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When I began Schwartzreport my purpose was to produce an entirely fact-based daily publication in favor of the earth, the inter-connectedness and interdependence of all life, democracy, equality for all, liberty, and things that are life-affirming. Also, to warn my readers about actions, events, and trends that threaten those values. Our country now stands at a crossroads, indeed, the world stands at a crossroads where those values are very much at risk and it is up to each of us who care about wellbeing to do what we can to defend those principles. I want to thank all of you who have contributed to SR, particularly those of you who have scheduled an ongoing monthly contribution. It makes a big difference and is much appreciated. It is one thing to put in the hours each day and to do the work for free, but another to have to cover the rising out-of-pocket costs. For those of you who haven’t done so, but read SR regularly, I ask that you consider supporting it.
Stephan: I have been reading the reports in the foreign media about the debate, and the utter loss of status of the United States. Once acknowledged as the world's leader nation, we are now seen as a dangerous bully country led by a madman.
The world may be living through the last gasps of America First— or just getting a taste of what’s to come.
Why it matters: President Trump’s message at this week’s virtual UN General Assembly was short and relatively simple: global institutions like the World Health Organization are weak and beholden to China; international agreements like the Iran deal or Paris climate accord are “one-sided”; and the U.S. has accomplished more by going its own way.
“I am proudly putting America first, just as you should be putting your countries first,” he declared.
Between the lines: The “U.S.-led” system that’s governed international relations for 75 years has been shaken by four years of Trump, and many existing agreements and institutions would not survive a second Trump term.
The other side: Joe Biden has vowed to put the global order back together again. His view, expressed this week by his top foreign policy adviser Tony Blinken, is that “the world just doesn’t organize itself” and America remains the country best positioned to do the […]
Stephan: Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, USA (Ret.) after a distinguished Army career went with Colin Powell, and became his chief of staff. He is a recognized expert on the military-industrial complex, and this article should motivate you into voting for Biden, and demanding that the billions spent on the military be reassigned to prepare for climate change, and universal birthright single payer healthcare.
The Pentagon’s ever-expanding military budget ruins creativity and pollutes good leadership, argues retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson — a fierce critic of the ‘military-industrial complex.’ Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty
In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower cautioned the United States against “unwarranted influence” — what he saw as an alarming alignment of corporate interests with military operations, a relationship he famously called: “the military-industrial complex.”
Since then, the term has largely been taken up by the political left in its critique of America’s militarism, and how vast military expenditures end up creating conflicts they’re supposed to resolve.
But Col. Lawrence Wilkerson is firmly on the political right. He spent over 30 years in the U.S. Army, was chief of staff for former Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, and is a lifelong Republican.
Today we have become what Eisenhower’s worst nightmare predicted in his farewell address.- Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
He believes that Eisenhower was right, and is a fierce critic of the military-industrial complex. Or what he calls “the warfare state,” an obvious play on “welfare state.” He believes military spending has become an ideological […]
Stephan: Yet another report on the vampiric level of financial inequality in the United States. No healthy country can function with this level of inequality; history is very clear about this.
In an analysis of 2019 government data released Monday, policy analyst and blogger Matt Bruenig found that last year, millionaires and billionaires owned 79.2% of all household wealth in the United States despite constituting just under 12% of the population.
Bruenig examined triennial data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, which was released Monday by the U.S. Federal Reserve. https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=commondreams&creatorUserId=14296273&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1310614932703019009&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2020%2F09%2F28%2Fanalysis-shows-nearly-80-us-household-wealth-owned-millionaires-and-billionaires&siteScreenName=commondreams&siteUserId=14296273&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px
While the share of wealth owned by households with net worths of $1 million or more decreased slightly between 2016 and 2019, it was still much higher than it was in 1989, the year the modern version of the survey began.
Thirty years ago, millionaires and billionaires owned 60.4% of all household wealth in the U.S.
“If we really want to tackle wealth inequality in this country,” Bruenig wrote, “it is this wealth that we need to spread around.”
Researchers at the People’s Policy Project, where Bruenig is president, have proposed doing so through a social wealth fund.
On a day in which the news cycle has been dominated by the revelations of the extent of President Donald Trump’s tax evasion, others have focused on calling for the […]
Stephan: I think Barrett is going to be confirmed, and I think both ACA and a woman's right to choose may be gone before Biden is sworn into office in January.
Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, speaks during the announcement ceremony Saturday in the White House Rose Garden. Credit: Shutterstock
Amy Coney Barrett, whom President Trump has nominated to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, was born in 1972, so she can expect to spend several decades shaping both American law and American life. As it happens, a year before Barrett’s birth, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., then a prominent lawyer in Richmond, Virginia, and later a Supreme Court Justice himself, wrote a now famous memorandum to the United States Chamber of Commerce, arguing that businesses needed to take a more aggressive hand in shaping public policy. “The American economic system is under broad attack,” he wrote, from, specifically, the consumer, environmental, and labor movements. He added that “the campus is the single most dynamic source” of that attack. To counter it, Powell suggested that business interests should make a major financial commitment to shaping universities, so that the “bright young men” of tomorrow would hear messages of support for […]
Stephan: This, I am afraid, is the truth of America. About a third of us are predisposed to authoritarianism; these are the Trumpers. And they will seek to create an authoritarian non-democratic country if they are not overwhelmingly outvoted.
One of the important lessons Americans learned from Donald Trump’s election in 2016—and one still difficult for some of us to process almost four years later—is just how many of our fellow citizens are predisposed to authoritarianism.
In high school civics we were taught that “American authoritarianism” was an oxymoron. Authoritarianism was a relic of the past. America was a country founded on freedom, steeped in equality and justice, and uniquely immune to it.
We now know that this story is a national fairy tale. As I wrote in Politico nearly a year before Trump’s victory in 2016, the single factor that predicted whether a Republican primary voter supported Trump over his rivals was an inclination to authoritarianism. I published that article based on a national survey taken nearly a year before the presidential election, and it was followed by stories and reports elsewhere on how Trump was stirring up a deep, if often dormant, authoritarian strain in our politics.
In November 2016, voters had a chance to repudiate that strain. Instead, Trump was elected […]
Stephan: This is why Trump behaved in the debate as he did last night. This is also why the Fox disinformation operation reported as they did.
President Donald J. Trump visits approximately 200 National Guard troops Saturday, Aug, 29, 2020, at Cougar Stadium in Lake Charles, La., during his visit to view damage caused by Hurricane Laura. Credit: Shealah Craighead/White House
A prominent psychiatrist who spent years studying Nazi Germany has called for mental health professionals to speak out about President Trump’s “falsification of reality” ahead of the election, warning that his attacks on the truth echo those of the Nazis.
Stephan: Bill McKibben echoes what I have been saying since this election started. When you vote take climate change seriously. Your life, and the lives of your children, and their children depends on what you do in November.
The Eagle Creek wildfire burns in the Columbia River Gorge above Cascade Locks, Ore., in 2017. (Tristan Fortsch / KATU-TV via AP
To understand the planetary importance of this autumn’s presidential election, check the calendar. Voting ends on November 3—and by a fluke of timing, on the morning of November 4 the United States is scheduled to pull out of the Paris Agreement.
President Trump announced that we would abrogate our Paris commitments during a Rose Garden speech in 2017. But under the terms of the accords, it takes three years to formalize the withdrawal. So on Election Day it won’t be just Americans watching: The people of the world will see whether the country that has poured more carbon into the atmosphere than any other over the course of history will become the only country that refuses to cooperate in the one international effort to do something about the climate crisis.
Trump’s withdrawal benefited oil executives, who have donated millions of dollars to his reelection campaign, and the small, strange fringe of climate deniers who continue to insist that […]
