900 apiece for their rescue. The women’s passports were confiscated until they paid up. 

The Golden Lemon Award goes—once again—to Lockheed Martin for its F-35 Lightening stealth fighter, at $1.5 trillion dollars, the most expensive weapon system in US history. According to Defense News, pilots have to carefully watch their speed lest they damage the airframe and stealth coating. Apparently cockpit pressure spikes cause “excruciating” air and sinus pain. The pilot’s $400,000 helmets don’t work very well, and each helmets is designed to fit only one pilot. It takes several days to get a replacement helmet if one breaks. 

The June readiness rate for the F-35—that is the percentage of planes that can make it into the air—was 8.7 percent, not quite up to the 80 percent readiness standard for all other aircraft. But things are looking up: In May only 4.7 percent of the planes were ready to fly. 

Over 300 F-35s have been sold to allies, with Japan a prime customer. One of those F-35s crashed in April, killing its pilot and grounding the fleet. According to the Japanese, the plane had been forced to make seven emergency landings prior to the crash. The Americans and the Japanese are desperately trying to find the wreckage, because “The F-35A is an airplane that contains significant amounts of secrets that need to be protected” from opponents, said Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya. 

A modest proposal: give our F-35s to all potential enemies and let them have a really expensive plane that doesn’t work. 

The Golden Oops Award to US Strategic Air Command that tweeted that it was prepared to drop something “much bigger” than the New Year’s Eve crystal ball in Times Square. The tweet was followed by a video of a B-2 bomber dropping bombs. The blowback on social media was so fierce that the military quickly pulled the video and apologized that it “was in poor taste and does not reflect our values.” 

The Ethnic Sensitivity Award to the US State Department’s director of policy planning, Kiron Skinner, who, at a public talk last April, said that the competition between the US and China was bitter, because “it’s the first time that we will have a great-power competitor that is not Caucasian.” This would come as a surprise to Pearl Harbor veterans. So exactly who does Skinner think we fought at Midway, Guadalcanal, and Saipan? 

The Kudo Award to: 

• The Stansted 15, who broke into the Stansted International Airport north of London in September and chained themselves together to block the British Home Office from deporting refugees from Ghana and Nigeria.
• Captain Pia Klemp, for rescuing more than 1,000 refugees from drowning in the Mediterranean. She is facing a 20-year prison sentence in Italy, even though not rescuing them would have been a violation of Article 98 of the 1982 UN Law of Sea.
• Artist Philipp Ruch, who constructed a replica of Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial next to the house of far-right Alternative For Germany Thuringia state legislator Bjorn Hocke. Hocke has called the Berlin memorial a “monument of shame.”
• Environmental activist Greta Thunberg, the little Swede that could.

---30--- 

Conn Hallinan can be read at dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and middleempireseries.wordpress.com 

As Donald Trump's Senate impeachment trial began on January 16th, many of us wondered how Trump's legal team would respond to the serious accusations contained in the two articles of impeachment. It didn't take long to realize that these lawyers serve as an extension of Trump; they are responding in the manner we have come to expect from Trump whenever he is confronted with his misdeeds.

Trump is accused of (1) abuse of power and (2) obstruction of Congress. The abuse of power charge concerns Trump's conduct with regards to Ukraine: "President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States presidential election. He did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his re-election, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 United States presidential election to his advantage. President Trump also sought to pressure the government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official United States government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of the investigations."

The obstruction of Congress charge concern's Trump's unprecedented "stonewalling" of the House of Representatives inquiry: "Donald J Trump has directed the unprecedented, categorical and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its sole power of impeachment."

These are serious charges -- much more serious than those charges levied against Bill Clinton, twenty years ago -- and deserve serious consideration. Therefore, it's reasonable to expect Trump's legal team to behave professionally. That's not happening. 

Rather than defend Donald Trump in the conventional manner, Trump's attorneys have chosen to act as an extension of Trump -- to engage in the abrasive and devious behavior that has characterized Trump's political career. This behavior has four components. 

1. AVOIDANCE: Trump's attorneys are not directly responding to the accusations. That is, rather than respond to the accusation that Trump sought to manipulate Ukraine for his own political advantage, Trump's attorneys respond that Trump's (notorious) phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky was "perfect" and then change the subject. 

Trump's lawyers responded to the the articles of impeachment with a 109 page brief (https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ukraine-clearinghouse-Trial-Memorandum-of-President-Donald-J.-Trump-january-20-2020.pdf) that is much more emotional than factual. In a blistering analysis (https://www.justsecurity.org/68181/four-fundamental-flaws-in-president-trumps-impeachment-trial-memo/) legal scholar Michael Gerhardt stated: "It would take more than 109 pages to correct all of the document’s fallacies and incorrect statements of law and fact... [it is] more of a political screed than a legal document deserving of respect and serious consideration by senators, the public, historians, and constitutional scholars." 

Gerhardt observed that the Trump brief, rather than rely upon reasoned analysis, resorts to "bluster:" "[Thereby] proving the old adage that, 'If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table.'" 

2. ATTACK: Rather than respond directly to the accusations, Trump -- and his attorneys -- attack those who formulated them. As Democrats presented evidence on the abuse-of-power charge, Trump -- and his Republican allies -- hurled abuse at them (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-scale-back-language-as-trump-and-gop-press-ahead-with-attacks-on-senate-impeachment-trial/2020/01/22/792f642e-3d55-11ea-8872-5df698785a4e_story.html? ). "The Republican barrage was led by Trump himself, who in Davos, Switzerland, called the top House managers 'sleazebags' while denouncing his impeachment as a 'hoax' and 'disgrace' to his presidency." 

The Trump legal brief began: "The Articles of Impeachment now before the Senate are an affront to the Constitution and to our democratic institutions. The Articles themselves—and the rigged process that brought them here—are a brazenly political act by House Democrats that must be rejected. They debase the grave power of impeachment and disdain the solemn responsibility that power entails... The process that brought the articles here violated every precedent and every principle of fairness followed in impeachment inquiries for more than 150 years." 

3. LIE: Unfortunately, Trump and his lawyers have chosen to lie about many aspects of the impeachment accusations. Michael Gerhardt noted, "The [Trump legal team] Memorandum is replete with misrepresentations and false statements of fact. For example, it reiterates the canard that the whistleblower’s report is a 'false account.' There was nothing false about it. It was corroborated by virtually every witness who testified before the House Intelligence Committee, and so much the worse for the President that the people testifying against him were not Democrats but people he had appointed himself. It does not just strain credulity but decimates it to maintain that everyone who has testified under oath in these hearings is somehow lying while only the President is telling the truth." 

4. MISREPRESENT THE CONSTITUTION: Finally, Trump and his legal team have not responded to the articles of impeachment with reasoned legal arguments but, instead, with variations on the theme: Trump is above the law. 

Michael Gerhardt observed, "The Memorandum is replete with misrepresentations and false claims about the law and about impeachment practices and procedures as well. For example, the Memorandum repeatedly complains that the House did not afford the president 'due process.' Throughout the House’s impeachment proceedings, Republicans proclaimed 'due process' was a problem. Yet, the very same Republicans who made this complaint were invited to or participated in the closed door depositions the President is now complaining about... The President had these safeguards, and more, throughout the House proceedings. He was given a surplus of fair process (including being invited to attend the testimony of constitutional law scholars and even have his counsel question them), but he turned the opportunities down. Importantly, the President was also given the explicit opportunity... to have his counsel present for hearings and object to the admission of testimony and evidence when that information was submitted to the House Judiciary Committee by the House Intelligence Committee witnesses." 

Summary: In Congressman Adam Schiff's brilliant closing remarks at the January 23rd Senate Impeachment trial (https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/adam-schiff-closing-argument-transcript-thursday-impeachment-trial), he adopted the solemn theme "right matters." "If the truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost. [The] Framers couldn’t protect us from ourselves, if right and truth don’t matter. And you know that what [Donald Trump] did was not right.. And you know you can’t trust this President to do what’s right for this country. You can trust he will do what’s right for Donald Trump." 

Sadly, for Donald Trump's defenders, right doesn't matter. 

---

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and activist. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net