Reaction to breaking up families—so similar to Nazi actions against Jews—may be turning point in what Americans will stomach to protect themselves from their own unrealistic fears

By Marc Jampole

Virtually all Democrats and independents and significant numbers of Republicans have joined the mainstream media and much of the right-wing media in condemning the new U.S. policy of separating children from their families at the border no matter what the circumstances. Even evangelical celebrities like Franklin Graham (Billy’s boy) who have made excuses for the past immoralities of Trump have come out against breaking up families. Interestingly enough, condemnation by religious leaders and Republicans intensified after Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders declared that scriptures demanded harsh treatment of children whose parents are fleeing their countries.

Yet if Facebook and Twitter are any indication, a significant number of people are buying into the argument that those seeking asylum from natural or man-made disasters are breaking the law, and that’s what happens to criminals: they lose their families. This anti-immigration faction buys into the brand new policy that no one should enter the United States as a refugee. One heartless Facebooker even reasoned that we don’t let incarcerated prisoners stay with their children and this situation was the same thing, equating convicted felons with victims of forces beyond their control.

In her widely condemned news conference, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen played into the fears and hatreds of those voters who want to shut our borders tight and punish those who try to enter as harshly as possible. Her statement that many drug cartel members rent children to make a better case for entry is absurd. Ever since the Clinton Administration started extreme vetting of refugees and other immigrants, vetting that was quite thorough then and enhanced by Bush II and Obama, U.S. immigration officials can usually pretty quickly ferret out the small numbers of fake families. The proof of that fact is that for decades, study after study shows that crime rates among immigrants—legal and illegal—are much lower than for the native-born population, for both violent and non-violent offenses.

Thus Nielsen builds on the network of lies about immigration that Trump and his supporters have spewed for the past few years. Despite what they say, we do not have an epidemic of violence by immigrant gangs. Hordes of criminals and low lifes are not banging down the gates to get in. But Trump, Sessions, Nielsen and others keep repeating these lies and using them as the excuse for unnecessarily cruel actions such as ending DACA and ripping children from their families at the border.

On both DACA and refuge families, Trump has told the same set of lies repeatedly: 1) A law Democrats passed forced him to do it; 2) He hates it and wants to see it end; 3) But it will take the cooperation of the Democrats and they won’t give it. What a mess of lies we have here! It was Trump alone, perhaps with the urging of racist Sessions and self-loathing Jewish Nazi Stephen Miller, who decided to end DACA. Trump alone who approved the brand-new policy to separate children and parents at the border, even in the case of refugees. Finally, with Republicans controlling every branch of government, no Democrat is needed to pass a law prohibiting separating families at U.S. borders or giving the Dreamers a path to citizenship. What they present as facts are lies. Their logic is a lie.

But the supporters ignore these mendacious arguments, because they believe the main lie: that those entering are primarily bad people who will take our jobs away and that the United States should no longer welcome people fleeing state or gang violence and natural disasters.

The breaking up of families—so similar to Nazi actions against Jews in concentration camps—may symbolize a turning point in what Americans will stomach to protect themselves from their own unrealistic fears. Remember that, when the horrifying news of the Bush II torture gulag made the news, survey after survey showed that more than 50% of all Americans were okay with torture for matters of national security. Their fears and their blood-thirst for revenge after 9/11 spoke so loudly that they didn’t hear the quiet fact that torture doesn’t work. Maybe we should be proud that only 27% of people (but 55% of Republicans) agree with the Trump policy of breaking up families, while 66% are against it. Likewise, 67% of Americans want to give Dreamers citizenship and another 8% want them to stay without becoming citizens. We may approve of torture, but not of ripping families apart.

At this tragic moment, that is small solace for a nation ashamed of itself and aching with the pain of bystanders who feel helpless to relieve the suffering of others.

Editorial: Skunk Punks G7 Allies

Donald Trump played the role of the skunk at the Group of 7 garden party in Quebec June 8-9, as he showed up late, berated the six other national leaders for retaliating against his tariffs on steel and aluminum, and left early, refusing to sign off on the customary communique papering over their differences.

Trump had grumbled about having to go to the G7 meeting at all, and he raised a stink before he made it to the summit, with Twitter attacks on Canada’s trade policies and suggesting that Russia be invited to rejoin the alliance of economic powers, after it was expelled following the 2014 forcible annexation of Crimea.

Once at the summit, Trump engaged in what a French official described to Reuters as a “rant” full of “recriminations” against US trading partners, followed by his public denial of any contention with leaders at the summit, as he said their relationship was a “10.” a

The next morning, Trump showed up conspicuously late to a breakfast meeting on women’s empowerment, missing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s opening statement and creating a distraction with his entry while Isabelle Hudson, Canada’s ambassador to France and co-chair of the gender equality council, was speaking.

Trump left before the ending of the summit, to travel to Singapore, where he was to meet his new best friend, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. The remaining six national leaders discussed climate change and environmental crises and reaffirmed their commitment to implement the Parish Agreement on climate change, from which Trump is withdrawing the US. Trump representatives offered a paragraph promoting cleaner fossil fuels.

On Air Force One, Trump heard that Prime Minister Trudeau had spoken at a press conference about retaliatory measures that Canada would take in response to Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, Mexico and the European Union. “Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable but we also will not be pushed around,” Trudeau told reporters.

Angry Trump said he ordered his representatives to back out of the joint communique that attempted to minimize the trade dispute, leaving the leaders of Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Japan to agree on the need for “free, fair, and mutually beneficial trade” and the importance of fighting protectionism.

Trump tweeted: “PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, ‘US Tariffs were kind of insulting’ and he ‘will not be pushed around.’ Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!”

Trump added he might escalate the trade war by putting tariffs on imported cars and car parts, which would devastate the Canadian auto industry, which is highly integrated with the US.

Trump told reporters it would be “very easy” to make the case for tariffs on auto imports, using the rationale that they threaten national security. “It’s economic. It’s the balance sheet. To have a great military, you need a great balance sheet,” he said.

Trump also repeated his desire to have a “sunset clause” in an updated NAFTA deal, requiring it to be renegotiated every five years, which Trudeau has rejected.

The United Steelworkers union has supported the tariffs on steel and aluminum, but expressed disappointment that the Trump Administration applied the tariffs to Canadian mills, based on supposed national security concerns, under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.

“The decision not to exempt Canada ignores the fact that Canada’s steel and aluminum exports to the United States are fairly traded and that Canada has shown its willingness to strengthen its laws as well as its cooperation with the United States to fight unfair trade,” USW stated May 31.

Early results showed the tariffs were having the intended impact, USW said, as thousands of jobs were created or saved as trading partners finally began to take action against the root of all the problems: China. Mills in Europe and Japan are more closely matched with US producers.

The same goes for proposed tariffs on auto parts. United Auto Workers President Dennis Wilson welcomed the Trump administration’s investigation of the impact of imported cars on national security. “The United States became a dumping ground for a lot of countries at a very low cost,” he said May 24.

But the trade group that represents General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ interests in Washington is dubious that the probe will give Trump cover to implement tariffs or limit imports.

“We are confident that vehicle imports do not pose a national security risk to the US,” the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said, according to Bloomberg News. In addition to the Big Three US brands, the Alliance also includes BMW, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz USA, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo, all of which build vehicles in the US.

US goods and services trade with Canada totaled $673.9 billion in 2017, with a net trade surplus of $8.4 billion for the US, according to the Office of US Trade Representative. However, Canada had a $17.5 billion surplus in goods in 2017 while the US had a $25.9 billion surplus in services.

US goods and services trade with China totaled $648.5 billion in 2016 and the US goods trade deficit with China was $347 billion. That is the gap the Trump Administration needs to address.

Talking with Kim is Better than Tweeting

We hope the vague agreement between Trump and Kim Jong Un in Singapore survives the flight back home, though we suspect that, in the North Korean dictator, Trump may have met his match in the grifting game. Other US presidents have tried to sound out North Korea leaders on the possibility of reducing tensions along the 38th Parallel, which separates North and South Korea. Trump critics objected to his giving Kim the legitimacy of a summit meeting, but 65 years after an armistice replaced the shooting with a standoff at the Demilitarized Zone, North Korea remains technically at war with South Korea and the US, and we think respectful talk between Trump and Kim is better than exchanges of insulting tweets.

Trump was unprepared to negotiate the details of a peace treaty or “denuclearization” with Kim, but if he gets peace talks going, with the support of South Korea President Moon Jae-In, who has led the peace efforts, we can mark it as a good thing.

North Korea’s longtime allies, Russia and China, probably would welcome an end to North Korea’s bellicose rhetoric, even if Kim is unwilling to give up his nuclear weapons — particularly after John Bolton, said in March, after he became Trump’s national security adviser, that the administration should insist on a “Libyan Solution” for North Korea — requiring Kim to give up his nuclear weapons before any agreements could be reached. Bolton referred to George W. Bush’s demand that Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi give up his nuclear program in 2003 in exchange for security guarantees from the US. Of course, Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011 with British, French and US military assistance. Saddam Hussein met a similar fate in Iraq in 2003 after giving up his nuclear ambitions, and Trump has shown he doesn’t respect the agreement made by his predecessor, Barack Obama, to limit Iran’s nuclear program. Kim won’t be giving up his nukes anytime soon in exchange for the assurances of Trump — a notorious liar and reneger. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, July 1-15, 2018

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Copyright © 2018 The Progressive PopulistPO Box 819, Manchaca TX 78652

Selections from the July 1-15, 2018 issue

COVER/Hal Crowther
Time for the midnight ride

EDITORIAL
Skunk punks G7 allies; Talking with Kim better than tweeting

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

DON ROLLINS
The road to hopelessness

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Greitens’ big guns misfire

DISPATCHES
Medicare, Social Security stressed but expendable;
Pelosi’s PAYGO pledge frustrates progressive goals;
Trump tops 3,251 lies in 500 days;
Mulvaney fires advisory board whose members criticized him;
Is Obamacare here to stay?
Supreme Court clears way for diseinfranchisement of voters;
US dairy trade policy is simple: basically no imports at all;
Feinstein bill would prohibit family separations at border;
Net neutrality is officially dead ...

ART CULLEN
Our dirty secret

JILL RICHARDSON
‘Pro-family’ homophobia rips families apart

JOHN YOUNG
Serious case of parasitism in executive branch

PETER CERTO
Never mind the wall — they’re building warehouses

BOB BURNETT
All the president’s men: Mike Pompeo

GENE NICHOL
RFK fifty years on

SALLY HERRIN
‘Red pill’: Lessons for the left

JASON SIBERT
A nation’s word should mean something

BOOK REVIEW/Seth Sandronsky 
A fraught century

JOEL D. JOSEPH
Harley-Davidson is moving jobs offshore despite tax cut and subsidies

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas 
Work makes you insured

SAM URETSKY
Time for labor to fight back

GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Time to think big

WAYNE O’LEARY
New wind sweeps Mexico

JOHN BUELL
War as our way of life?

KENT PATERSON 
Migrants in US struggle to participate in 2018 Mexican elections

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
Nolo Contendere

ROB PATTERSON
How about those Beatles

ED RAMPELL
Rigging Rigoletto’s fate: Send in the clowns

Atlantic runs ridiculous article that proposes to replace NY subways with driverless hoverboards rented at market price from private companies

By Marc Jampole

Atlantic’s editors must have all taken stupid pills on the same day or forgot that editors are also supposed to check the math. Or maybe they thought it was a science fiction fairy tale when they agreed to run “The New York City Subway Is Beyond Repair” by software expert Peter Weyner?

Weyner proposes to replace the New York subway system with underground paved roads on which a variety of private fleets of driverless vehicles would transport New Yorkers directly to their destinations, all guided by one central scheduling system. Prices would vary depending on the time of day and type of vehicle employed, as Weyner imagines a market for both basic transportation and luxury cars outfitted with a desk and chair. He believes it will be cheaper to convert the subway system and buy fleets of driverless vehicles than the $19 billion that Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) chief Andy Byford says it will take the fix the subways. Weyner, whose expertise in the matter seems to be that he has self-published a few books about driverless cars, prophesizes that it will take less energy to run the tens of thousands driverless vehicles than it does to run the current fleet of subways.

Weyner’s exposition has a sieve-like number of logical holes in it. First off, he never demonstrates why a $19 billion price tag means that, of necessity, we should replace the railed mass transit concept. It’s called a “pons asinorum” in Latin, or “bridge of asses”: A being true does not lead to B being true, and wouldn’t even if both were true, which in this case, they are not.

The article’s basic premise connects two ideas—privatization and replacement of trains by driverless vehicles for individual users—that don’t have to exist together. We could privatize subways or we could have the government finance, build and run the system Weyner proposes. Of course, Weyner believes that privatization will lead to a greater choice of vehicles, amenities and other features without explaining how that could be a benefit to those wanting to get to the office or the jazz club on time and cheaply. Weyner undercuts his own argument without even knowing it when he notes that the subway lines were originally privately run. Yes, they were. But he does not complete his history: Private ownership of subways didn’t work out too well, so within a few decades government took over with a pledge to provide inexpensive and reliable public transportation to 1.75 billion rides a year.

Weyner’s math never really adds up. At best, he does hasty analysis that does not take every factor into consideration; at worst, he’s purposely trying to do some math magic tricks, similar to politicians who propose that lowering taxes on the wealthy and corporations leads to greater job creation.

Let’s start with basic size, which in the case of vehicles matters a lot. The average 10-car subway train holds 1,832 people according to the manufacturer, but Weyner says 2,000 and I saw someone estimate it at 2,200. At rush hour, trains typically hold 103% of capacity, or 1887 if we use the manufacturer’s recommendation. At 1,832 per train at peak capacity, that’s 2.41 square feet per person; at 2,000, it’s 2.21 square feet. The current generation of Segways, the hoverboard I checked, measures from 5.41 square feet to 9.16 square feet, or from 2.25 to 3.8 times larger than the footprint of a subway rider. Thus, excluding the room that will have to exist between each vehicle as it rolls along the underground road, it will take from 2.25 to 3.8 times the total length of driverless vehicles to replace your average subway train at rush hour.

But wait. It’s going to be much more additional space than that. Remember that rich folk will be able to get customized luxury cars. And what about people traveling in groups, those carrying a lot of packages, or people with disabilities? Those traveling with strollers, bicycles or dogs in containers? Those who need to eat while they ride? Some people absolutely have to sit down for health reasons. A lot of the vehicles will end up being bigger than the current 5.41-9.16 square feet of a hoverboard. The bigger the vehicle, the more space needed between vehicles. That’s simple physics. Certainly the space between vehicles will be much more than the inches that separate New Yorkers on rush hour trains. Even with the efficiency of driverless vehicles under a central scheduling authority using sophisticated software, it’s hard to see how individual vehicles will be able to move the New York rush hour crowds as efficiently as an upgraded subway system with new switching systems could do.

That’s where peak pricing comes in, Weyner says. Peak pricing will influence people to select alternative times of day to travel. Let’s forget the obvious logical flaw—that a public authority can also do peak pricing for rail transit. Lots of people do not have flexible hours, and many (if not most) New York employers already stagger start and end times to accommodate the New York rush hour craziness their employees go through. The least flexible in travel times will virtually always be those who earn the least, so moving to any kind of peak pricing for mass transit will inevitably have a disparately negative impact on the poor, and thus go against the basic mission of the subway system for more than a century.

Weyner’s numbers for energy savings are just plain sloppy. He estimates that running the hoverboards will take only 20% of the electrical energy that running the subways does, but conveniently forgets to mention that he’s comparing apples to a basket of mixed fruit. He only estimates the electrical costs for running the hoverboards, whereas the MTA annual use of 1.8 billion kilowatt hours includes the electricity to power the lighting along the tracks, in the stations and outside entrances, the signal system, the toll booths and the elevators; FYI, Weyner’s plan calls for adding more lights to the roadways. Weyner also conveniently forgets to calculate how much electricity the non-hoverboard vehicles will use. Missing, too is an estimate of the total number of vehicles included in his estimate for energy use.

Let’s not forget that after a $19 billion investment, there will be fewer delays and breakdowns, meaning the subway system will use less electrical power.

The article never considers maintenance costs for concrete roads versus rails or the lifespan of hoverboards versus railcars, but he does make a big show of trying to prove it will take much less than $19 billion to convert to his vision. But when it comes to estimating how much it would cost to clean up the subways, pull up the tracks and pave them, add lights, install the appropriate software systems and buy the vehicles, Weyner is pulling numbers out of the air, with no basis. Again, he estimates the costs of hoverboards, but not of the hundreds if not thousands of bigger vehicles that will be needed for those with disabilities, groups, people with packages, those who need to sit and luxury travelers. He never tells us how he derived the figure of $8 million a mile to clean up and he never places a number on the additional lighting that will be required. His budget lacks so many crucial items that it’s essentially worthless in making a comparison to the cost of fixing what ails the subway system.

The paragraph on the great new money-making opportunity that an underground road with driverless vehicles will create makes me wonder if Weyner has ever ridden a New York subway. He sees untapped wealth in placing advertising billboards along these underground roads. He never answers the question why companies are going to want to pay more for ads along the underground roadways than they now pay for ads in the subway cars; nor does he estimate how much more ad space will be available on these underground billboards than already exists inside current subway cars. The only way not to chide him for these omissions is to assume he has never seen subway car advertising, which means he has never ridden in the New York subway.

Another sign that Weyner has never actually ridden the subway extensively is that he never addresses what to do with the 40% of the subway system which is at ground level, or more frequently, dozens of feet above the ground. Does he propose to enclose the elevated lines or place safety rails on their sides, and how much is that going to cost? I can tell you one thing: it will take a ton more money to dig new tunnels to replace the els than it will to complete the MTA’s $19 billion laundry list of current needs.

Subway systems in general are a product of 19th century thinking, just as Weyner accuses them of being. But big deal! That does not mean subways are obsolete, as Weyner declares at the beginning of the article. The idea that dedicated mass transit systems are the ideal way to transport large numbers of people in urban areas is a lot younger than the idea that we should do unto others as we would have others do unto us, or that wheels encounters less friction than blocks in moving a weight over a surface. There are lots of old ideas and technologies that are still valid, many of which have undergone improvement over time; stereo amplifiers than play MP3s, electric screwdrivers, refrigerators that make ice, cars with electronic systems and batteries, and computers that take photos and make phone calls that you can carry with you in your pocket all immediately come to mind. Nothing in this mess of an article should convince us to abandon subways or the $19 billion improvement plan the MTA has developed.

And therein lies the real harm of this article and the real disservice that Weyner and Atlantic have done to New York and the entire country. Right-wingers everywhere will wave the article in the air and declare piously that it’s a waste of money for the state or the federal government to help fund the MTA’s ambitious but necessary improvements. And that has the potential to devastate the New York economy, and therefore the national economy, which is intimately tied to the economic well-being of its largest city. With all due respect to Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco-San Jose, Houston and Atlanta, New York has been the heartbeat of American commerce and finance for almost 200 years now. The New York subway system—like the tunnels taking rail traffic from New Jersey to Manhattan and like the Washington subway system and like our system of roads and bridges and sewer systems everywhere—are living on borrowed time. We have spent the past 30 years cutting infrastructure spending to line the pockets of the wealthy through deep and steady tax cuts. It’s time to invest in our country’s public infrastructure again, not spin pie-in-the-sky free market science fiction fantasies.

Why does Trump keeping acting against U.S. interests in foreign policy? Stupidity? Narcissism? Or maybe it’s money from Russia & elsewhere

By Marc Jampole

Let’s take a bird’s eye view at the foreign policy accomplishments of Donald Trump in the past 500+ days:

Trump has insulted our allies and made nice with long-time adversaries, showing a decided preference for autocrats such as the Philippine’s Duarte and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un over democratically elected leaders, especially those who happen to be women.

He has walked away from multilateral agreements that were working such as the Paris Accord and the Iran Nuclear agreement. He has also threatened to blow up other trade agreements and kept the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has given the Chinese an opening to dominate Pacific trade.

Trumpty-Dumpty has inflicted trade tariffs on our allies, who have always played by the international rules of treaties, while helping out a Chinese company ZTE, which was found to have broken trade sanctions multiple times.

He pissed off most of the world by making an unnecessary and totally symbolic move of the U.S. embassy in Israel and he took sides in a dispute between Saudi Arabia and Qatar that we had no business poking our noses into.

Trump has weakened the U.S. foreign policy capability by shrinking the State Department, forcing out career diplomats and not filling open positions. Meanwhile, with the help of Congressional Republicans, he has increased the military budget and approved further development of robot weapons that operate without human intervention and the next generation of nuclear weapons. He has also jacked up American use of military power in a number of global hotspots. The net effect of these policies is to tell the world that America is turning its back on the idea of multilateral diplomacy in favor of pushing its military might around.

Even the one move that might work out in favor of the United States could end up backfiring, an instance of losing by winning. That’s the Korean peninsula. While the world would be safer from nuclear attack if the North Koreans dismantled their nuclear capability, de-escalation of tensions between the two Koreas would curtail the need for so many U.S. troops and weaponry in South Korea, military assets which are directed at China and Russia as much as at North Korea. A peace treaty could also enable China to build a pipeline through North Korea to provide South Korea with natural gas, something that will help both China and Russia. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to broker a peace and thereby denuclearize the Korean position. I’m merely pointing out that to truly contribute to world peace, the United States must in a sense “thread the needle,” i.e., construct a nuanced deal that seems beyond the capabilities of the broad-brushed, bad-with-details Trump to engineer. The result then could be a lopsided deal that while stabilizing the Korean peninsula also destabilizes representational democracy throughout the globe.

Many of Trump’s foreign policy moves, such as the help to ZTE and the bullying of Qatar have seemed to be connected to his private business matters. The move against Qatar followed Qatar denying the Trump organization some loans, whereas the help for ZTE came after the Chinese delivered a massive loan to a Trump partner. If it’s true that the Trump Administration has made deals with countries based on how well those countries treat Trump’s business interests, it will be unconstitutional (the “emoluments clause”), unethical and unheard of. Throughout American history, politicians such as Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Averill Harriman, John Foster Dulles, George W. H. Bush and others have conducted foreign policy to help American businesses, but it’s never been their own business!

Of course, virtually all of the foreign policy actions Trump has taken have help Russia in one way or another, providing at least circumstantial evidence that Trump is the “Siberian candidate,” bought and paid for long before the 2016 elections.

What kind of person sells out his or her own country for money? Some would say a self-centered narcissist. Or perhaps a ruthless power seeker, much like David, son of Jesse of Bethlehem, who used the troops of his country’s enemy to take control. Or perhaps like several British communist spies, Trump thinks his country is unjust or wrong, and has thrown in with a country pursuing a superior way of life. Based on the body of evidence made in his public statements, for Trump a superior way of life would be an ethnically cleansed white country whose autocratic government tries to control the mores and beliefs of its citizens. It doesn’t, however, matter much why Trump would have sold his soul to Putin. It still makes him the same thing: a traitor.

We should also consider the possibility that there is a basic miswiring in Trump’s brain, something that compels him almost always to make the wrong decision. I once tried to teach someone chess who, when presented with overwhelming evidence that one move was strong and another weak, would repeat with a great deal of cognizance the facts and then always make the wrong move. Always. You could see this disconnect in the person’s approach to math, too, so it was a basic miswiring in the brain, a kind of defect that made this person make the wrong choice. Perhaps Trump has a similar disability. That he also tends to take the side against evidence in immigration, environmental, healthcare and gun control issues provides additional support to the idea that his brain doesn’t work quite right, as does his past failure in every business except branding and entertainment.

Of course, Trump’s problem could be in his head, not mental, but emotional. In his extreme narcissism, perhaps Trump believes that the power of his will can overcome the reality of facts. As the superior man, he can bend the actions not just of other humans, but of nature itself. He wouldn’t be the first to mistake Schopenhauer’s “will to power” for an advantage the superior man has over others. Hitler and his crew beat Trump to the punch in trying to will the world into their own base and debased image. In saying that he dominated the most recent G-7 summit, in not seeing that he embarrassed himself and the United States, we see signs of the narcissism that makes some people believe they can shape, change or twist reality to their own liking.

So yes, it’s quite possible that the Trump foreign policy derives from a small brain malfunction, his emotional illness or even just his unfortunate but almost laughable combination of ignorance and low intellectual abilities.

But I’ll bet on the money. He has sold out his country for a bag of gold coins, like Benedict Arnold or Judas Iscariot.

One group cheering the separation of children from their parents at the border is the private prison industry

By Marc Jampole

Many of us remember the feeling of needing to wash off the collective sins and corruption of torture when the news first came out in 2006 of what American soldiers and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives had committed in the name of freedom in Abu Ghraib and other detentions centers around the world.

We are feeling the same sickness, the same heartache and the same shame this week in learning that under the current administration, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has routinely been separating children from their families, even if the family is legally seeking asylum as a political, wartime or natural disaster related refugee. These children, already burdened by physical displacement and whatever impelled the family to seek a new country must now also suffer the additional trauma of separation from their parents and housing in prison-like conditions. Even if treated with kindness, most children would be terrified by the separation. Their time apart from their mothers and fathers would be lonely and insecure. It’s enough to scar most people for life, the kind of insecurity that the latest research shows lowers our intellectual abilities.

There can be no doubt that Trumpty-Dumpty and his crew take a special pleasure in inflicting pain on those unable to defend themselves. They believe that it’s part of the get-tough image that communicates that the United States has ceased being the door mat that we supposedly were during the Obama Administration, and specifically that we no longer welcome immigrants, at least from certain “s***hole” countries, and will make the lives of those attempting to come here as miserable as possible.

But when you follow the money, it turns out that greed is the main motivation for this horrific new policy which is causing so much unnecessary human misery and harming the America’s international reputation as a beacon of freedom and opportunity.

The money leads directly to private prisons, which already collect about $2 billion a year from ICE to run detention centers. Private prison corporations have contributed mightily to the political campaigns of Trump and Sessions. Once threatened by their own incompetence and the Obama Administration order to phase out the use of private corporations to incarcerate prisoners, the private prison industry is making a strong comeback since the new administration took power. They sit with defense contractors and developers of nuclear weapons and other sophisticated war machinery at the round table of death that the Trump has assembled. This modern incarnation of what Dwight Eisenhower called the industrial-military complex brings together a number of economic players united by their essential mission to help create additional human misery and their dependence on government for funds for their existence.

The math is simple for the private prison industry. The more people who are criminalized, the more people private prisons get to detain, house, feed, control and abuse, and the more money their shareholders and executives make. The more people swept up in ICE raids, the more people can be fed to the private prison leviathan. And separating children from their parents creates the need for more guards, another business opportunity for private prisons. The calculus that leads to pulling children as young as under a year from their parents starts with the need to goose a market to reward political cronies.

As usual, Republicans prefer privatization even when it has been proven not to work. And virtually everywhere, private prisons have proven to be a failure. Over the past few years, the news media has reported fraud, cost overruns or mistreatment of inmates in private prisons in many states, including Idaho, Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky. But the private prison lobby has clout, especially among Republicans. So, just like the defense industries, elected officials seek to expand the market for its cronies.

But in a racist society, the math only works when the victims are considered less than human. While fear may serve as the rational for locking up families, racial superiority prevents the perpetrators from feeling guilt for their actions. We are after all talking about lesser creatures, “animals” as Trump recently put it. It’s easy to separate, process, herd and mistreat lesser beings. And in the case of the victims of our bombs and drones, to kill and maim.

Thus a nation that can’t afford to provide adequate healthcare for all its residents, that begrudges poor people food, shelter and other basic necessities and that pretends not to be able to afford to offer quality public schools, free access to higher education, research and development of new technologies and the fixing of its crumbling infrastructure of mass transit and sewage systems nonetheless can dig deep into its pocket to create cruel and mean-spirited opportunities to promote death, destruction and suffering.

The contrast between Kaepernick & Barr demonstrates that the free speech argument is often a bogus substitute for the real issue—racism in America

By Marc Jampole 

Should supporters of the right of National Football League players to take a knee during the national anthem also raise their hackles about the cancellation of Roseanne Barr’s situation comedy?

Of course the question could be posed the other way. If Facebook is any indication, there are large numbers of conservatives supporting Barr but not the players, just as there are large numbers of liberals supporting the athletes but not the entertainer.

Roseanne’s situation, like that of the two NFL players reportedly under league boycott, Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid, raises the bar because the “punishment” for the exercise of free speech was not a fine or a lambasting by an ignorant and crude autocrat, but the loss of a very lucrative job, and in the case of the players, a career.

No one disputes that Barr had the right to make the ugly racist joke she did about Valerie Jarrett, whereas many argue that the players’ actions were taken while on the job and therefore subject to the policies and regulations of their employer. Technically, however, anyone with an employment contract that includes what used to be called a “morals clause”—a stipulation that the employee stay out of trouble and conduct themselves always in a professional, ethical and legal manner—is always on the job. A morals or behavior clause restricts speech and actions as much as a league policy does. These clauses are standard in employment contracts and must be in the one that Barr signed. No has the right to restrict free speech, but both the NFL and Disney thus probably have the right to punish their employees for the exercise of free speech under certain, highly defined circumstances. Both Barr and the players on the field probably fall into those circumstances.

But free speech is not the only issue involved. The other issues are racism, truth and civil discourse. When we analyze the actions of Barr and Kaepernick from these perspectives, I think it’s easy to favor labor (Kaepernick) in one instance and management (ABC/Disney) in the other.

Kaepernick was trying to bring public attention to the fact that not much has been done to address the racial bias nationwide in the killing of civilians by police officers. He was speaking a truth and he did so without insulting anyone directly. True enough, those who believe that anything other than standing at strict attention at the playing of the national anthem are traitors were offended, as were those who believe that any criticism of police is always wrong. Let’s remember they and their predecessors also expressed outrage when Barr sang the national anthem in the character of a crude baseball player at the 1990 All-Star Game; her comic version offended their sensitivities. Kaepernick used a tool of free expression called civil disobedience and a platform that would be certain to attract attention, a televised football game. Yes, he pissed some people off and made lots more uncomfortable, but he insulted no one directly, told the truth and behaved in a civil manner. Moreover, he spoke on the side of the angels, unless you believe that the moral imperatives of any religion leave room for unequal treatment of anyone because of race.

Barr’s tweet was a racist insult of Obama-advisor Valerie Jarrett meant to incite the Twittersphere. She resurrected an old and ugly insult of African-Americans—that they are like apes, less human, or as Donald Trump recently described Hispanic immigrants, animals. She also managed to tie Jarrett to the Muslim Brotherhood, the kind of smear that keeps on smearing, because not only is it false, but it also assumes that there is something bad about the Muslim Brotherhood, which in this case is a transparent stand-in for all of Islam. As when people called Obama a Muslim, the denial can be construed as agreement that Islam is bad. We don’t really know why Barr tweeted. Was it because she was under the influence of Ambien (and why should that matter?) as she claims; or attempting to get attention for her show; or suffering the momentary boiling over of anger and frustration from a myriad of sources. It matters not. It was ugly and had only one goal: To use racism to insult another public figure. Barr had no thought of public betterment. She did not behave in a civil manner. And she expressed a thought, Black person = ape, that is completely racist and cannot be excused.

Thus, while we should “support” the right of free expression exercised by both Kaepernick and Barr, only Kaepernick’s conduct was right, as in correct.

Which brings us to the institutions. The highly public nature of the actions turned each into a minor point of skirmish in the continuing culture wars. Like it or not, both the NFL and Disney ended up taking sides, pissing off millions and gaining the admiration of millions.

But what did the side-taking say about the organizations? Disney’s cancellation of “Roseanne” said that the organization cannot and will not abide overt racial ugliness, even if it costs them a little money. And I do say, a little. “Roseanne” was slotted to make about $60 million for Disney next year; even if the replacement show does half of that, the $30 million loss would be five one-hundredths of one percent of the company’s 2017 revenues of more than $55 billion—a suitcase on the Queen Mary, as the expression goes. For Disney, spending $30 million to tell international and youth markets that it hates obvious virulent racism sounds like a pretty good investment in damage-control public relations. And like the best crisis PR, it turns a negative into a positive.

By contrast, what could the NFL possibly be saying? I know that it wants to say that it believes politics should not enter the game or the playing arena in any way, ever, but it’s making a lot of other messages. It says that the NFL still has the plantation mentality that characterized all sports leagues before free agency. It says that the NFL agrees with the rigid, easy-to-anger patriots who will broach no action that could be construed as flag desecration. It says that the NFL subscribes to the same authoritarian stances regarding civil disobedience as Trumpty-Dumpty does. And, unfortunately, it says that the NFL sides with those who either don’t believe the statistics that show blacks suffer more violence in arrest and incarceration than whites do, or that it doesn’t care. Or that it thinks it’s a good thing.

More than anything else, the contrast between Kaepernick and Barr demonstrates that the free speech argument is often a bogus substitute for the real issue—racism in America. Racism is what the quarterback protested and racism is what the comedian was spouting. Yes she has a right to do it, but I’m happy as hell Disney fired her, and disappointed that the NFL is trying to control its plantation hands.

Editorial: Dems: Go Big or Stay Home

As Democrats seek to mobilize the resistance to Donald Trump in preparation for the mid-term elections, they could use a progressive populist platform to lure back some of the white working-class voters who have fallen for the Republican con over the past 40 years, instead of simply relying on the electorate to be alarmed at the increasingly fascist Republican Party that is enabling the fake populist Trump.

Democrats have let Republicans chip away at the Democratic brand as the working people’s party. When Democrats increased opportunities for women, LGBT and minorities during President Barack Obama’s administration, Republicans claimed these gains for others showed Democrats were not interested in helping straight white men. Frankly, Democrats have dropped the ball in explaining how their policies also helped white men — and that’s probably a major reason Hillary Clinton lost the critical states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (along with Republican-engineered voter suppression, particularly in black precincts).

Democrats should reclaim the heritage of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who put together a working-class coalition in the 1930s that enabled his New Deal reforms that helped working people and farmers survive the Great Depression by placing much-needed regulation on capitalism, giving millions of unemployed men jobs in public works projects and granting working people rights in the workplace, including the right to organize a labor union. The Democratic Congress established Social Security, unemployment compensation, a minimum wage that increased pay for millions of Americans, and agricultural policies that helped stabilize farm production and prices.

The economy was recovering when the US entered World War II, but Roosevelt knew more reforms were needed, so in his 1944 State of the Union address, he called for an expansion of the Bill of Rights to recognize economic rights as well.

“We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence,” Roosevelt said. Quoting an “old English judge,” FDR said, ”Necessitous men are not free men.” He added, “People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

FDR proposed “a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.” They include:

1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.

2. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

3. The right of every family to a decent home.

4. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

5. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment.

6. The right to a good education.

Roosevelt died in April 1945 before he could promote the Economic Bill of Rights, although he did gain passage of the GI Bill of Rights in June 1944, which provided for education and training of returning veterans, as well as low-cost loans for housing and to start businesses. The program was credited with helping fuel the economic boom in the 1950s that created the world’s largest middle class.

Plutocrats finally got their opportunity to counterattack against the New Deal after Roosevelt’s death in 1945. New President Harry S Truman tried to continue Roosevelt’s policies, but his popularity dropped over his handling of post-war labor strikes and his hesitation to lift wartime price controls to prevent food shortages. In the 1946 mid-term election, Republicans picked up 12 Senate seats and took control of the Senate. Dems held the House, but Republicans worked with conservative Southern Democrats to pass, over Truman’s veto, the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, which restricted the power of labor unions.

The next major domestic policy gains came under Lyndon B. Johnson, who got his political start during the New Deal. After John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, the new president launched a War on Poverty in 1964 as part of his Great Society. His administration helped to create the Job Corps, the Community Action Program, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), Head Start, food stamps and work study programs. He also used his mastery of congressional procedures to get a civil rights bill past the Southern segregationists in the House and Senate, although after he signed the bill, he wistfully predicted it would deliver the South to the Republican Party for a generation.

Johnson ended up losing five states in the Deep South, as well as Arizona, home of GOP nominee Barry Goldwater, but the 44 other states gave LBJ a landslide and the largest Democratic majority in Congress since FDR’s re-election in 1936. LBJ put that majority to use, passing the Voting Rights Act, an immigration bill that removed national-origin quotas dating from the 1920s, and education bills that doubled federal spending on education and provided funding for grants, work-study money and student loans for college students.

But Johnson’s greatest accomplishment was expanding Social Security to include Medicare, to provide hospital insurance for seniors, as well as a voluntary insurance program for doctor visits and an expanded medical program for the poor, now known as Medicaid.

Johnson’s War on Poverty helped millions of Americans rise from poverty as the national poverty rate declined nearly by half, from 23% of Americans living below the poverty line when he took office to 12% in January 1969, when Johnson left office.

Ronald Reagan led the counterattack against the War on Poverty, saying in a February 1986 radio address the nation’s welfare system made the problem worse. Without citing statistics, which appear to contradict him, he said, “I guess you could say, poverty won the war.”

Since then, Republicans have sought to reduce or eliminate many New Deal and Great Society programs and bust unions. The poverty rate edged back up to 15% in the administrations of Reagan and George H.W. Bush, though it fell back to 12.7% (40.6 million people) in 2016 as the economy grew under President Obama. But the wealth gap has continued to increase as unions lost negotiating power.

Now is the time, as Mark Paul, William Darity Jr. and Darrick Hamilton wrote in “An Economic Bill of Rights for the 21st Century” in The American Prospect March 5, to revive the six rights outlined by FDR and update them for the 21st century with three more rights. The proposed additions:

7. The right to sound banking and financial services. They propose a public option, such as the Bank of North Dakota, or revival of postal savings banks to provide banking services, particularly in underserved low-income neighborhoods.

8. The right to a safe and clean environment.

9. The right to a meaningful endowment of resources as a birthright. For example, an endowment for every newborn child.

Democratic leaders have unveiled a populist agenda called “A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future,” which is good as far as they go, but Democrats should push for more.

As Paul, Darity and Hamilton conclude, “Many may question in this time of ‘resistance,’ if this is the right time to fight for an expansion of economics rights, but no one wins anything of consequence by simply playing defense. Maintaining the highly unequal and unjust status quo is neither sufficient nor sustainable. We need to take aggressive measures to achieve economic justice.” — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, June 15, 2018

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Selections from the June 15, 2018 issue

COVER/Steven Greenhouse
Unions face the fight of their lives to protect American workers

EDITORIAL
Dems: Go big or stay home

BEN LILLISTON
Farm Bill lost in Never-Never Land

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

DON ROLLINS
How Zion (and the rest of the world) just became less safe

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Big ag farms the government

DISPATCHES
Trump backs down, claims victory in trade war with China;
Gorsuch’s first major opinion allows bosses to steal from workers;
Speaker Ryan dives in to save NAFTA for big business;
Trump administration finds a sham election it doesn’t like;
White House goes all in comparing migrants to animals;
Breakthrough solar panel havests power from raindrops;
EU may forbid compliance with Trump sanctions on Iran;
Repubs aim at black people with Medicaid work requirements in Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan;
Feds lose track of 1,475 migrant children, some to traffickers ...

ART CULLEN
Norris goes for broke with immigration, rural Iowa

JILL RICHARDSON
The lesson I learned growing up Jewish

JOHN YOUNG  
The art of being transparently corrupt

BOB BURNETT
Mueller inquiry status

MARK ANDERSON
Modest proposal for Congress to reclaim war authority

GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Donald Trump’s racist ideas

BRIAN WAKAMO
Sick of predatory lenders? Get a loan from the Post Office!

SETH SANDRONSKY
A safe black space

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Cheap insurance: Back to the future

SAM URETSKY
High drug costs are a major health threat

WAYNE O’LEARY
Applesauce

JOHN BUELL
Who is the real nuclear threat?

BOOK REVIEW/Heather Seggel
Put your brain back on track

ROB PATTERSON
‘Atomic Cafe’ good for another 35 years

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
Sheryl and Mark’s magical mystery mea culpa tour

ED RAMPELL
Good when she’s bad: Bawdy bard Mae West’s ‘sex’ appeals

In light of Trump’s remark about “animals” here is a new definition of human beings: “Animals who kneel.”

By Marc Jampole

Whether Donald Trump meant his “they’re like animals” remark to refer to all immigrants or merely to members of the MS-13 gang, everyone understood his intent: To say that a group of human beings of a certain ethnicity are less human than we full-blooded Americans, and perhaps not even human beings at all. In this sense, even if Trump really only meant MS-13 gangbangers, MS-13 served Trump as a synecdoche, which is a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole. Just as we understand that “a strong arm” or a “piece of ass” refers to an entire body, so do we realize that Trump was saying that all immigrants from Latino (and African and Islamic) countries are animals.

The essence of racism involves the belief that certain human beings are better than others—by virtue of their skin color, DNA, family history or whatever factor is being used to distinguish individuals by race. In the West at least, humans have traditionally considered animals to be lesser forms of life put on earth for the benefit and use of human beings. To call someone an animal is virtually always used in a pejorative sense, except when referring to football players or boxers, and even in the sporting context, our admiration for an animal is for her/his less than human qualities.

To call a group of people animals is always racist.

Of course, most Americans nowadays would be appalled if we treated animals, especially dogs, how we treat immigrants and refugees. Far more was made in the news media of Michael Vick killing dogs he trained to fight than in the separation of families by the Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE). Without a doubt, America loves its pets more than we love the human beings whom we have defined as “others.” In the mass media and advertising and in our streets and living rooms, we see dogs pampered and treated as members of the family, referred to as children, given holiday gifts, preferred over human beings for companionship. The composite message we should infer regarding the totality of television advertising for food and what are called food products is that human beings give their pets a healthier, more nutritionally balanced diet than they themselves eat.

Thus many, if not most, of the people who embrace Trump’s demotion of groups of human beings to animal status routinely elevate animals to the status of “human beings.”

Defining people as less than human makes it easier to treat them badly. It used to justify slavery, segregation and Jim Crow laws. Today, it justifies an ungenerous, mean-spirited immigration policy—to use violence when dealing with them, to turn them away even though they are suffering refugees, to split families, to send people well-established in this country to the countries of their parents.

Trump’s animal comment is one set piece in a large campaign he and his allied are waging to divide America into “us-and-them” armed camps, with ”them” defined by color and ethnic background. Another theme in this long-term propaganda war is Trump’s constant labelling of behavior by blacks, Hispanics and Muslims as horrific while condoning or remaining silent about similar white behavior. The most obvious example of the Trumpite double standard is Trumpty-Dumpty’s reaction to mass murders involving whites versus people of color. When whites go postal, mental illness is to blame; anyone of color and it’s terrorism.

Contrast, too, Trump’s comments about “the good people” marching with the Nazis in Charlottesville versus his condemnation of Colin Kaepernick and other professional athletes for taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem before sporting events.

Which brings us to the unfortunate decision of the National Football League (NFL) to fine players and their teams when the player genuflects during the anthem. Like Trump and his minions, NFL owners have decided that taking the knee is inherently unpatriotic and thus antisocial, even if the players are asserting a right that defines Americans to protest a flaw in the American way of life that supposedly makes the United States a superior place to live—the unfair treatment of African-Americans and other minorities by the criminal justice system. The NFL owners put themselves on the side of Trump and his minions, which is why Trump is praising the announcement.

In attempting to explain why NFL owners didn’t decide to affirm the right of all Americans to engage in peaceful protests by doing nothing, we face another set of bad options, caught between a symbolic Scylla and Charybdis with no ship to navigate us safely between the two: Either pressure from rightwing politicians and the large numbers of NFL fans who are racist or Trumpite has coerced a craven NFL to submit to their un-American, and covertly racist, agenda OR the NFL owners sincerely believe that saluting the flag is more important than a basic civil right.

Or maybe they just like the idea of controlling the players, like a sheep herder controls the flock.

Let’s keep in mind that the NFL, more than any other professional sport, has maintained the plantation owner attitude towards players that all sports used to have before the days of free agency. No other league is as preoccupied with its public image as the NFL, and the owners insist on that image being corporate, conservative and dedicated to the values of small-town white America. No other league has as many rules of behavior that have nothing to do with playing, e.g., the extensive regulations dictating proper behavior after scoring a touchdown. Now the NFL wants to take away the player’s right to free speech, or at least make them pay for the right through fines (which is in keeping with the essential rightwing idea that people with more property should have more of an influence on social policy, as if the NFL is saying, “If you want a say, you have to pay.”). The racial makeup of the NFL reinforces the plantation metaphor: The league is about 70% black, but there are few blacks in management and no black owner.

In organization and physical infrastructure, the old slave plantation had many similarities to contemporary immigration collection centers, Japanese internment camps during World War II and German concentration camps. Moreover, in all these instances of herding people into confined quarters and controlling their every movement, the people in charge openly expressed a superiority to those under their control. The evidence of that superiority was and is racial in nature and usually color-based.

Thus the NFL’s decision to try to prohibit political protest during the national anthem and Trump’s “worse than animals” remark are profoundly connected, not only as different arrows in Trump’s quiver of racism, but as manifestations of the continued persistence of the belief that whites of European decent are superior to others. Both Trump’s comments and the NFL action are highly calculated moves meant to exploit the virulent racism that still distorts American values.

During the last few centuries, science has undercut the notion that certain groups of humans are superior to others, or that all humans are superior to animals for that matter. Science’s inexorable refutation of revealed religion removed our inherent superiority to other creatures as much as its dismissal of inherent differences between the races has refuted racism. Moreover, over the past 40 years, anthropologists and paleontologists have found evidence of all kinds of behavior in animals that humans once cited to assert our superiority, including the development of language, use of tools, social organization and hierarchy, altruism, morality and even religion. The more we learn about the natural world and ourselves, the more like other animals we seem. Even as American whites wrongly believe that they are losing their status economically and socially to “others,” all humans are losing their status of uniqueness among the animal kingdom.

While respecting all life (except maybe rats and cockroaches), I still believe that humans are different. Other animals may use tools, but not to the degree we do. Other animals may communicate, but they haven’t built the widespread and sophisticated communications networks we have. And while altruism and morality exist among other animals, none have yet banded to together to protest the mistreatment of others. Your typical alpha male or alpha female among social animals doesn’t threaten its own existence by trying to raise awareness about how creatures in other groups suffer. And that’s what Kaepernick, the quarterback—the quintessential human alpha—did. In standing up for the civil and judicial rights of people of color, Kaepernick performed a uniquely human act. He could have defined himself as a privileged football player or a member of the economic elite, much as Trump and the NFL owners do, but instead he chose to identify with the downtrodden, and by implication, the entirety of humanity.

In a profound sense, then, those who protest and work for human, civil, judicial and economic rights are the most human among us. That’s certainly what Christ and the early Christians thought. They knelt before the concept of a god who helps the poor. Kaepernick knelt before the secular concepts of equality, equity and human solidarity. Either way, they elevated themselves—made themselves more human and less like animals—through the devotional act of kneeling. Perhaps when considering definitions of human beings, we should simply say, “animals who kneel.”

My hope is that the NFL edict will incite more football players and other professional athletes to become “animals who kneel.” I would like to see entire teams either stay inside the locker room for the national anthem or all take a knee in unison. I would like to see fans stay seated during the national anthem to protest this new restriction on civil rights. I would like to see a class action lawsuit by the players that upends this obnoxious new regulation. In short, I would like to see Americans collectively tell Trump and the NFL owners that we are not animals, but human beings.

The terrible consequences of the largely symbolic move of U.S. embassy: At least 61 dead & 2,700 injured, plus U.S. credibility in international circles sinks lower

By Marc Jampole

The demonstrations and killings in the wake of the United States moving its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem reminds us again of the power of symbolism: People are willing to put themselves in harm’s way and other people are willing to kill them for a symbol, in this case the symbolism of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The move encourages extreme Zionists, enrages Palestinians and rankles most other countries.

But the embassy move doesn’t change a thing in the Middle East.

It doesn’t alter the situation on the ground and it shouldn’t disturb the dynamics of any negotiations. Why should Jerusalem be off the table now in discussions of a peaceful settlement, be it a two-state solution or something else? It was so easy to move the U.S. embassy. All it took was money. Why can’t a future deal require the United States to move its embassy back to Tel Aviv, or elsewhere? It’s even possible that one day this new U.S. facility could be the U.S. embassy in a democratic Palestinian state that is allied with its neighbor, Israel? A peacenik can always dream…

Trump’s lunacy does have both immediate and long-term consequences. Short-term, it increases tensions and violence in Israeli and the occupied territory. Trumpty-Dumpty and his advisors must have known that the opening ceremonies would kindle demonstrations. But did they know that Israel would react with such brutality? Only among American evangelicals and hardliners in both Israel and the United States will the Israeli reaction to the demonstrations not seem blood-thirsty. Sixty-one dead and about 2,700 injured by a superior force that as of this writing reports no injuries or deaths is what the Latins used to say was res ipsa loquitur, a thing that proves itself. What it demonstrates is that the Israelis could have figured out a way to deal with the protesters and rioters without killing anyone, inflicting minimum injury. Fire hoses. Loud acoustics. Reinforcement of the fence. There are lots of ways to deal with protesters short of firing bullets and teargas.

The long-term implication of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem is that it provides further proof that the other nations of the world can no longer trust the United States to abide by treaties and that the United States has little interest in collective decision-making on issues of global import. Trump has already walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Accord and the Iran nuclear agreement, and raised tariffs that threaten to start a trade war. Now he has ignored the United Nations agreement not to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel until a peace agreement is reached. U.S. credibility is at an all-time low among our allies.

And for what? A symbolic move about a symbol.

As a secular Jew in diaspora, I am befuddled by the big deal that Jews make about the symbolic import of the city of Jerusalem. I’ve never been there, but I have seen ancient Neolithic, Greek, Roman, Carthaginian and Islamic ruins and experienced the expansive swell of religious joy and connection with past civilizations and peoples, the oneness with humanity, or a portion of it, that comes from knowing that values, ideas and artifacts persist in time. And yes, I did feel a special, Jewish tug when viewing the old synagogues of Prague and Spain. I get it.

But let’s consider the real symbolism of Jerusalem. It is called King David’s city, the city that King David conquered and made his capital, the city that King Solomon grew, the city of the temple of the Kings.

Kings. Royalty. The idea that certain people have a divine right that is passed down by birth, a right to command others, to mess with the lives of others by forming armies, fighting wars, deciding who should pay what taxes, and building monuments, often to their own glory. Royalty is the most autocratic and least democratic system of government. Royalty is the ultimate expression of racism: my blood is so much better than your blood that I’m always in charge. One could make a case that the kings weakened ancient Israel to the point that the Babylonians could take over the country. Why would Jews want to have anything to do with royalty? Most Jews everywhere in the world today believe in representational democracy and reject the very concept of kingship and royalty, yet worship Jerusalem, forgetting that the city is not just a symbol of Judaism, but of Jewish royalism.

True enough, both holy temples were located in Jerusalem, but the first was fruit of the evil seed of royalty. Remember, too, that the temple was the place of animal sacrifice, a practice that Jews gave up centuries ago. There are remarkable and religiously uplifting antiquities all over the state of Israel.

Giving up the obsolete is something Jews are used to doing. We replaced animal sacrifice with prayer centuries ago. Most branches of the Jewish religion have gradually ended or are in the process of ending the many sexist elements in ancient and medieval Jewish religion and custom. We’ve made changes to the liturgy—prayers and melodies. Isn’t it about time that we turn our back on the concept of royalty and thereby de-mythify Jerusalem? If I were involved in the negotiations, I would be willing to trade political control of Jerusalem in return for a real lasting peace that included economic cooperation with a Palestinian state, as long as Jews were allowed to visit and live in Jerusalem. Hell, yes.

The equations sometimes produced by symbolic actions like moving an embassy are as macabre as they are tragic. Ask yourself, if it were your children, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces, friends and neighbors, how many dead would be worth the symbolism? It shouldn’t be difficult to understand that Palestinians feel the same way. Of course, to believers in royalty, some people are worth more than others. The essence of royalty—as conceived of and practiced throughout recorded history—is that the better people can sacrifice or kill the lower orders. That military representatives of “the chosen people” should kill and maim so many as an almost necessary aftermath to Trump’s Jerusalem symbolism is the ultimate expression of the obscenity that is the concept of kingship.