048 The Erickson Report for February 17 to March 2, Page Three: On NATO

048 The Erickson Report for February 17 to March 2, Page Three: On NATO

Next, I want to get back to what I said about permanently barring Ukraine from NATO being a not bad idea. The realiity is that, as I also said, NATO is a military alliance born in, based on, and still driven by thye shibboleths and demons of the Cold War. For decades it was presented as a response to the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact, even though NATO predates the Warsaw Pact by six years.

Even if you grant that, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the evaporation of its control over Eastern Europe, the purpose of NATO, it's reason for existing, evaporated as well.

But instead of being disbanded along with the rest of the predictable celebrations about having "won" the Cold War, it plunged ahead and even aggressively expanded.

Remember the map from last time, the one where every nation in blue to the east of that purple line was added to NATO after Mikhail Gorbachev was assured during discussions about re-uniting Germany it would not expand "one inch" to the east?

According Mary Sarotte, a post-Cold War historian who wrote a book about those negotiations, contemporaneous notes, letters, speeches, and interviews show that Western leaders were already contemplating NATO enlargement by the time those talks took place. It was always the plan.

So what I would say is revive what was for some decades an issue for the left and the international peace movement, but which for some reason faded - actually I can name several but I'll skip that for now: don't just not expand NATO, disband NATO. Break it up. Shut it down. It is a Cold War dinosaur that has become, as it is at this moment, more of a threat to spark a war - intentionally or otherwise - than it ever was to prevent one. It's time, it's part time, for it to just go away.

If you want cooperation, including on mutual security, you have the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OSCE, of which Russia and Ukraine are already members.

If it's more economic and cultural ties you're interested in, you have the European Union.

What we don't need is a re-hash of the Cold War, but that it what we're seeing. And frankly I am damn sure that there are people in Washington, the capitals of Europe, and yes Moscow that are delighted at the prospect, even if not consciously, but who are thrilled at the prospect of a return to a simpler, clearer, age when there wasn't a complex and very messy political world to deal with but one with the comfort and stability of a clear, identifiable enemy presenting an always rather vague, diffuse, but ever-present existential threat.

I have to tell you, I remember that comfortable, stable time with its proxy wars, militarism, and leitmotif of Red-baiting. I have no desire to reprise it.

048 The Erickson Report for February 17 to March 2

The Erickson Report for February 17 to March 2

This episode:

- "Putin will not invade - unless..." explained

- Government pushes, media embraces, unquestioning acceptance of official claims

- Disband NATO

- "The Threat" to public education

(Sources to follow)

047 The Erickson Report for February 3 to 16, Page 1: War in Ukraine?

047 The Erickson Report for February 3 to 16, Page 1: War in Ukraine?

I was going to do a big thing about Ukraine, including going into some of the background, including the divisions within Ukraine between the anti-Russian western parts which resent a history of Russian domination and the ethnic Russian eastern parts which for that reason are more oriented toward Russia. We'd have to look at the Orange Revolution, the Euromaiden protests and the Revolution of Dignity, the Russian seizure of Crimea, the on-going slow-motion war in eastern Ukraine involving two breakaway provinces, none of which even gets to the competing great power claims about the present day situation.

It soon became clear that all that was too much. So I'm going to pass on that.

Instead, I'm going to make a bold prediction. Which by the time you see this could already have proven me disastrously wrong. But - I predict that Russia is not going to attack Ukraine.

Frankly, I think that if Putin was intending to attack, he would have done it. The seizure of Crimea came within days after the Revolution of Dignity had forced the resignation of the pro-Russia president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. In the case of Georgia in 2008, Russian forces invaded within hours of government forces seizing the capital of the pro-Russia breakaway province of South Ossetia. Instead, we have this dragged-out posturing and looming presence but no direct action.

Rajan Menon, director of the grand strategy program at Defense Priorities and a senior research fellow at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, had I think a much likelier vision of events than the "Omigod, it's war any moment" version: “Some of this," he said, "is Putin saying, ‘We matter as a country, and you can't do in European security whatever you want, pretending that we don't exist.’” In other words, "We will not be ignored, our concerns will not be waved off."

Could Russia legitimate security concerns? Or could they at the very least honestly feel such concerns?

Okay. On February 9, 1990, US Secretary of State James Baker told both Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and President Mikhail Gorbachev that in exchange for Soviet cooperation in the reunification of Germany, that NATO would not expand "one inch eastward" out of respect for Soviet security concerns. In fact, he apparently said the same thing three different ways.

Look at the second map.

You can see it's a map of Europe with this funny purplish line through it. The countries in blue are members of NATO. Every one of those blue countries to the east, to the right, of that line joined NATO after that promise was made. The pale blue country is Bosnia and it is in the process of entering NATO. The green nations are Ukraine and Georgia and the plan is for them to also join NATO.

So if you were a Russian government official, could you feel that you had been tricked or lied to, that you had security concerns which had been ignored?

Now for the sake of completeness I'll add that US officials have striven mightily to insist that "one inch eastward" didn't mean that, it only applied to the former East Germany, not anywhere else, which bluntly is a real stretch but even at that doesn't address the fact that the Russians could honestly feel differently, honestly feel betrayed, honestly feel that NATO can't be trusted and despite all the pretty words is not actually interested in mutual security but in dominance.

Okay, given that, why no invasion? Because even if Putin intended to - which I say he doesn't - he has to know it would be hard and bloody. It wouldn't be like when Russians rolled into Georgia. Ukraine is nearly 10 times the size of Georgia and its military is seven or eight times bigger. We keep hearing about the 100,000 troops Russia has along its border with Ukraine. The Ukranian army has 150,000 members plus another 50-100,000 in a navy, air force, and National Guard, plus the arms and equipment that has been coming in from NATO nations. There are those who say that's irrelevant because Putin would attack with cruise missiles and other long-range weaponry which is a stupid argument because first then what's the big deal about the 100K troops and second, that would provoke the same sort of NATO response that a ground invasion would.

And it's not just me that has doubts.

Ukrainian authorities have projected calm. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Ukrainians not to panic, saying "There is no reason to pack your bags." A week ago, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told parliament that “as of today, there are no grounds to believe” Russia will invade imminently.

Meanwhile, Newsweek reports that several current and former US, Russian, and Ukrainian officials have said that US intelligence of an imminent Russian invasion is being exaggerated, a number that apparently includes some within Zelenskyy's inner circle.

In fact, Newsweek says, the US intelligence community has yet to establish a consensus on whether Russia was truly preparing to take on what would be an intensive military operation.

Even US Sec of War Lloyd Austin has said publicly that we don't know if Putin has actually decided to go to war and White press secretary Jen Psaki says the administration will no longer use word "imminent."

Well, I maintain he hasn't intended to, that he doesn't intend to, that his real concern is to make the declaration that Russia and its concerns are still something to which the West must pay attention, and that he won't invade Ukraine - unless...

And I'm going to leave you hanging there. If in two weeks I have not yet been shown to be a lousy prognosticator, I will go into what the greatest threat of war here is - except to say as a teaser that, as is so often true, it will not be as the result of someone's or some nation's unforced choice.

The Erickson Report, Page 7: Germany

The Erickson Report, Page 7: Germany

Germany is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall - a celebration tempered by a bout of self-reflection driven by a resurgence of right-wing extremism in the country over the past few years, including a 71% rise in violent anti-Semitic crimes in 2018 as compared to 2017.

Perhaps the clearest political example of that resurgence is the electoral rise of the far-right extremist Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party. In October’s regional elections in the eastern state of Thuringia, AfD gained 23% of the vote, including a majority of voters under age 30, and finished ahead of Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union.

location of Thuringia

AfD is stridently anti-foreigner, anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, and Euro-skeptic, riding a tide of nationalist isolationism and xenophobia that embraces the "Great Replacement" mythology, the paranoid notion also seen in the US right that the government is trying to replace native-born citizens with refugees and foreigners.

It's likely significant that AfD has seen its greatest success in the eastern part of Germany, exploiting the lingering divisions between East Germans and West Germans. Thirty years after the wall fell, 29 years after reunification, there are still significant gaps in wages, pensions, and levels of accumulated wealth between East and West Germany - and voting patterns are considerably different.

That's why a poll by the Dimap institute found 52% of East Germans believe they have been unfairly treated, 64% believe the two Germanys have not fully grown back together, and another 15% say they haven’t grown back together at all. A significant number of people in East Germany feel they have been left behind, with economic stress leading to a sense of social disruption which, unhappily, is too-easily turned into consuming fear of "the other."

Some cities in Germany and some federal agencies are facing up to this resurgence, insisting it must be opposed. The question is, with they as part of that realization also face up to their own failures which helped create it.

The Erickson Report, Page 2: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Otrages - the Outrages

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages - the Outrages

Okay, switching over, some Outrages for you.

1. Pia Klemp, is German and 35 and also something of a rarity: She is a ship's captain and a member of Sea-Watch, a non-governmental organization that rescues asylum-seekers in the Mediterranean who are trying to reach Europe by boat.

She's also facing 20 years in prison in Italy for the heinous crime of not letting people drown.

Human traffickers in Libya extort thousands of dollars from migrants who arrive in the country desperately trying to reach Europe. As Klemp notes, those migrants risk the crossing of the Mediterranean "because there are no legal entry routes" and they keep coming because "there are so many reasons to flee."

But the ships used by the traffickers often are not seaworthy or are deliberately sabotaged, forcing humanitarian vessels such as Klemp's to either rescue the migrants or let them drown. Over the years, Klemp has rescued, by her estimate, at least 1000 people. For that, she has become a target of Italy’s extreme right-wing Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who has promised harsh penalties for so called "illegal" migrants which has led to rescue workers like Klemp being branded as criminals.

This despite the facts not only that seeking asylum is a human right but that Article 98 of the 1982 UN Law of the Sea says that:

“Every State shall require the master of a ship flying its flag, in so far as he can do so without serious danger to the ship, the crew or the passengers, to render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being lost.”

Despite that, cases against Klemp and others are being pursued even as there is no proof of any substantial violation of law by any rescue vessel operated by any NGO.

Pia Klemp

Journalist Rula Jebreal summed it up: "Italy's fascists are using this case as a showcase to deter others from aiding migrants. They would prefer to let people drown in the Mediterranean."

2. Continuing on immigration outrages, they want them to drown in the sea; we lean toward letting them die in the desert.

According to a report in Politico from two weeks ago, Tweetie-pie is considering sweeping restrictions on asylum that would effectively block Central American migrants from entering the US.

If they are put into place, those seeking asylum will be found ineligible if they have entered or attempted to enter the US after failing to apply for asylum or other protections in any country that isn’t their country of origin that they went through to get to the US.

In other words, people fleeing El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, who make up the bulk of those seeking asylum at the southern US border, would be barred from applying because they walked through Mexico to get here.

In other words, the choices for asylum seekers are apply for asylum from within your home country, just sit there in the poverty, the crime, the violence, all the things you are seeking to flee, and see what the people who regard you as coming from shithole countries and say you are riddled with drugs and criminals and terrorists and don't want you in the first place will say about your case, or stay in Mexico - just don't bother us.

It really is like they aren't even pretending anymore. The bigotry, the hatred, the xenophobia is right out there for all to see.

3. Speaking of immigration, the Immigration and Nationality Act is a federal law passed in 1952 that stipulates that any child born abroad to a married US citizen parent is granted birthright American citizenship. The reference to "married" was largely to deal with situations where only one of the parents was a US citizen. "You're a citizen, your spouse is not, doesn't matter, the kid's a citizen."

But the State Department interprets the law to mean that a child born abroad must be biologically related to a US citizen parent and what's more, a child born to a same-sex couple through assisted reproductive technology, which is not mentioned in the law and barely existed at the time, is born "out of wedlock" and thus, it's claimed, is not a birthright citizen.

The Immigration and Nationality Act makes no reference to biology in determining birthright citizenship, giving the policy little textual support in law. But the State Department doesn't care, which has plunged same-sex couples into a legal nightmare, as the State Department in effect says they are not really married, that they're not really "married US citizen parents."

In February, a federal judge ruled in a suit brought by one same-sex couple that the Department’s imposition of a biological requirement is a "strained interpretation” of immigration law, and dismissed attempts to institute a biological testing standard as “unilateral.”

But the State Department has appealed that ruling and has fought to summarily dismiss a suit brought by another same-sex couple, so the fight - and the Outrage - continue.

Oh, a footnote to all this: The policy was adopted in 2014 - under Obama.

4. Next, this type of intellectual corruption is pretty commonplace these days, but still it’s outrageous.

William Happer

In mid-June the Environmental Defense Fund released emails between William Happer, a member of the National Security Council, and policy advisers with the Heartland Institute. The emails dated from 2018 and 2019 and were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act filing.

The emails show that Happer, who has claimed that carbon dioxide is good for humans and that carbon emissions have been demonized like "the poor Jews under Hitler," actively sought the help of the Heartland Institute, a notorious and brazen liar about climate change, in seeking to discredit the scientific reports on the subject coming out of NASA.

In the words of Matthew Nisbet, a professor of environmental communication and public policy at Northeastern University, "It's equivalent to formulating anti-terrorism policy by consulting with groups that deny terrorism exists."

5. One final outrage. Ryan Kirkpatrick is a student at West Park Elementary School in Napa, California. He's 9 years old.

On June 10, it was reported that after learning that some kids cannot afford lunch at school and have to take on debt, he used his saved-up allowance money to pay off those debts for his entire third-grade class - because, according to his mother, he wanted to make a difference. The total came to $74.50.

So why is this an outrage?

Ryan Kirkpatrick

Because why should he have to? Why is it acceptable for some kids to be too poor to afford a school lunch? Why should any child or their family have to depend on private charity - which is exactly what this is - to afford a meal?

Make no mistake, Ryan Kirkpatrick did a good and kind thing. The Outrage is not in what he did - it's in the fact that such an act is ever necessary.

And bear in mind that this comes at the same time that the federal minimum wage has passed an ignominious milestone: It has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009 - and as of June 16 it had gone the longest time without an adjustment since the program was enacted in 1938. In fact, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has been declining since it hit its peak in February 1968 - that's a 51-year long decline in purchasing power.

A majority of states now have minimums above the federal level, but even in those, only three now have minimums above $11.50 an hour - a figure which offers purchasing power slightly below that of the federal minimum those 51 years ago. It's 51 years to get exactly nowhere.

Meanwhile, in 21 states the paltry, miserly, federal minimum is still the standard.

And we're all supposed to believe our economic lords and masters when they tell us the economy is doing great.

28.4 - For the Record: Yemen, GOPpers and education, Nevada marijuana, Belgium's niqab ban, and voter ID

For the Record: Yemen, GOPpers and education, Nevada marijuana, Belgium's niqab ban, and voter ID

Finally for this week, we have an occasional feature called For the Record, where we cover several items briefly just to make sure they do not pass unnoted.

So first up, For the Record: A quick follow-up on last week's Outrage of the Week about Yemen is that according to the Red Cross, the number of cholera cases there has surpassed 300,000.

For the Record: According to a new poll by Pew Research, a majority of GOPpers now maintain that colleges and universities are bad for America, that they, in the words of the poll question, are "having a negative effect on the way things are going in the country these days." 58% of those polled felt that way, an increase of 21 percentage points since 2015 as they adjust their brains to get in tune with the age of TheRump.

For the Record: On July 7, Governor Brian Sandoval of Nevada issued a "statement of emergency." You see, recreational marijuana became legal in Nevada on July 1 and retailers already were running out of stock to sell.

Turns out the problem was a legal snafu because the places that are licensed to sell recreational marijuana don't have the authority to restock their inventory on their own but must obtain it through alcohol wholesalers licensed to be distributors - and no such licenses had been issued.

The statement of emergency allows for a wider range of applicants for the distribution licenses than just those alcohol retailers.

A quick sidebar: One of the objections to legalized marijuana is that the areas around retailers would be magnets for crime.

But according to a new study out of the University of California at Irvine, when Los Angeles used new regulations to close down 439 medical marijuana dispensaries in 2010, crime in the those immediate areas rose 12% while crime in the areas around the dispensaries allowed to remain open was unchanged. That echoed a finding from Denver, where the Police Department saw that through the first nine months of 2010, crime was down 8.2% from the previous year after a dispensary was opened in the neighborhood.

For the Record: In what I find a rather disturbing development, on July 11 the European Court of Human Rights upheld a ban imposed in Belgium on wearing the full-face niqab veil in public. The court ruled that the restriction was for "social cohesion," the "protection of the rights and freedoms of others," and was "necessary in a democratic society."

A woman wearing the niqab

While I realize the niqab has for many become a symbol of the oppression of women under Islam, I still admit to being very uncomfortable with the idea that we can define for others what they will find oppressive and that "social cohesion" is "necessary," particularly when you consider what sorts of oppression such terms have justified in the past.

Finally for this week, For the Record: ProPublica has an interview with a former member of the Wisconsin legislature who now regrets his support for the voter suppression goals of Gov. Scott Walkalloveryou. Better late than never, I suppose, although regrets don't change the laws imposed and a better way to express regret would be to actively campaign to get those laws overturned.

I bring this up because voter ID and voter suppression have again become headlines in the wake of the demands of TheRump's so-called Presidential Advisory Commission On Election Integrity for all sorts of information about every registered voter in the US. I didn't address that this week because there are some other things as well going on about voter suppression and I want to address them together, which I will next week.

13.4 - Clown Award: Bill O"Reilly

Clown Award: Bill O"Reilly

Now for one of our regular features, the Clown Award, given as always for an act of mertitorious stupidity.

There were a couple of nominees this week.

I thought about giving the award to Rep. Louis Gohmert, the man who puts the Gomer in Gohmert.

He has been refusing to hold in-person town hall meetings with constituents - and has referred to the shooting of former representative Gabby Giffords as justification for it.

Gohmert, it develops, is afraid of getting shot - or something, it's not clear - by someone "from the more violent strains of the leftist ideology," who are "preying on town halls." Because yeah, look at all those GOPpers who have been shot or physically beaten during their town halls of late.

And as a reminder, Gabby Giffords was one of 19 people shot at a public event she held in January 2011 by right-wing paranoid schizophrenic Jared Lee Loughner.

Rep. Louis "Gomer" Gohmert

So the assailant was both a rightwinger and mentally ill, but, yeah, it was at a public meeting, so Gomer says that's all he needs to be terrified of lefties coming to a town hall armed with questions.

Gohmert is a true clown, but this seemed more a case of gutless cowardice than clownishness, so we move on to the next nominee.

I was going to give the award to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who attended a so-called "listening session" with leaders of historically black colleges and universities - founded because for many years most institutions of higher learning would not admit blacks.

After that meeting she released a statement in which she called those institutions "living proof" of the importance of her program of promoting taxpayer supported private, profit-oriented schools because those historically black institutions were "real pioneers when it comes to school choice." Because, you know, it's like they had one.

She desperately tried to walk that back the next day after doubling down on it earlier, but the fact is, this was no off-the-cuff-remark-that-came-out-wrong, the kind of goof that any of us might make, this was a prepared press release. They thought about this. They said exactly what they meant to say. Trying to walk that back just makes it all the more clownish.

Betsy DeVos

But then I decided that, no, I couldn't do that, not after racist graffiti was found the next morning scrawled on a main sidewalk at Howard University, one of those historically black institutions.

The "message" read "Welcome to the Trump plantation. Overseer: Wayne A. I. Frederick." Wayne A. I. Frederick, as you knew or likely guessed, is the president of the university.

And I thought no, this is too important, the sort of off-handed, ignorant racism DeVos displayed, that sheltered, privileged ignorance where the meaning of your own words never occurs to you, the reality your words ignore, of which you remain unconscious even though it's obvious once someone points it out, the kind of casual bigotry that the entire TheRump campaign and administration has empowered, emboldened, and encouraged, is too important to toss off with the mockery of a Clown Award.

So again we move on. This time to our winner, and old champion making a return visit to reclaim the title. So this week, the Big Red Nose goes to the man with the world's most perfect initials, Bill O'Reilly.

You likely heard about TheRump declaiming at his campaign rally and yes that is what they called it, a campaign rally, in Florida last Saturday about "look at what's happening last night in Sweden! Sweden! Who would believe this, Sweden!"

Well, of course nothing happened that night in Sweden and it turned out that he had seen a Tucks Carlson interview with some rightwinger on Fox who has a quote documentary unquote claiming there is an immigrant-driven "surge in gun violence and rape" in Sweden which authorities are deliberately hiding, a piece TheRump apparently took to be breaking news.

Interestingly, since then there have been repeated attempts on Fox and other parts of the rightwing media swamp to cast Sweden as some sort of crime-ridden hellhole - because TheRump must be proven right! It is our duty!

Which brings us to Mr. B.O.

On his show on Fox on February 23, he had as a guest one Nils Bildt, billed as "a Swedish defense and national security advisor," there to engage in the predictable xenophobic slam of Sweden's immigration policies, touching on all the usual highlights about crime, "deviant activity," and "no-go areas."

Bill O'Reilly

Here's the problem: Neither Sweden's Defense Ministry nor its Foreign Office had any idea who the heck Nils Bildt is. They had never heard of him.

So who is he? It turns out this expert on Sweden moved out of that country in 1994 and changed his name from Tolling to Bildt in 2003. He says he is "based" in the US but Sweden says the last address they have for him is in Tokyo.

In 2015, he was one of the founders of a consulting firm called Modus World LLC, which according to its website specializes in "operations and management of possible kidnap and ransom situations" - not terrorism - and the website is now "unavailable."

Oh, and he is one other thing: a convicted felon, having been sentenced to a year in prison in 2014 for assaulting a cop, obstruction of justice, and just to make it a triple play, being drunk.

So let's see: Hasn't lived in Sweden for 23 years, has no connection of any kind to Swedish defense or national security, runs - or maybe ran - a business with only a tenuous connection to the issue of terrorism, and has no, not even a claimed, expertise in immigration.

That is who Bill O'Reilly thought would be the perfect guest to discuss immigration in Sweden.

Still in championship form, is Bill O'Reilly - clown.

254.5 - The world in numbers

The world in numbers

Finally for this week, we'll take a quick tour around the world using numbers.

The first number is 50,000. That is the number of people who have been fired or suspended from their jobs in Turkey in wake of last week's failed coup in what now has every sign of being a combination purge and witch-hunt intended to suppress any dissent to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. More than 9400 people have been arrested. Amnesty International has called it "a crackdown of exceptional proportions."

Turkey had stood as the proof that a nation could be both Muslim and democratic, but in recent times there had been concern that Erdogan and his allies in the national legislature had been pushing the nation in an Islamist - by which I mean here a theocratic - direction. In the wake of the failed coup, Erdogan has taken steps to further centralize his power, intensifying that concern.

The next number is 30. That is the number of years for which the British parliament voted to renew the country's Trident program, Trident being a submarine-launched nuclear missile. Trident program is, that is, Britain's nuclear weapons program.

According to new prime minister Theresa May, apparently out to prove she is as Margaret Thatcher as can be, abandoning weapons of mass destruction would be "an act of gross irresponsibility" while she accused critics of the program of being "the first to defend the country's enemies."

The approval for extending the program came despite the fact that the government's own "National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review" found, quoting, "no direct threat to the UK or its vital interests from states developing weapons of mass destruction" - which means, put another way, there is no basis for the claim that Trident is needed to "defend" Great Britain.

The renewal passed handily, 472-117, but beyond absolutely dreaming of a time when 20% of the US Congress would vote to shut down our nuclear weapons programs, I do wonder how many of the "ayes" were based on the attitude expressed by UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon, who said he hoped the vote would somehow prove in the wake of the Brexit vote that the UK is still a player.

Because, it still seems, being able to commit mass murder is how you show you count as a nation.

Next up is the number "less than 9." According to Oxfam, that is the percentage of the world's refugees being hosted by the world's six richest nations combined - and of those six, one hosts a third of their combined total. Those six - the US, China, Japan, Germany, the UK, and France - together account for nearly 57% of the world's GDP.

By contrast, the six nations - Jordan, Turkey, the Palestinian Territory, Pakistan, Lebanon, and South Africa - that host more than half of the world's 24.5 million refugees and asylum seekers account for less than 2% of the world's GDP.

Those with the most are doing the least; those with the least are struggling to do what they can. Sadly, not an unusual situation.

As a quick footnote, these figures do not include people who have been driven from their homes by violence, war, and human rights violations but who have not left their country and so are not counted as refugees but as "internally displaced persons." Include those people and the number of displaced persons rises from 24.5 million to over 65 million, the highest total that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has ever recorded.

The next number is 8. That is how many of the nine primary uses for which medical marijuana is recommended for which prescriptions for corporate-produced drugs have declined in states with medical marijuana laws.

This is based on a detailed study of drug prescriptions over the period 2010-2013 which examined the difference between the annual number of prescriptions per doctor in each category of use in states with and without medical marijuana laws. Thus, for example, they found that a typical doctor in a state with medical marijuana issued nearly 1900 fewer prescriptions for pain killers each year than did doctors in states without medical marijuana.

And so on down the line: Fewer prescriptions per year for anxiety, nausea, psychosis, seizures, sleep disorders, depression, and spasticity, which is uncontrolled muscle stiffness or spasms and is often associated with conditions such as cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis. The only exception was glaucoma, for which prescriptions per doctor rose in states with medical marijuana.

To check their results, the researchers looked at prescriptions for other conditions, ones for which medical marijuana is not recommended, specifically, blood thinners, anti-viral drugs, and antibiotics. They found no difference between medical marijuana states and others, confirming that it was the medical marijuana laws, not something else, that made the difference.

Want to know why Big Pharma is fighting against medical marijuana? The answer is in the numbers: Medical marijuana is cutting into their profits.

Next comes 63. According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, that is the percentage of Americans who hold that race relations in the US are generally bad, with a majority of respondents saying they are getting worse.

The good news, if you can call it that, hidden in the bad is that the increase from 48 percent found in a Pew Research survey this spring was largely driven by white Republicans and white independents who had resisted seeing racial discrimination as a problem but now have been forced to acknowledge it.

Finally, 0.0067, or if you prefer 1/150, or 2/3 of 1 percent. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a company that invests in renewable energy, that is how much solar power per unit of output cost in 2015 as compared to what it cost in 1975. Meanwhile, the number of solar installations is now 115,000 times what it was then.

The company predicts that even as coal and natural gas prices stay low, within 15 years wind and solar will be cheaper in many countries and cheaper in most of the world not long after. In some places where solar energy is most easily available, it is already clearly cheaper: Dubai has received a bid to supply 800 megawatts of solar power at a rate equivalent to "US 2.99 cents per kilowatt hour." By comparison, the average residential price for electricity in the United States is 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.

It's not just the Middle East, either: Austin, Texas, and Palo Alto, California, have signed contracts for solar-generated power at under 4 cents/kwh. Even if you take out the federal investment tax credit, it still comes out at 7 cents/kwh, still well below that national average of 12 cents/kwh.

Unfortunately, this still means that we are truly up against it when it comes to global warming because the timelines involved reach out to 2040, by which time we may already be irrevocably committed to blasting through the 2 degrees Celsius target if in fact we have not already done so - but at least it offers some hope and a promise that the very worst can be headed off.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/20/europe/turkey-failed-coup-attempt/index.html
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/07/18/erdogans-appeal-to-islamists-in-wake-failed-coup-spurs-fears-for-turkeys-future.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/british-parliament-set-to-renew-nuclear-weapons-program-for-three-more-decades/2016/07/18/5892583e-4c5e-11e6-bf27-405106836f96_story.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36820416
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trident-vote-nuclear-weapons-theresa-may-a7142726.html
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/18/world/oxfam-richest-countries-refugees/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/18/refugees-us-china-japan-germany-france-uk-host-9-per-cent
http://www.unhcr.org/statistics/unhcrstats/576408cd7/unhcr-global-trends-2015.html
http://www.unhcr.org/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/one-striking-chart-shows-why-pharma-companies-are-fighting-legal-marijuana/?wpisrc=nl_p1wemost-partner-1&wpmm=1
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/35/7/1230
http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/pain-management-spasticity
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/more-than-6-in-10-adults-say-us-race-relations-are-generally-bad-poll-indicates/2016/07/16/66548936-4aa8-11e6-90a8-fb84201e0645_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/18/3797907/solar-energy-miracle-charts/
http://www.bloomberg.com/company/new-energy-outlook/#findings

247.1 - Some items on LGBTQ rights

Some items on LGBTQ rights

We start the week with some recent news on the LGBTQ rights front. I know I talk about this a lot. One reason is that it's out there, people are thinking/talking/arguing about it; another is that it's been a long-standing concern of mine and it's good to see it reaching that critical mass of public awareness; and most of all because despite the losses, setbacks, and bigotries involved, it still is pleasant to be able to give some attention to something where it feels that we as a society and as a culture actually are making progress. Grudging progress, perhaps, but progress nonetheless.

So let me start by noting that as I do this, Italy is about to pass a law creating civil unions for same-sex couples. [Update: The bill passed on May 11 by a vote of 372-51.]

Italy was the last major Western European country not to recognize some form of legal partnership for same-sex couples, either marriage or civil unions, and even this bill is a heavily-watered down version of one earlier this year after fierce criticism from the Catholic right of a clause that would allow one partner in a same-sex union to adopt the natural child of their partner.

(In one of those "ya gotta just laugh" occurrences, references to "faithfulness" were also stricken because that would make the union "too much like marriage." Apparently, if you're in a civil union, unfaithfulness is to be encouraged.)

Be that as it may, this is still a clear step forward. Heavily-Catholic Italy was a place where this was "never" supposed to happen. So never say never. And in a few years when this has become pretty routine and civilization has not collapsed, there is hope of going further.

By the way, I should emphasize that I referred to Western Europe. Eastern Europe is still a tough place to be anything other than straight.

Here at home, the epicenter du jour is North Carolina, which took its place in the spotlight after the city of Charlotte passed an ordinance expanding protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and the state legislature responded by banning cities and towns in the state from passing laws to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in their localities. The state included what has become known as a "bathroom bill," one that requires transgender people to use public facilities that accord with the gender on their birth certificate rather than their gender identity, that is, how they think of themselves, how they view themselves, how they live.

North Carolina AttGen Roy Cooper

The bill, numbered HB2, lead to a shower of condemnation, withdrawals by businesses, cancelled concerts, threats of boycotts, and even a statement by state Attorney General Roy Cooper that he would not defend the law in court, which together had Gov. Pat McCrory quickly scrambling to "clarify" the state law.

It has also lead to the Department of Justice suing North Carolina, with US Attorney General Loretta Lynch calling its bathroom bill "state-sponsored discrimination" aimed at "a problem that doesn't exist" and likening it to Jim Crow laws.

The "problem" in this case is what has become the go-to argument for the right-wingers, the vision of men putting on dresses and wigs in order to go into women's bathrooms and locker rooms to harass and assault the women and Omigosh! little girls there.

And yes, it is a problem that doesn't exist. Politifact recently reported "search[ing] far and wide" for an example someone convicted of committing a sex crime in the opposite gender's bathroom or locker room in a place that lets transgender people use the bathroom they feel most comfortable with. They couldn't find a single example anywhere in the US. Neither have any conservative groups been able to point to a single case. It's a problem That. Does. Not. Exist.

What's more, not only is this bathroom bill, as even FOX news host Chris Wallace was moved to call it, "a solution in search of a problem," according to new poll by Public Policy Polling, most folks in North Carolina don't like it much.

According to their results, just 36% of voters in the state support HB2, compared to 45% who oppose it. 54% think it's had a negative impact on North Carolina's economy and 53% think it had a negative effect on North Carolina's national reputation. Perhaps most important, only 37% think its passage has made the state safer while 44% think it has not. And while a lot of the rhetoric around the bill been about protecting women, women both oppose the bill and think it's failing to make the state safer by even wider margins than the population as a whole.

That sort of, if you will, split decision between on the one hand bigots making wild claims to justify their bigotry and on the other people trying to simply face the reality of the existence and therefore of the rights of transgender people, also occurred in another place recently: Texas.

Kent Scribner

On April 26, the Fort Worth Independent School District announced guidelines for school district personnel in acknowledging and supporting the gender identity and expression "that each student consistently and uniformly asserts." It includes instructing personnel to address access to restroom and locker room facilities.

Now, the phrase about gender identity that a student "consistently and uniformly asserts" would seem to do away the screeching about boys putting on skirts to get a peek in the girls' locker room, but of course, that doesn't matter. So Texas' lieutenant governor Dan Patrick is calling for the resignation of school superintendent Kent Scribner, claiming Scribner "has lost his focus and thereby his ability to lead the Fort Worth ISD [Independent School District]" and just to be sure he had covered all his bases, he also said "I call upon the parents within the Fort Worth ISD to take immediate steps to repeal this stealthy scheme and remove Dr. Scribner from his post."

Hilariously, Patrick accused Scribner of having "placed his own personal political agenda ahead of" the students. This despite the fact that just last week, Patrick made clear he would support Texas passing a law prohibiting transgender people from using the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity.

Scribner, for his part, says he is proud of the rules and will not resign.

Finally on this topic for this week, remember Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, one of those shrieking about how same-sex marriage was the doom of all that is good in the world?

Well, Bobby Jindal isn't the governor of Louisiana any more and on April 13, the current governor, John Bel Edwards, issued an executive order that protects state workers and state contractors from being fired, discriminated against, or harassed based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.

It has limitations in that it exempts religious organizations such as the Catholic church that contract with the state to provide services, and since it's an executive order, not a law, it doesn't effect those outside state government. And in fact, outside of a government setting Louisiana law does not provide protections against employment nondiscrimination for LGBTQ workers. Even so, this is still a clear - and considering the location, rather bold - step forward.

I still say: On this issue, it may take time, it may take a generation, but justice will come.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/italian-lawmakers-begin-final-debate-on-bill-allowing-same-sex-civil-unions/
http://www.thelocal.it/20160510/italys-civil-unions-bill-gets-put-to-a-final-confidence-vote
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-11/same-sex-unions-bill-gets-final-approval-in-catholic-italy
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/05/10/eastern_europe_is_still_a_very_hard_place_to_be_queer.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/23/charlotte-city-council-approves-transgender-bathroom-ordinance-over-governors-protest.html
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/09/politics/north-carolina-hb2-justice-department-deadline/
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article76503097.html
http://www.salon.com/2016/05/09/ag_loretta_lynch_slams_north_carolina_bathroom_bill_likening_it_to_jim_crow_laws/
http://www.politifact.com/north-carolina/article/2016/apr/22/roundup-hb2-fact-checks-north-carolinas-controvers/
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/4/25/1519775/-Fox-News-host-calls-bathroom-bills-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/04/hb-2-deeply-unpopular-in-north-carolina-voters-think-its-hurting-state.html
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/10/477481119/texas-lt-gov-targets-fort-worth-schools-chief-over-transgender-guidelines
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2016/05/dan-patrick-wants-ft-worth-super-ousted-for-accomodating-for-transgender-students.html/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/13/1514823/-Louisiana-governor-signs-order-protecting-transgender-and-gay-government-workers

Left Side of the Aisle #247

NOTE: Left Side is taking a vaction. The next episode will be for the week of June 2 - 8.

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of May 12-18, 2016

This week:

Some items on LGBTQ rights
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/italian-lawmakers-begin-final-debate-on-bill-allowing-same-sex-civil-unions/
http://www.thelocal.it/20160510/italys-civil-unions-bill-gets-put-to-a-final-confidence-vote
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-11/same-sex-unions-bill-gets-final-approval-in-catholic-italy
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/05/10/eastern_europe_is_still_a_very_hard_place_to_be_queer.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/23/charlotte-city-council-approves-transgender-bathroom-ordinance-over-governors-protest.html
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/09/politics/north-carolina-hb2-justice-department-deadline/
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article76503097.html#emlnl=Evening_NewsletterIt http://www.salon.com/2016/05/09/ag_loretta_lynch_slams_north_carolina_bathroom_bill_likening_it_to_jim_crow_laws/
http://www.politifact.com/north-carolina/article/2016/apr/22/roundup-hb2-fact-checks-north-carolinas-controvers/
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/4/25/1519775/-Fox-News-host-calls-bathroom-bills-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/04/hb-2-deeply-unpopular-in-north-carolina-voters-think-its-hurting-state.html
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/10/477481119/texas-lt-gov-targets-fort-worth-schools-chief-over-transgender-guidelines
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2016/05/dan-patrick-wants-ft-worth-super-ousted-for-accomodating-for-transgender-students.html/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/13/1514823/-Louisiana-governor-signs-order-protecting-transgender-and-gay-government-workers

Some updates on secret trade negotiations
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/09/left-side-of-aisle-75-part-4.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/06/2091-update-on-fast-track.html
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/03/04/3756197/trudeau-visit-preview/
http://www.care2.com/causes/obama-pushes-tpp-despite-overwhelming-concerns.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/07/2126-outrage-of-week-state-dept-to.html
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/05/3709061/tpp-agreement-reached-environmental-concerns-remain/
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/8/1481868/-Obama-signs-TPP-largest-corporate-coup-in-history
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Clinton-Commits-No-TPP-F-by-Dave-Johnson-Corporations_Hillary-Clinton_Issues_Tpp-Trans-pacific-Partnership-160509-882.html
http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/05/188713/clinton%E2%80%99s-vp-trial-balloon-can-she-really-be-full-air
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34629-chamber-of-commerce-lobbyist-tom-donohue-clinton-will-support-tpp-after-election
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/08/2172-more-on-three-secret-trade-deals.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36185746
https://www.nrdc.org/
https://www.nrdc.org/issues/toxic-chemicals
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44603.htm

Clown Award: Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/top-gun-lobbyist-calls-hundreds-child-gun-deaths-occasional-mishaps
http://everytown.org/

Outrage of the Week: Wisconsin Gov. Scott WalkAllOverYou
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/5/7/1523972/-Gov-Scott-Walker-to-form-statewide-pee-database-in-his-latest-attempt-to-stick-it-to-the-poors
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/05/06/3776097/walker-drug-test-unemployment/
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/26/3624447/tanf-drug-testing-states/

Rapid-fire items
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/me-union-charter-study-20160509-snap-story.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/under-the-dome/article76747402.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/05/07/alabamas-top-judge-is-suspended-and-may-lose-job-after-blocking-gay-marriage/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/clinton-must-release-wall_b_9857934.html?m=false
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/san-francisco-protesters-targeting-police-brutality-end-hunger-strike-after-17-days
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/hunger-strike-san-francisco-police-shootings
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/uks-long-delayed-iraq-war-report-published-july-38984787
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-chilcot-inquiry-timeline-of-the-events-from-911-to-the-announced-publication-date-of-chilcot-a7020936.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36024725
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/05/03/us-service-member-killed-in-northern-iraq.html

228.5 - Footnote: Vigilers in French city of Lille drive away right-wing xenophobes

Footnote: Vigilers in French city of Lille drive away right-wing xenophobes

Just as a footnote to that: The day after the Paris attacks, hundreds of people attended a silent vigil in the French city of Lille.

About 15 minutes into the vigil, it was interrupted by a group of around 15 people claiming to be supporters of the National Front, a far-right political party lead by notorious anti-immigrant bigot Marine le Pen.

The group set off firecrackers and screamed "Expel Islamists" while unfurling a large banner with the same message.

They got more than they bargained for: The crowd turned on them, shouting "Go away fascists." The fascists were forced back across the square and had to leave under the protection of police, who kept things from getting too far out of hand.

After they had gone, the crowd broke its silence to sing the French national anthem La Marseilleise.

Frankly, I would love to see an occasion where our sick 31, those governors who want to deny Syrian immigrants a chance to enter, get treated the same way as their cousin xenophobes were in Lille.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-attack-far-right-protesters-who-stormed-silent-vigil-chased-away-by-attendees-shouting-go-away-a6734686.html

228.3 - Considering the attacks in Paris

Considering the attacks in Paris

Okay, we have to talk about Paris.

On Friday, November 13, terrorists who appear to be connected to Daesh, or ISIS, killed 129 people and wounded hundreds more in a series of attacks involving suicide bombers and, more deadly, automatic weapons and explosives aimed at crowds of people at sidewalk cafes and at the Bataclan theater.

Daesh has claimed responsibility for the carnage, even though there remain questions about how much the plan was controlled from Syria as opposed to organized locally and so how much was ideologically rather than organizationally driven.

That distinction, of course, does not matter to the dead and wounded, nor does it matter to their families and friends. Nor should it. Nor should it, except as part of some overriding political calculation, matter to any of the rest of us.

What matters is the pain and the suffering and the blood and the death. More death. More blood. More suffering. More pain.

As always happens, as is natural to happen, the first question that arises is "why?" Why did this happen? And the answer to that question, an answer thought through to get past the simplistic, is important because it can direct us toward an answer to the bigger, more important, question: what now?

But the first thing to do, the very first, even if it's only for a short time, the first thing to do is mourn. To mourn and to condemn the attackers, who, no matter how many injustices real or imagined they may cite in their defense, are still responsible for their actions and they are still cowardly murders.

And then, after, we can ask why. There are, of course, lots of official officials and expert experts already making statements and sopping up ink and air time with answers that run the gamut from "they hate us" to "they are fanatics" and back again as if such a puny range represented thoughtful thought and analytical analysis.

Instead of speculating on why they hate us or dismissing the question with some version of "haters gonna hate," how about we ask them? Writing in The Nation recently, Lydia Wilson, field director at Artis International, which she described as a consortium for scientific study in the service of conflict resolution, described her experience of questioning ISIS members who had been taken prisoner:

Many [people] assume that these fighters are motivated by a belief in the Islamic State, a caliphate ruled by a caliph. ... But this just doesn't hold for the prisoners we are interviewing. They are woefully ignorant about Islam and have difficulty answering questions about Sharia law, militant jihad, and the caliphate. ...

There is no question that these prisoners I am interviewing are committed to Islam; it is just their own brand of Islam, only distantly related to that of the Islamic State. Similarly, Western fighters traveling to the Islamic State are also deeply committed, but it’s to their own idea of jihad rather than one based on sound theological arguments or even evidence from the Qur'an.

In other words, it is not a commitment to any radical Islam that drives them. That's a judgment seconded by Doug Stone, a retired American general who spent over two years in Iraq during the US occupation, interviewing prisoners on a daily basis. He said that 80 percent of the prisoners he interviewed had the same profile as the ISIS prisoners Wilson saw: men in their late 20s who had come to age during the US occupation of Iraq and had the same complaint, that the US invaded, threw out Saddam, and it lead to civil war, leaving them, as Sunnis, oppressed and abandoned.

These men now are not driven by the idea of an Islamic caliphate; rather, ISIS is now the one group that offers them a way to defend - or at least a way to feel they are defending - their dignity, their family, their tribe.

How may times have I said it? ISIS, Daesh, grew out of disaffected Sunnis who felt abandoned and then betrayed by the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad, a government that existed due to the United States. Maybe it's a step too far to say we created Daesh, but it's not too far to say we created the conditions in which it could take root and flourish.

And that points to the answer to the question "what now?" And the first, the most important, answer is what not to do: not to engage in what one writer pointedly called "the weaponization of grief," the turning of this crime into an excuse for other, additional, even greater crimes.

Beirut bombing

But of course, that's already what's happening, as French president Francois Hollande declares that France is now "at war" - as if France had not been bombing ISIS-held areas in Iraq and, more recently, Syria since last year. Old questions - what now - getting old answers: more bombs.

It won't work - that is, unless your goal is to, to slightly misquote Mark Twain, "drown the thunder of the bombs with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain," unless your goal is more senseless killing, more blood, more anger, more fury, more militants ready to die, ready to commit havoc on the innocent, ready for terror.

That new anger is already being generated by another event, just one day before the attacks in Paris: A pair of suicide bombers, who appear to have been sent by ISIS, blew themselves up in separate attacks in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. Forty-three people were killed, nearly 250 more wounded.

To the almost complete silence of the West. No Lebanese flags were flown, no cries of "We are all Lebanese now" streamed across social media, no buildings were lit in the red, white, and green of the Lebanese flag. Oh, it was reported, surely enough: For example, the New York Times carried one story. On page 6.

In response to the Paris attacks, the Times ran six stories the first day, three of them on the front page, two of them above the fold. There were 20 follow-up stories the next day, four of them on the front page. The day after that, there were 15 more follow-ups, again four of them on page 1. Forty-one stories in three days, 11 of them on the front page. One story on page 6 for Beirut.

Perhaps even more telling was the fact that in covering the terrorism in Paris, the Times headline was "Paris Terrorist Attacks Kill over 100." In covering the terrorism in Beirut, the single story on page 6 was initially headlined "Deadly Blasts Hit Hezbollah Area in Southern Beirut," later changed to "Hezbollah Stronghold." Hezbollah, as I expect you know, is regarded by the west as a terrorist group. Reuters, NPR, and MSNBC all joined in shouting "Hezbollah." This was despite the fact that the New York Times article itself says the neighborhood "typifies working-class Beirut, where Palestinians, Christians and Syrian refugees (mostly Sunnis) live, work and shop" and later calls it a "bustling area with narrow streets, many small shops and vendors selling fruits and vegetables from stalls and pushcarts."

Even Daesh, in claiming responsibility for the attacks, said the target was Shiite Muslims, who it views as apostates, and mentioned Hezbollah almost as an afterthought.

But no matter. Somehow, in the eyes of major western media, the presence of a Hezbollah office in the area made all those civilians disappear into a terrorist "stronghold." They became "other." Well, then, no wonder we couldn't be bothered to mourn them. Or even remember them, once someplace we think of as "us" was attacked.

Do you think people in the Middle East don't see that? You think they don't see that difference? You think they don't see that difference as demonstrating the West's indifference to what they live every day? You think that doesn't fuel anger, rage, fury?

How long can we keep making the same stupid mistakes? How long can we keep charging down the same blind alleys? How long can we tell ourselves that - Democrats' version - a little more bombing or - GOPpers' version - a lot more troops will do what bombing is failing to do in Syria, what 140,000 troops failed to do in Iraq, what 100,000 troops failed to do in Afghanistan?

We've got to find another way. We've got to take another way. It has been said, quite truthfully, that those who deal in vengeance tend to become that which they oppose. So we have got to stop imagining that vengeance, that "get them back" is the answer or even an answer. We have got to find the courage to say we will not be terrorized, we will not be afraid, we will not be intimidated, but we will not become what we oppose. We will not become, or, if I'm to be completely honest here, we will stop being, terrorists.

No, that won't be easy and no, it won't be safe. But the hard truth is that while you can kill terrorists, you can't kill terrorism, as the recent history of the Taliban to al-Qaeda to Daesh should have taught us but has yet to do so. Terrorism can't be killed and ultimately it can't be bombed or invaded into submission except at most temporarily. It can only be overcome by being dried up, desiccated to the point of, like Voldemort in the movie version, turning to dust and blowing away - and that requires not attacks but aid, not ultimatums but understanding, not bombs but bread; it requires, bottom line, justice. It requires acting with justice - and not the kind of "justice" that is just a code word for vengeance, for "get them back," for tit for tat, but true justice. It requires acting justly, even when it's not convenient, even when it's inconvenient.

The dead everywhere deserve no less of an honor.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article45267471.html#emlnl=Evening_Newsletter
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/13/europe/bataclan-paris-shooting-witness/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/17/politics/paris-terror-attacks-isis-syria/
http://www.thenation.com/article/what-i-discovered-from-interviewing-isis-prisoners/
http://fair.org/home/context-free-coverage-of-terror-helps-perpetuate-its-causes/
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/twain/warpray.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/16/middleeast/beirut-explosions/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
http://fair.org/home/its-true-media-did-cover-beirut-bombings-about-140th-as-much-as-they-covered-paris-attacks/
http://fair.org/home/media-turn-civilian-isis-victims-in-beirut-into-hezbollah-human-shields/
http://newserprdweb.cloudapp.net/article/c751d3d05fc74fb2bb4a87835aee2cf9/what-about-beirut-as-world-grieves-after-paris-attacks-mideast-victims-of-is-feel-ignored.html

226.2 - Update: Same-sex marriage, LGBTQ rights advance in Chile, retreat in Italy

Update: Same-sex marriage, LGBTQ rights advance in Chile, retreat in Italy

Next up, some updates on the issue of same-sex marriage and, more generally, LGBTQ rights. This time with a bit of an international flavor.

On the Good News side, as of October 22, the nation of Chile recognizes civil unions for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. The bill, the product of four years' work, was signed into law on April 13 and went into effect six months later. These civil unions offer some of the rights of marriage, including being able to make health care decisions on behalf of their same-sex partner and to receive pension and survivor benefits. Same sex couples legally married outside Chile will be granted civil union status.

These are civil unions, not full marriages, but there are signs Chile may be moving in that direction: Back in January one of the two houses of the Chilean legislature actually passed a bill recognizing same-sex marriage - but the other one rejected it, leading to the civil union compromise.

South America is making some strides on this. Yes, I know the map is in Spanish; you can figure it out, including that the bar graph shows support for same-sex marriage in different countries. What's easy to see is that Chile is now one of six South American nations, representing more than 80% of the population of the continent, with some form of recognition for same-sex couples: Two have full same-sex marriage rights, while four have civil unions. And in one of those, Brazil, same-sex marriage has been approved, but the matter is on appeal, so for now it's just civil unions.

So there is progress and good news there.

Under the heading Not Good News, however, is the fact that about a week ago, Italy’s highest administrative court issued a verdict that in practical fact nullifies over 100 same-sex marriages that had been recognized there. That is, over 100 couples who had been married are suddenly unmarried.

The recognition of those marriages had resulted from some local Italian officials, including the mayor of Rome, having grown tired of the national government's intransigence on the issue. So they recorded same-sex marriages that had been performed legally outside Italy on civil registries, effectively recognizing those marriages. A lower court said that the marriages were valid unless challenged individually by the Italian government.

The new ruling, a victory for the anti-justice reactionaries, overturns that lower court decision, giving the central government the power to annul all those marriages in a single swoop, which it is sure to do since that's what it wanted to do all along. Italy thus remains the only mainland European nation to refuse to offer any sort of legal recognition to same-sex couples.

Interestingly, even here there is some thread of good news: This decision comes at a time when support for same-sex marriage is becoming a majority position in Italy: In a poll from a couple of months ago, 51 percent of voters said they would support same-sex marriage and two thirds, 67 percent, said they were in favor of civil unions.

Sources cited in links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_same-sex_unions_in_Chile
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/29/chile-same-sex-civil-unions-_n_6569912.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Brazil
http://www.care2.com/causes/nullified-italy-just-wiped-out-what-little-gay-marriage-recognition-it-had.html
http://www.thelocal.it/20150527/tide-turning-in-italy-over-gay-marriage