Penny Little suggested that I start sharing news on the upcoming website Beck4President.us.
I have recently read 2 books by David Cay Johnston on Trump exposing him as the ruthless fraudster he has been for so long. Why have so many Americans been taken in by this “pathological liar” as Sanders pegged him in 2015? I also read Matt Taibbi’s witty Insane Clown President and looked at The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump by 27 mental health experts who felt “a duty to warn America.”
Much more inspiring is Our Revolution by Bernie Sanders who would have beat Trump if the Democratic party had not rigged the primary election for Hilary Clinton. Michael Lewis in The Fifth Risk describes the incompetence of the Trump administration in contrast to some excellent government servants who have done important work. Russian Roulette by Michael Isikoff and David Corn chronicles how Russian hackers helped Trump steal the presidency in 2016 despite losing the popular vote by 2.9 million.
The Doomsday Machine by the great American, Daniel Ellsberg, is an awesome book that should scare the hell out of Americans who may read it. Never before in human history has anyone been as insane as those in the American and Russian governments who perpetrated the war machines with atomic and hydrogen bombs that could wipe out the human race or leave behind a few miserable survivors on a polluted planet. In the 1950s the Eisenhower strategy was to target every major city and military installation in the Soviet Union and China with a tremendous strike if a war broke out with either country. Ellsberg tried to get this madness revised and has spent his life trying to alert people of the most dangerous threat that hangs over humankind.
The top priority of my presidential campaign is to abolish all these abominable weapons asap.
50 years ago this month President Johnson sealed a secret report for that time period about how Richard Nixon to get elected arranged for a Chinese woman to sabotage LBJ’s effort to end the war in Vietnam. On the day before the 1968 election Johnson decided not to reveal this. Why? because he did not want to expose government secrets.
Before the 1920 election Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and other leading Republicans decided to oppose President Wilson’s League of Nations so that their party could win the White House. The Democrats’ Vice Presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt exposed this cruel policy that put party above country, but the Republican Harding won anyway and became one of the worst presidents with “trickle down” economics that led to the stock market bubble and the Great Depression. The French Clemenceau persuaded the Allies to punish the Germans in the Versailles treaty. The United States did not join the League of Nations, and disarmament efforts faltered, allowing the resentful Germans under Hitler to seek revenge in a second and worse world war that Edgar Cayce predicted would occur if they did not make a good peace in 1919.
Selfish Republicans stole presidential elections in 2000, 2004, and 2016.
In such ways turns the fate of great nations and the world.
From the beginning of his campaign in 2015 Donald Trump has had ill will toward immigrants. As President his hostility has shown his criminal behavior by refusing to give refuge to those fleeing violence in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, by separating immigrating children from their parents, in ordering shooting at rock-throwers, and by deploying tear gas, a chemical weapon, across the border into Mexico against unarmed refugees.
In 1939 the United States turned away the SS St. Louis ship with 907 Jewish refugees who were then sent back to Europe where about a quarter of them were murdered in Nazi death camps. Americans learned their lesson from that mistake and passed a law allowing refugees the right to seek asylum in the United States. Now the fascist-sympathizer Trump is violating that law. I believe that we should welcome refugees fleeing from violent governments.
President George W. Bush once said that we (the US) are not “a conquering nation.” Yet in the Mexican War 1846-48 the United States conquered about half of what had been Mexico’s territory which became the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, and part of Colorado. I believe that America has been made great by immigrants, and as reparations we should allow law-abiding citizens from Latin America to immigrate.
http://san.beck.org/17-4-MexicoDemocracy1817.html#a7
Livestock population has increased from 3 billion to more than 7 billion in the past fifty years and is also straining water resources. Livestock are responsible for more than 8% of fresh water use and about 18% of global warming from greenhouse gas emissions, and beef and dairy are about 65% of that.
A study of California agriculture found that it takes 23 gallons of water to produce one pound of lettuce or tomatoes and 49 gallons for one pound of apples, but producing one pound of chicken requires 815 gallons of water, one pound of pork 1,630 gallons, and one pound of beef 5,214 gallons.
The world is producing enough grain to sustain a population of ten billion people; but only 46% of it feeds humans while 34% goes to livestock and 19% for biofuels, starches, and plastics. Americans consume nearly one quarter of all the beef eaten in the world and import about 200 million pounds of beef a year from Central America. According to the Centre for Science and the Environment in India the real cost of a hamburger from beef raised from clear-cut forest is about $200.
About 12 million tons of grain would be needed to feed the people on Earth who die of hunger and related diseases each year, and that amount of grain could be saved if Americans reduced their consumption of beef by 10%.
Yemen suffers in the fourth year of a brutal civil war made worse by Iranians backing the Houthi rebels while Saudi Arabia fights a proxy war against the Iranians with the military support of the United States that bombs Houthis and civilians. At least 85,000 young children have died of starvation because both sides block humanitarian relief. In Yemen 13 million are hungry, and 6 million are at risk of starving. The leaders of these nations and those who obey their orders are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Why are they not held to account?
How long will the people of the world allow these atrocities to go on in the hot and dry Mideast where global warming is taking its toll in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan as well? When will Americans say, “No more killing!” and stop promoting these foolish wars?
Senator Bernie Sanders on 27 November published Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance with 38 sections but only one on foreign policy without any proposed solutions to American militarism and war-making. The next day 106 prominent peace activists and scholars expressed support for a petition by more than 25,000 people to Sanders during his presidential campaign that had urged him to say more about war and militarism. Sanders had answered that he would cut 4% of Pentagon spending. The 106 responded with an open letter calling on Sanders to challenge militarism as Dr. King had, and they noted that the military takes up well over 60% of discretionary spending and that Americans favor cutting this spending.
I signed on to this letter with the following comment: “I heartily support this important letter that exposes a blatant blind spot in Sanders' policies when ending war atrocities, the danger of nuclear war, and excessive military spending should be top priorities.”
After Salvadoran soldiers murdered six Jesuits and two women in El Salvador on November 16, 1989, the Bush administration continued to support that oppressive government. On December 20, 1989 President George Bush sent a force of 26,000 soldiers to attack Panama, and they killed between 516 and 5,000 civilians. In the 1991 Gulf War the American military killed at least 125,000 Iraqi soldiers and about 50,000 civilians. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clarke accused President Bush and others of war crimes, and in 1992 the 22 judges from 18 nations found the absent defendants guilty of all the charges. Bush imposed sanctions against Iraq, and by the end of 1992 lack of chlorine to purify water and kill mosquitos led to the death of 241,869 children by the end of the year.
On December 3, 1989 US President George H. W. Bush and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to end the Cold War and begin an era of peace. Their agreement to let reunited Germany stay in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) western alliance was confirmed in February 1990 when the American Secretary of State James Baker promised Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch to the east.” Gorbachev dismantled the eastern alliance of the Warsaw Pact. However, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary were allowed to join NATO in 1999 and Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania did so in 2004.
I support the Green New Deal that is sponsored by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and others. This would include the “jobs guarantee” (JG) program that is based on FDR’s New Deal which created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). This new program would fund hiring the unemployed by non-profit and governmental organizations in order to improve the environment and education, reduce poverty, and work to prevent and alleviate disasters caused by global warming. My plan would include a minimum wage of $20 per hour.
The American economic system needs to be reformed so that it is more democratic and more just. Because of growing economic inequality the great need now is for more sharing of wealth as well as power. Businesses tend to be autocratically controlled by their owners. Yet the gigantic transnational corporations are not even controlled by their shareholders but rather by their boards of directors and chief executives.
Workplace democracy is more beneficial for more people. Worker self-management enables employees to democratically control productive enterprises. Businesses can still be privately owned, but economic democracy is enhanced by gradually increasing the share that employees of the company own. Businesses can still interact in the market with each other and consumers by adjusting prices naturally to supply and demand without government interference except for beneficial regulations to protect the health and environment of the public from negative externalities. Legislation can mandate and promote worker participation and profit-sharing in corporations and large businesses. Small businesses with only a few full-time employees may be exempted from requiring employee voting, but consulting the employees on decisions would still be a good idea. Publicly traded corporations could be required to be controlled democratically by the employees.
After a US-sponsored resolution in the United Nations General Assembly condemning Hamas in Gaza failed to achieve a two-thirds majority, Ireland’s “Comprehensive, Just, and Lasting Peace in the Middle East” resolution gained 156 votes over six opposed (United States, Australia, Israel, Liberia, Marshall Islands, and Nauru).
In the Palestinians’ nonviolent Great March to Return that began on 30 March this year Israel Defense Forces shot at the demonstrators imprisoned in Gaza without human rights and killed at least 150 Palestinians and wounded more than 15,000.
In July and August 2014 Israel Defense Forces slaughtered at least 2,104 Palestinians in the Gaza strip, and of the 1,462 civilians killed, 495 were children, and 253 were women. Only 72 Israelis died in the one-sided war.
After the genocide of the holocaust I respect the right of Israelis to have a nation where they can govern themselves; but that does not give them the right to oppress Palestinians who had been living there for centuries. Afraid of losing support of Jews, many American politicians have been complicit in Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians and illegal settlements in violation of United Nations resolutions. I believe the US should respect the rights of both sides in this conflict, and without giving military weapons to either side I support UN efforts to resolve the disputes peacefully.
For many years Republicans have been cheating in elections. The rigged elections in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio and other “battleground states” in 2004 made George W. Bush president twice. Since 2010 Republicans have been using the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision of the US Supreme Court to use massive amounts of money from the rich and corporations to sway elections. In 2016 Russians helped Donald Trump steal the presidency despite his losing the popular vote by 2.9 million. In 2018 hundreds of thousands of votes were suppressed in Georgia and Florida to help Republicans win narrow state-wide “victories.” In North Carolina outright fraud involving absentee ballots was used.
In Michigan three Democratic women won as Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of State, but the gerrymandered legislature is trying to restrict their power to govern, something tried in North Carolina that is also being used in Wisconsin where Democratic candidates got 190,000 more votes than Republicans but extraordinary gerrymandering gave the Republicans 63 of the 99 seats in the Assembly.
Many democratic reforms are needed. Elections are contests and need to be fair. Districts should be drawn objectively without regard to party affiliation. Public funding of elections will help balance the scales of justice, and media must provide fair debates for all candidates. When thirteen more states pass reform for a national popular vote, then the abuse of the antiquated electoral college will end in presidential voting.
Today is the 70th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Now we are also working to expand human rights to medical care, education, and other basic necessities for all people. Humanity will not really have the rights of life, liberty, and security until all wars and weapons of war are banned and replaced by peaceful, judicial processes to restrain and bring the crimes of individuals to account through restorative justice.
In 1773 Benjamin Franklin wrote, “All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones. In my opinion, there never was a good war or a bad peace. When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?”
Many nations abolished slavery without having a terrible war. I have written “How Lincoln Could Have Prevented Civil War” to show that 625,000 Americans did not have to die in the US Civil War.
Some Americans believe that World War II was the “good war” and that the men who fought it were the “greatest generation.” World War II was the deadliest military conflict in which about 72 million people died. At the beginning of that war President Roosevelt pleaded that the adversaries not bomb civilians; but before his death near the end of the war the United States was destroying cities in Germany and Japan. The war ended with two atomic explosions, and now a few nations have thermonuclear weapons that could destroy the human race.
I have written two volumes on the History of Peace: Guides to Peace and Justice from Ancient Sages to the Suffragettes and World Peace Efforts Since Gandhi to learn the many ways to peace and how to prevent wars. For the past half century my life has been dedicated to God and serving humanity and especially to bringing about world peace. I have also written 18 volumes on the Ethics of Civilization, and all my writings can be read on the website san.beck.org.
Although French demonstrations began in November to protest increases in diesel and gasoline, during the last three weekends of protest the Yellow Vest Manifesto has emerged with 25 demands that are summarized as follows:
Now the United States is spending and wasting more on the military than ever before at a time when the opportunity and importance of reducing these is greater than ever. The US needs to withdraw its forces from the Mideast wars while promoting peaceful resolution of conflicts. The US has more than 800 military bases in more than 70 nations, and such imperialism is dangerous, costly, and damaging to the environment, and resentment of them causes terrorism. The US military is the largest user of fossil fuels and accounts for about 5% of greenhouse gas emissions. The plan to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons is suicidally insane when the most urgent need of our time is to abolish all nuclear arms before they destroy human civilization. The world has banned chemical and biological weapons, and last year 122 nations signed the UN treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons.
I am running for President in order to persuade the American people to support a candidate who will work to abolish genocidal weapons, end wars for good, and use the money saved to fund a green new deal with good jobs and to alleviate poverty. See Making Peace Not War.
Yesterday the federal judge Lance Walker upheld ranked-choice voting (RCV) in Maine as constitutional and fair to voters in a congressional election.
Instant-run-off voting (IRV) or ranked-choice voting (RCV) allows people to vote their conscience rather than for the “lesser of two evils” by ranking their first three choices. This has been used in national elections in Australia, India, Ireland, and in many local elections. No run-off election is required. If no one gets a majority in the first tally, one by one the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated, and the second and if necessary the third choices of their voters are assigned to other candidates until one candidate has a majority, making run-off elections unnecessary.
In the 2000 election the Green candidate Ralph Nader had to struggle to get on ballots in many states, and he was excluded from the public debates controlled by the Democrat and Republican parties. Yet Nader was very popular and was drawing much larger crowds to his speeches than were the other candidates, Albert Gore and George W. Bush. If that election had had ranking voting, then many people could have chosen Nader as their first choice and Gore as their second choice. The result would have been an easy victory in Florida for Gore who actually got 543,895 more votes nationally than Bush. With ranked-choice voting Nader would have gotten many more votes, helping the Greens to become a viable party.
In 2016 many voters could have ranked the Green candidate Jill Stein first and Hilary Clinton second, and those voters could have helped Clinton defeat Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania that gave him an electoral college victory even though he lost the national population election to her by 2,868,686 votes.
Mixed economies provide a blend of government services for all with a free market economy for most consumer goods. What public services are best provided for the general public by government and why? I believe that the basic necessities of life are usually best provided or guaranteed by government agencies rather than by profit-making businesses because they involve human rights and necessities that should not be exploited.
Government is usually responsible for essential functions that do not belong in the private sector such as making and enforcing laws and judging suspected violators, providing for national defense and security, maintaining roads and bridges, providing emergency services such as police, fire departments, and disaster relief. Government also provides the currency and coins, and the federal reserve monitors the basic interest rate. Of course government uses taxation to finance its services, and progressive taxation can alleviate extreme economic inequalities.
Government can also provide public education, post offices, health care, environmental protection, and regulations to protect human rights and safety. In these areas these services may be supplemented by the private sector to offer wider choices for those who choose to pay for private schools, doctors, transporting goods and mail, etc. Government can also assist the poor to make sure they have adequate food and housing.
When conservatives or libertarians attempt to take some of these services away from the public sector, then profit-making can leave some people out, and the services can become more expensive and difficult for the poor or isolated. When government tries to transfer some services to profit-making business such as prisons, social security, schools, health care, medicines, then they can be much worse especially for the poor.
Climate expert Hans Joachim Schellnhuber noted that the global warming problem has escalated to one of “global heating.” He is warning us that political leaders are not adapting to the future prospects of extreme weather that will occur in this century if our civilization does not make the changes needed to prevent these catastrophes.
In another year of record carbon emissions the COP24 climate summit in Poland ended yesterday without the needed agreements that climate action groups are demanding. These conscientious activists are asking all nations to phase out the use of fossil fuels replacing them with clean energy and sustainable agriculture. They also insist that the rich nations, which caused most of the problem, provide more aid to relieve the poor southern nations that are suffering most from its effects. With the world’s average temperatures already having risen 1.0 degrees Celsius since the 19th century, the prospect of limiting the increase to 1.5 degrees is becoming less likely unless radical measures are taken rapidly on a global level.
The United States foolishly elected a reactionary liar and egotistical bully who is withdrawing the nation from the Paris climate agreement. Some states such as California and the American people are concerned about this crisis. A new group of Democrats in Congress are calling for a Green New Deal to respond wisely to this emergency, and the 2020 elections will be critical to changing the political climate so that the United States can take leadership to implement remedies that will avert these climate calamities.
For centuries most people believed that human life begins at birth with the first breath when the soul enters the body and starts interacting with world and that death occurs when the soul departs from a body that is no longer habitable. In the perennial philosophy the soul is considered to be a direct extension of God and eternal. The Greek word for soul “psyche” originally meant life, breath, and mind before it came to mean soul. See The Soul.
The fetus is part of a woman’s body. As it grows and develops, it recapitulates the stages of evolution, growing from an ovum which is a single cell to increasingly complex forms of life. “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” The incarnation of the soul provides the consciousness which comes from God and drives evolution which is God’s process. Every woman has the right to be sovereign over her body, and no government or anyone except her has the right to determine what happens inside her body. If a fetus is aborted, then the soul that may have incarnated in that body merely has to wait for another opportunity to be born as a human being.
With 7.7 billion humans now living on this Earth many scientists are warning that the carrying capacity of the Earth to sustain so many humans, who are causing the extinction of record numbers of other species, is being challenged. Republicans who have used abortions as a wedge issue to get votes from religious people should be ashamed that they are going against their principle of freedom from government interference in our private lives.
Yesterday in the United Nations General Assembly 181 countries voted to provide international cooperation on refugees by joining the Global Compact on Refugees. Only the anti-immigrant governments of the United States and Hungary voted against this while the Dominican Republic, Eritrea, and Libya abstained. The purpose of the Compact is to improve the situation of immigrating refugees. UNICEF has reported that two-thirds of refugees have come from the war zones in Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar, and Somalia. The United States, which previously had resettled an average of 90,000 refugees a year, accepted only 22,000 last year and 30,000 for the current fiscal year. Last year Germany welcomed about 890,000 refugees mostly from Iraq and Syria.
Also yesterday Paul Ryan, outgoing Speaker of the House of Representatives, celebrated the first anniversary of the $1.5 trillion tax-cut bill that enriches even more the most wealthy American individuals and corporations while helping others very little.
Today I registered Federal Election Commission (FEC)
as a candidate for the presidency of the United States of America. Thus I have entered the most important contest on Earth, and the 2020 election may be the most important election in history. I constantly pray to be guided by God so that I can do and say what is best for everyone. At this time my name is not well known except perhaps to the thousands of people who have visited my website san.beck.org in the last 22 years. I am running as a green Democrat, and I believe I am offering policies that will resonate with people who really care about the future of America and the world and who understand the vision for a much better world. My extensive writing is freely available on my website, and I am available for interviews and to speak to groups. Email can be sent to sandersonbeck@gmail.com.
According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute in the United States the CEOs in the 350 largest companies earn an average of 271 times that of the average worker. The wealth of the top one percent is equal to that of the 90% who struggle to survive at the “bottom” of this economy.
The capitalist plutocracy (government by and for the wealthy) in America uses their money to influence and control politicians who cater to wealthy donors and lobbyists to get themselves elected and re-elected. This dystopia also funds the insane military spending that wastes money on counterproductive wars and a costly arms race that has gone beyond that of the Cold War. The Trump administration now wants to spend $750 billion next year on the Defense budget plus other war costs. Pundits say that cutting military spending is “politically impossible,” but the voters can reverse that absurd situation.
Now is the time for the people to rise up and put an end to this suicidal madness that kills millions of people and could kill hundreds of millions more in future wars that could be fought by AI (artificially “intelligent”) robots and other technological cruelties. To ensure the safety of this country and the world the people need to elect leaders who will reverse these mutually destructive policies.
We need more companies that are owned by the employees rather than by the capitalists who want to make ridiculous amounts of money while doing little work.
Yesterday Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer announced that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Select Committee on the Green New Deal would not have subpoena power, which is usually granted to committees as standard house rules. Already 43 Democrats in the House of Representatives are backing Ocasio-Cortez’s Select Committee proposal.
The Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats objected to this weakening of the new committee. On December 10th the Sunrise Movement led the sit-in at the offices of 16-year leaders Pelosi and Hoyer in Washington where 143 young leaders were arrested for civil disobedience.
Justice Democrats spokesperson Waleed Shahid commented, “The Democratic Party establishment never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. They have failed to propose solutions that match the scale of the climate crisis and they have failed to fully hold fossil fuel billionaires accountable. Instead of seizing the opportunity right in front of them, they have decided to violate the norms of most select committees by stripping away its power to bring the barons of the industry to account.”
On this day in 1989 the United States army invaded Panama.
Although I support pulling the 2,200 US troops out of the civil war in Syria, President Trump’s motives and manner of announcing this so precipitously in a tweet raises serious concerns and questions.
According to AFP’s article today in The Times of Israel the US President made this decision on December 19 during a phone conversation with Turkey’s President Erdogan who has been threatening to order an attack against the Kurdish militia. The Kurds with American support have been fighting ISIS in northern and eastern Syria. According to this report Erdogan promised Trump that the Turks would remove the remaining ISIS fighters from Syria if the Americans would withdraw. Turkey has objected to the US training the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDY). The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been struggling to establish a Kurdistan homeland for forty years. They have been declared a “terrorist organization” by NATO nations but not by the United Nations and other countries such as Switzerland, China, India, Russia and Egypt.
According to today’s AP article US troops and Kurdish allies have been preparing for an offensive against ISIS, and Trump’s announcement shocked these Americans and Kurds. Kurdish forces responded with the warning that they might release thousands of ISIS militants they have detained in prisons and camps. Yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel would intensify its actions against the Iranian forces in Syria.
Russian President Putin, whose forces have been supporting the egregious war crimes of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, praised Trump’s decision and said that the Americans were in Syria illegally.
Yesterday the United States First Step Act became law that passed the Senate 87-12 and the House 358-36 to reform federal prison sentences after decades of a failed war on drugs and excessively punitive 3-strike sentences. This is considered a first step because it only affects the 181,000 federal prisoners out of the 2,121,600 total inmates in the US and because of other reforms to come. About 65 million Americans have criminal records.
The new law makes retroactive the reforms of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 which reduced the 100-1 disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences which could release 4,000 prisoners. A Risk and Needs Assessment system will give inmates 10 days of earned time for every 30 days in rehabilitation programs. The bill provides $375 million over five years for programming and classes.
Apparently President Trump supported the bill to please his son-in-law Jared Kushner whose father had served 14 months in 2005-06 for 18 counts of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering. The shortened sentences could also affect the Trump family if they are eventually sentenced by federal courts.
The efforts of individuals such as Van Jones and non-profits such as his Dream Corps and #cut50 promoted these reforms. Already many state legislators are beginning to work on bringing these reforms to the state prisons where most of those incarcerated in the United States dwell.
The American people can transform the imperialistic and militaristic policies of the United States by ending its support for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. We can also support the candidacy of progressive candidates who will stop the war crimes and work diplomatically and support United Nations peacekeeping operations to solve human conflicts with less violence. The worst war criminals such as Syria’s Bashar al-Assad must be arrested, put on trial, and removed from power. The United States should withdraw its military forces from these wars, stop selling weapons, and giving military “aid.” The United States also needs to lead the effort to abolish all nuclear weapons in the world.
I am running for the Democratic nomination for President as a progressive peace candidate who will make world peace the top priority in order to lead this nation and the world to the resolution of conflicts without violence in accord with international law. This will enable the US to reduce the largest military budget in the world by far so that the savings can be used for beneficial purposes and to reduce the national debt. Most of the people in the world want peace, and we need to organize our efforts to make sure that war criminals are held to account and so that future wars will be prevented.
China reduced its extreme poverty rate from 84% in 1981 to 13% by 2008 while Vietnam decreased its poverty rate from 90% to 17%, helping East Asia to go from 77% to 14%. Latin America lowered their extreme poverty rate to 6%. South Asia’s rate was 61% in 1981 and 36% in 2008, but because of population growth in India the number of extremely poor people increased from 568 million to 571 million.
Since the great recession began in 2008, many poverty problems became worse. Sub-Saharan Africa has 48% of the people living on less than $1.25 a day and has the fastest growing population of any region. Although the extreme poverty rate decreased from 52% to 48%, the number of very poor people went from 205 million to 386 million. South Asia recently had 957 million people living in extreme poverty. If living on $2 a day is the criterion, then the poverty rate for all developing countries is 47%.
In 2010 the Stiglitz Report advised a substantial increase in aid to developing nations. The Commission explained that developing countries face serious problems because of four reasons: they have fewer resources; they lack automatic stabilizers for fiscal and social protection; they have difficulty borrowing in international financial markets; and those nations which relied on private money from international capital markets have been adversely affected.
In 1970 the United Nations General Assembly urged the richest countries to contribute 0.7% of their gross national products to Official Development Assistance (ODA). The United States opposed setting this goal and has been 21st out of 22 nations, giving only 0.22% and only 0.18% under Trump.
When will the United States convert its unnecessary military spending and war costs into constructive support with some of it going to help the poor in these nations?
The date December 25 was used by Christians to celebrate Christmas starting in the 4th century CE as it was a major holiday in Roman culture. The astronomer Johannes Kepler noted a supernova in 1604 during a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Pisces, and he calculated that Jesus may have been born in 6 BC when there was that conjunction also with Mars in February.
The sign Pisces is significant because the 25,868-year cycle of the precession of the equinoxes shifted the vernal equinox from Aries to Pisces about the first century BC or CE or before during the Hellenistic era after Alexander’s conquests. The Piscean Age lasted 2,156 years, and most astrologers agree that we are now in the Aquarian Age, a time of science, revolution, and democracy. Jesus brought teachings for the Piscean-Virgo Age, an age of belief with symbols related to water, fish, the virgin, and monarchy.
Scholars generally agree that King Herod the Great died in 4 BC and so reason that Jesus must have been born before that event. In doing research today on the most likely time of Jesus’ birth I discovered that the Urantia Book suggested the date 21 August 7 BC. I find this auspicious because the following celestial bodies were in signs they rule: sun in Leo, moon in Cancer, Mercury in Virgo, Venus in Libra, Mars in Scorpio, and Jupiter in Pisces conjunct Saturn. Uranus was also in Pisces trine Neptune in Scorpio.
Some have noted that US Presidents elected in a year ending in zero starting in 1840 died in office until Reagan was elected in 1980. The Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions in 1861, 1881, 1901, 1921, 1941, and 1961 were in earth signs, but the one that broke the string in 1981 was in an air sign.
I have explained how astrology is scientific. I have also noted that the next conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn will be at the first degree of Aquarius on December 22, 2020. This bodes well for powerful changes in democracy starting about that time.
The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate has estimated that humanity could save $26 trillion worldwide by shifting to sustainable development. Lower costs for renewable energy have made wind and solar power more affordable than coal and gas even in China and India. The average benchmark global cost of new solar PV (non-tracking) is now just $60/MWh, and the cost for onshore wind is even lower at $52/MWh.
Recently Russia has been testing the Poseidon, a nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed drone and a long-range torpedo that could be armed with a 2-megaton bomb. Russia also has been testing a hypersonic Zircon missile that travels at 6,138 miles an hour which could be launched from Russia’s Yasen-class submarines.
Why is Russia developing these genocidal weapons? Maybe it is because the United States has been developing anti-missile weapons that can shoot down ballistic missiles at the borders of space which could nullify the deterrence of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). The Zircon might not be shot down because it travels lower, and thus this could be an attempt to restore MAD. The US also is working on hypersonic missiles.
These awful weapons threaten our civilization, and I believe that we must reverse the nuclear arms and abolish all nuclear weapons. Another reason why the Russians may be escalating the arms race is because since the end of the Cold War the US has been expanding its NATO military alliance by taking in most of the nations that had been Soviet satellites. When Gorbachev decided to dissolve the Warsaw Pact alliance, the US promised not to expand NATO into those countries at all. Both superpowers and the whole world will be much better off when all these horrible weapons are banned for the good of humanity. That is one of the main reasons why I am running for President.
As 2018 is coming to a close, President Trump is demanding from Congress $5 billion for a border wall he promised Mexico would finance. During his shutdown of the federal government over this he visited US soldiers in Iraq, where the war in which Americans killed about a million people is supposed to be over. He told the troops that he has given them a 10% pay raise, the first one in ten years. Actually the latest raise is only 2.6%, and soldiers have been getting pay raises almost every year.
As president Trump has spread his foolish ideas and incompetence throughout the government by appointing people who are also incompetent and blinded by his reactionary ideas. Several have been fired or quit because they are nearly as corrupt as this ruthless real estate crook.
In 2019 with the Democrats in control of the House of Representatives and the Muller report on the many crimes of Trump and his administration expected in February, impeachment of the President is inevitable. Republican senators then will have to choose whether to continue to ignore the crimes and incompetence of Trump or to vote with the Democrats to remove him from office and try to save their party from his misrule. Considering that government is in the hands of a warmongering national security advisor John Bolton and several “acting” administrators who have not been confirmed by the US Senate, the megalomaniac Trump must be replaced in order to lessen the danger to this country and the world which he has already done so much to harm.
Soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is appointing Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) to chair the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis although progressives want a Green New Deal Select Committee with subpoena power. Pelosi’s committee will accept members of Congress who take money from the fossil fuel industry. The previous committee had subpoena power, but this one will not. Why not?
During the next two years until the next election when the Democrats could take control, House Democrats need to use subpoena power to question relevant witnesses to reveal the truth in committee hearings to show how a Green New Deal could work better to solve critical problems such as global heating and the need for infrastructure support and better jobs. There are climate solutsions.
Gerrymandering is the American-invented process of designing legislative voting districts for the advantage of the political party in power that draws the lines. Because the Republican Party made extraordinary gains with money in the 2010 election after the Citizens United decision, they were able to gerrymander a majority of states after the census that year. Recently courts have overturned gerrymandering in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
In the 2018 election a very large turn-out enabled Democrats to win state-wide offices in Wisconsin and Michigan. Yet Republicans held on to majorities in the legislatures because of the gerrymandering even though the Democrats had more total votes for legislators in those states. Democrats in Wisconsin got 54% of the votes for the state Assembly but won only 36 of 99 seats. In North Carolina the Republicans outvoted Democrats 50.4% to 48.3% but won 9 seats to 3 for the Democrats with one district being contested because of election fraud on absentee voting. In these three states Republicans are trying to reduce the power of the newly elected Democratic governors, attorney generals, and secretaries of state. In 2018 Democrats increased their number of governors by seven, but Republics still have governors in 27 states. In 2018 ballot initiatives for redistricting reform passed in Michigan, Missouri, Colorado, and Utah, and the Ohio legislature did so in May.
Democrats are likely to win big again in 2020, and some may be tempted to retaliate by gerrymandering to favor Democrats; but I believe Democrats would do better in the long run by being fair and implementing non-partisan redistricting that ignores party affiliation and draws compact districts impartially. In 2010 the bipartisan California Citizens Redistricting Commission drew the new districts. In the 2018 election California Democrats won 45 seats in the US House to 7 for the Republicans. In the California State Senate Democrats have 29 seats to 11 Republicans, and in the State Assembly the Democrats won 60 seats and Republicans 20.
In the year 2018 the effects of global heating cost the world about $85 billion. The United States suffered at least half of this damage. The hurricane Florence cost $19 billion in the Carolinas and Michael about $15 billion in Florida. Estimated damage of the Camp and Woolsey fires in California is about $10 billion. According to London-based Christian Aid’s report droughts cost Europe $7.5 billion, Australia about $7.4 billion, Argentina $6 billion, and Cape Town in South Africa $1.2 billion. Floods cost China $9.3 billion and India $3.7 billion, and damage from the Typhoon Mangkhut was about $1.5 billion in the Philippines and China.
The estimated expenses of the United States military for the fiscal year 2018 were about $874 billion by the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Energy (nuclear weapons).
The Watson Institute at Brown University estimated that from October 2001 to October 2018 the US wars in Afghanistan (& Pakistan) and Iraq have cost the United States about $4.8 trillion and have caused nearly 500,000 deaths which includes more than 250,000 civilians, about 112,000 opposition fighters, 6,951 US soldiers, 7,820 US contractors, and 1,464 allied troops. They also found that an additional 800,000 people died because of indirect costs of the wars such as disease and malnutrition. Since military spending is financed by loans the future interest on this debt could exceed $8 trillion by the 2050s.
Yet I believe that by ending such wars and greatly reducing military spending while making taxes much more progressive we could pay off the national debt and avoid most of those interest costs. We would also be avoiding the massive deaths and misery from wars caused by US imperialism that are unnecessary to maintaining American security.
As the new year began, the US Strategic Command, which coordinates offensive nuclear weapons, showed a video of a B-2 stealth bomber blowing something up as a sick joke, and they had to apologize later.
Also the United States and Israel withdrew from UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) because they claimed the peaceful organization has an “anti-Israel bias” for having criticized Israel for occupying East Jerusalem and other Palestinian territory.
How tragic it is that our country in its quest for global military supremacy is making enemies in so many nations instead of promoting peace and understanding!
My campaign is committed to doing everything we can to abolish nuclear weapons, end wars and soldiers occupying foreign lands, and bringing about major reductions in wasteful and destructive military spending to provide funds to pay down the $22 trillion debt of the United States and finance a Green New Deal in an emergency effort to prevent disastrous global heating while providing good jobs rebuilding infrastructure.
Yesterday the US Border Patrol again used tear gas and pepper spray across the border treating as enemies innocent migrants who are seeking refuge in the nation of immigrants, the land of the free. Trump policy cruelly has slowed to a crawl the processing of applications for refuge. These racist policies are unacceptable and criminal in my opinion.
Starting tomorrow the House of Representatives with a strong Democratic majority, which was obtained despite widespread Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression, will have the opportunity to begin offering spending bills that must be initiated in the House. They should pass major cuts in military spending and remedies for the misappropriations of the Trump administration. These are correctives Democrats must apply until the 2020 election when they can replace this incompetent government that benefits only the rich.
Since 1981 when Republicans have been in power, they have massively cut taxes and increased military spending, exploding the US debt from less than $1 trillion to nearly $22 trillion now; but when not in power they expect the Democrats to balance the budget or pay down the debt. President Bill Clinton actually did that during his 8 years; but President Obama had to handle the Great Recession caused by the irresponsible policies of George W. Bush, and the US national debt passed 100% of GDP in 2014. ln 2 years President Trump has increased it to an estimated 108% in 2019. This is nearing the all-time high of 119% in 1946 after World War II expenses. Yet Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy managed to pay down the national debt by maintaining the top income tax bracket at 91%. By the end of Carter’s presidency the ratio was down to 31%.
Now House Speaker Pelosi wants to put PayGo into the House rules so that any spending bill has to pay for itself with cuts in other programs or higher taxes. Many Progressives are opposed because it would make it difficult to pass needed reforms such as the Green New Deal because the bills would have to include tax increases and/or decreased spending.
My policy is to pay for these reforms with large military cuts and more progressive taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Yet now it is nearly impossible to do this with a Republican President and Senate. Thus I believe the Democrats would be wise to let go of PayGo for a while in order to at least pass some bills in the House as models of what could be done in 2021.
Although she has not registered as a candidate for President yet, in announcing her intention to run Elizabeth Warren said, “In a Democratic primary we are going to link arms, and we’re going to say grassroots funding—no to the billionaires.” This carefully worded statement does not rule out large contributions from joint fundraising PACs such as the Elizabeth Warren Fund that raised $4.9 million for her in 2018 including $10,400 from Morgan Stanley. In that campaign she raised $34.7 million, spent $22.5 million, and she has $12.5 million left over to give her a running start now. Is she going to forgo her joint fundraising PAC?
As a progressive candidate, I believe Warren has a good chance to get the nomination. Yet if Sanders runs, they may split the progressive vote. What about the billionaire candidates such as Bloomberg and Steyer and other corporate Democrats who will not necessarily agree to “link arms” with her.
I was pleased to see that Warren wants to reduce military spending, end US participation in the Mideast civil wars, and would adopt a no-first-use of nuclear weapons policy. These are excellent, but what about negotiating the abolition of all nuclear weapons in the world and closing America’s imperialistic military bases in some 80 countries?
Yesterday House Democrats introduced “For The People Act” HR1 that includes 22 reform bills previously introduced to improve American elections and ethics in government. These include online voter registration, automatic voter registration, registration on Election Day, banning voter purging, restoring felons’ voting rights, requiring paper ballots, counting all provisional ballots, requiring 15 consecutive days of early voting, making election day a holiday, restoring the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and making voting easier in various ways.
HR1 reforms campaign finance by banning foreign money and advertising, requiring spending disclosures, allowing Congress to regulate campaign contributions (correcting the Citizens United decision), matching with public funds limited campaign donations, and allowing low-income candidates to use funds to pay for basic expenses.
HR1 also provides an ethics code for the US Supreme Court and improves ethics provisions for government employees.
As a progressive candidate for President I support the provisions of this historic bill.
Since publishing the first edition of Uniting Humanity in 2014 I have been advocating much more progressive taxation on personal and corporate income as well as on legacies. By taxing the 10% most wealthy more and especially the richest 1% trillions could be raised to finance health care for all, college tuition, and a green new deal in order to shift to clean energy and rebuild infrastructure. Getting off fossil fuels would also be accelerated by a $10 per metric ton tax on carbon emissions. Also greatly reducing military expenses would help finance these and other beneficial programs.
A temporary progressive tax on wealth could pay off the $22 trillion national debt in a few years. The US is currently paying $1.4 billion per day for interest on this debt, mostly to the rich from whom it was borrowed. This tax would have the super-wealthy pay back a portion of their excessive wealth at 1% per year for wealth over $1 million, 2% over $10M, 3% over $100M, 4% over $1 billion, 5% over $10B, and 6% over $100B. For example each year a person with $10M would pay $90,000, one with $100M would pay $1.89M, one with $1B would pay $28.89M, one with $10B would pay $388.89M, and a person with $100B would pay $4,889B. An economist could calculate how much revenue this would raise each year. If these rates are too low, they could be raised. Also a small sales tax on stock market transactions would bring in revenue and reduce exploitative speculation.
I, Sanderson Beck, am running for President as a progressive Democrat with an emphasis on bringing about world peace. Videos I have made on my campaign and world peace can be seen at http://san.beck.org/Videos.html
President Trump’s shutting down the government in order to force the US Congress to give him money for a border wall is going to backfire against him and could accelerate his impeachment and removal from office.
I suggest that Democrats adopt the strategy of passing spending bills to restore the government without wall money. They should be able to persuade enough Republican Senators to give them a majority on these. After Trump vetoes each bill, then Republican Senators must decide whether to over-ride the veto to finance the government. Those senators who refuse to do so will be held responsible by voters for inflicting this fiasco on the American people. As the crisis gets worse, more Republicans will have to give in and oppose Trump. The longer Republicans continue to back Trump on this the more they will lose support from the American people. When the number reaches two-thirds of the Senate and overcomes the veto, then there will also be enough votes to remove President Trump from office after House Democrats impeach him. Republicans will still have a conservative president in Pence, and the nation will be freed of incompetent government by the egomaniac, deceitful, bullying, insulting, and dangerous Trump.
I support the New Peace Deal proposed by Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Alice Slater that repudiates war and nuclear weapons and can be read at commondreams.org.
They call for demilitarizing US foreign policy, fulfilling the obligation for nuclear disarmament in the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that was adopted by 122 nations at the UN in 2017. The Divest from the War Machine coalition is urging all members of congress to refuse money from the weapons industry.
Author Nick Turse reports that the US Department of Defense says they have 4,775 military sites but that only 514 are in foreign countries. Turse estimates there are about 800 US bases abroad, and the US Defense Department claims they are in 164 nations. The US empire has 95% of the world’s foreign military bases while China has only one foreign base. The US has added many secret bases in Africa.
By making peace with other nations and strengthening the peacekeeping of the United Nations, the US could bring home these troops and save enough money to help pay off the national debt. If Americans elect a peacemaking candidate in 2020, a new era of peace could begin in 2021.
President Trump’s first head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, was the Oklahoma Attorney General who had sued the Environmental Protection Agency at least 14 times for the oil and gas industry that gave his campaigns more than $300,000. Pruitt‘s maladministration of EPA lasted 71 months before he resigned amid 14 federal investigations by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and others.
On July 9, 2018 Andrew R. Wheeler, a former lobbyist for the coal industry, became Acting Administrator of the EPA. He weakened fuel-efficiency standards and carbon-emission restrictions on coal plants, and he allowed more mercury emissions, changing a regulation that was saving 11,000 lives annually. Now Trump has nominated him to head the agency. Since 2009 as a lawyer Wheeler has represented the coal producer Murray Energy. He has criticized the science of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Monsanto’s glyphosate put in Roundup is the most widely used pesticide in America and has been found in 70% of nonorganic cereals containing oats in steadily increasing numbers since 1990 and also in more than 70% of Americans. Glyphosate is a probable carcinogen, and suits against Monsanto by cancer patients are increasing.
Yesterday 626 environmental and supportive organizations released a letter to members of the US Congress urging them to enact the Green New Deal in order to keep global warming below 1.5°C. The letter emphasizes the following six demands:
1. Stop and phase out fossil fuel leasing, extraction and use.
2. Convert all power generation to renewable energy.
3. Expand public transportation and phase out vehicles using fossil fuels.
4. Fully fund the Clean Air Act.
5. Transform communities and work with clean energy.
6. Uphold the rights of indigenous peoples.
My Presidential campaign fully supports these demands.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the 2017 Trump tax cut will increase the national debt by $1.9 trillion over ten years including $582 billion in interest that will go to rich bondholders. In the first year an estimated 21% of the tax cuts went to the richest 1%. The tax cut for corporations reduced their tax rate by 40%, and last year revenue from the corporate tax fell by nearly a third. Corporations have been giving out bonuses and salary raises, but they have gone to only 4% of the employees.
Americans for Tax Fairness have noted that the pharmaceutical company Pfizer has announced stock buybacks in the first two years worth $20 billion while their drug prices are going up 30%. Pfizer’s tax cut this year is about $1 billion and will be another $25 billion on almost $200 billion it holds in untaxed profits offshore.
The United States is the only major country that permits such profit-making from health care, giving the US a health care system that costs twice that of most nations while not even covering everyone. A single-payer system would transfer these profits to help pay for providing health care for all. Without complicated bills paying companies that profit from selling drugs and providing insurance, the public system would be much more efficient by providing more care with less costs.
In January 2003 I published the Nonviolent Action Handbook, and today I have put up on YouTube the video “Philosophy of Nonviolence” which shows me reading aloud the first chapter of that book. Of the 36 books I have written and published (and put up on my website san.beck.org) this booklet so far has been the best seller.
This philosophy has been practiced successfully by abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, the suffragettes, Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa and India, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the American civil rights movement, by anti-nuclear activists, and by many others.
By intelligently using nonviolent action we can transform our militaristic and warlike society to a world of peace with justice and so prevent and heal the current trend toward mutual self-destruction. May God help us so that we can accomplish these humanitarian reforms.
I support the Los Angeles teachers who are on strike for more education funding so that classes can be smaller, and more teachers can be hired. I believe that education is the best investment we can make in the future. Four-fifths of the schools in the Los Angeles District do not have nurses. Many private schools are using much public funding with little accountability. Public schools have been closing as charter schools proliferate. The LA Unified District has a $1.8 billion budget surplus it could use to make improvements. California used to lead the nation in education, but now it is 43rd out of 50 states in spending per student. California may be the most progressive state, and it can and must do better than that.
Watch Spike Lee’s video for the song “Land of the Free” by the musical group “The Killers.” This beautiful song with intelligent lyrics showing relevant images reveals US hypocrisy during revived racism and xenophobia.
Now no one wants to be killed in a war
Or be facing nuclear weapons in horror.
We won't allow the military to kill
Civilians innocent of any bad will,
And those who work in defense industries
Will surely rather earn their salaries
For doing useful and constructive tasks
That answer calmly when the conscience asks,
"Am I contributing to peace and life,
Or does the work I do fuel greater strife?"
The sale of weapons we must not permit
To any country; we would challenge it.
No military aid or troops must go
Outside a nation's borders, and although
We must enforce the laws that keep us free
It must be by the right authority.
No nation has the sovereign right to be
A police force in some other country.
International laws can only be
Correctly served by world legality.
Certainly people want to feel secure
Aware that laws and police will assure
Us all that criminals are apprehended
When human rights violations are intended,
And people want their law courts to be fair,
Protecting the accused's rights everywhere.
People want their freedom of expression
Of art and speech, writing, and religion.
Within these broad and universal rights
Let social groups each live by their own lights.
Republican House leaders removed Rep. Steve King from two committees after the New York Times reported that in an interview King asked, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) commented that free speech has consequences. Does asking such a question deserve that punishment, especially considering that King voted for the resolution to condemn white nationalism and white supremacy? Is this a new form of McCarthyism? I do not agree with Steve King’s views on immigration and these issues, but I believe he has a right to express unpopular opinions that are neither dishonest nor inciting violence.
AOC has criticized Democratic leaders for appointing members who have taken money from fossil fuel companies to a committee related to the Green New Deal. I agree with her criticism because she is not condemning their speech but their corruption. I believe Democratic leaders should remove those members from that committee.
The EAT-Lancet Commission has released the report “Food in the Anthropocene: Healthy Diets From Sustainable Food Systems.” They urge people to shift toward diets that are more healthy for the planet as well as for individuals so that by the year 2050 about 10 billion people could be nourished on the Earth. The current world population is 7.7 billion. They recommend sustainable food production and advise that food losses and waste could be cut in half.
They urge the consumption of much more nuts, vegetables, beans, and fruit and much less red meat, poultry, dairy, grains, and eggs (listed in order of magnitude of change).
Below is a copy of most of the #WOMENSWAVE WOMEN’S AGENDA for the 2019 Women’s March that I support:
The Women’s Agenda is a tangible declaration of how we will protect and defend our rights, safety, health and communities. Our Agenda will serve as a work plan to Congress and will create the roadmap we will use to mobilize our constituents into 2020 and beyond.
Historically, protest movements are difficult to sustain. The raw energy of the people dissipates over time without an ideological frame to continue building power. In this moment of U.S. history, one that will likely be written books as among the darkest, we have lost the judicial and executive branches of government along with the Senate. Social movements are the only bulwark against the rising tide of authoritarianism, misogyny, white nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, ableism, classism, and ageism.
Women’s March convened a group of 70 movement leaders to create this set of 24 essential federal policy priorities that form the foundation of the 2019 Women’s March on Washington and will establish the priorities of our movement over the next two years.
This Women’s Agenda was authored by women who work directly with impacted communities because we believe those closest to the problem are closest to the solution. This is a continuation of our work of the past two years to lift up the voices of the most vulnerable and directly impacted women in our communities.
Building upon the Unity Principles established in 2017, Women's March expanded the process to include dozens of additional organizations representing women in marginalized communities, who have collaborated in committees to identify one to two urgent policy priorities under each of the following areas:
ENDING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN & FEMMES; ENDING STATE VIOLENCE; REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS & JUSTICE; RACIAL JUSTICE; LGBTQIA+ RIGHTS; IMMIGRANT RIGHTS; ECONOMIC JUSTICE & WORKER’S RIGHTS; CIVIL RIGHTS & LIBERTIES; DISABILITY RIGHTS; ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE; UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE / MEDICARE FOR ALL; EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION; ENDING WAR
The Women’s Agenda is a tangible declaration of how we will protect and defend our rights, safety, health and communities. Our Agenda will serve as a work plan to Congress and will create the roadmap we will use to mobilize our constituents into 2020 and beyond.
As required by law the US Department of Defense (DoD) has just released a report on how climate change effects its 79 US bases, but it does not include its foreign bases in 80 countries nor how much the US military contributes to global heating.
When the Trump administration pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement, the US reneged on a $2 billion commitment to the Green Climate Fund and eliminated three proposed climate satellites.
A 2008 “Climate of War” report by Oil Change International found that the second Iraq war had emitted at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. In fiscal year 2012, the DoD consumed about a billion gigawatt hours of site-delivered energy at a cost of $20.4 billion. DoD is the world's oil-hungriest institution and consumed 87.4 million barrels in 2014.
The Pentagon pays an average of $400 a gallon to fuel combat vehicles and aircraft in Afghanistan. The DoD uses 4.6 billion US gallons of fuel annually, an average of 12.6 million gallons per day. The US military is the largest single consumer of energy in the world and the largest institutional contributor to global heating. If it were a country, the Department of Defense (DoD) would rank 34th in the world in oil use.
US militarism is not only killing many people in other countries in a misguided “war on terrorism,” which only breeds more terrorism, but experts are arguing that the US military, which spends more than a third of what the entire world spends on the military, can no longer afford to do so because of falling behind in other more beneficial areas.
On April 4, 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King made a politically courageous speech in which he proposed a five-point peace program for Vietnam that included an end to all bombing, a unilateral cease-fire to prepare for negotiation, curtailment of military build-ups throughout Southeast Asia, realistic acceptance of the National Liberation Front (NLF), and the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva agreement. He also said,
I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
My chapter “King and the Civil Rights Movement” includes the topic “King Challenges Poverty and War.”
President Trump refuses to sign any legislation that will not give him his anti-immigrant wall, and Senate Majority Leader McConnell refuses to allow a vote on any bill that Trump will not sign. Democrats wisely are not submitting to this coercion for a wall because if they did, they could be subjected to similar extortion on other issues.
Most Americans correctly are holding Trump and the Republicans responsible for fomenting this governmental crisis that has withheld wages from 800,000 government employees and is harming countless others because of diminished services.
Republican Senators can resolve this abuse of power by persuading McConnell to allow them to vote on a bill to finance the government or by voting for a new leader. As long as they do not, they are complicit with this crime against the American people. Voters in the 2020 election will remember this debacle caused by the Republican Party.
Meanwhile Democrats in the House of Representatives can pass beneficial legislation and use committees to investigate the many abuses of power by the Republicans, especially impeachment charges aimed at removing the worst President in American history.
Israel’s recent attack on Iranians in Syria raises the danger that Iran might retaliate against Israel which could trigger the United States getting involved in a war against Iran. President Trump’s current National Security Advisor, the warmonger John Bolton, has long advocated war against Iran, and he also helped push George W. Bush into attacking Iraq in March 2003, America’s most misguided war since Vietnam.
Iran has 82 million people with 534,000 in the military. Its military power ranks 13th in the world ahead of Israel at 16th. Psychological warfare expert Scott Bennett warns that if the United States did go to war against Iran, China and/or Russia might back Iran out of fear they would be next. This would pose the danger of escalating into World War III involving the two nuclear superpowers that have 95% of the nuclear weapons in the world, and that could mean the destruction of human civilization in the northern hemisphere if not the entire world.
The US Constitution requires that only the US Congress can declare war, but this has been ignored often by Presidents since World War II. This is another reason why House Democrats should move to impeach Trump who foolishly appointed Bolton.
On 20 May 2018 Chávez successor Maduro was re-elected President of Venezuela with 68% of the vote. The opposition MUD Party boycotted the election, and turnout was 46%. Maduro had asked the Carter Center to send an observation team, but they declined. Facing crippling economic sanctions by the US and other right-wing regimes, President Maduro has maintained welfare programs.
On Monday (3 days ago) Sgt. Wandres Figueroa led a small group of soldiers in an attempted coup that took four hostages but failed. National Assembly President Juan Guaido tweeted (falsely) that this revolt reflected “the generalized feelings within the Armed Forces.” Venezuela’s Supreme Court ruled that the National Assembly’s attempt to claim the executive office is invalid.
On Tuesday the National Assembly moved to grant amnesty for civilians and military officials rising up against Maduro's government.
Yesterday after Trump recognized Guaido as President, Maduro cut diplomatic ties with the US, rejecting the invasive policies of the US empire and Trump.
The United States has a shameful history of persecuting socialist nations in Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela and helping to overthrow governments in South Korea in 1945, Egypt in 1952, Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, the Congo and Laos in 1960, Dominican Republic in 1961 and 1965, South Vietnam in 1963, Brazil in 1964, Indonesia in 1965 and 1997, Greece in 1967, Bolivia in 1971, Chile in 1973, Afghanistan in 1979, El Salvador in 1980, Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, Haiti in 1991, Yugoslavia in 2000, Iraq in 2003, and Libya in 2011.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is keeping its Doomsday Clock at 11:58 for another year which is the closest to midnight and disaster it has been since it was there in 1953.
Removing the danger of nuclear holocaust by abolishing all nuclear weapons is the top priority in my Presidential campaign. The policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is the worst insanity and could destroy the human species. The two superpowers, US and Russia, which have 95% of all the nuclear weapons, stand to benefit the most in getting rid of them by saving much money and wasted human effort while making the world safer for everyone. I believe the time has come to negotiate total nuclear disarmament with all the nuclear nations starting with the superpowers.
After that is successful, we can then move on to disarming the weapons of war and replacing them with effective international law under a democratic federal world government that would be responsible for keeping the peace. No one nation has the right to be the policeman in the world or even a region. No nation should be allowed to use force outside its borders. Thus all nations could disarm weapons of war while retaining local police for law enforcement.
My plan calls for a temporary tax on assets to pay down the national debt, and it is more progressive than Warren’s idea. The annual tax would be 1% on assets over $1 million, 2% over $10M, 3% over $100M, 4% over $1 billion & 5% over $10B.
I also advocate a tax on stock transactions to share the wealth and reduce wild & micro speculation.
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that US VP Pence called Venezuela’s Assembly leader Guaido urging him to supplant President Maduro which he then announced on the 24th. Soon after that President Trump recognized Guaido as Venezuela’s leader. The European Union and other capitalist nations then added their support for this illegal effort.
On Thursday the 24th an open letter signed by Noam Chomsky, Laura Carlsen, Mark Weisbrot, Medea Benjamin, Phyllis Bennis, and 65 others urged the US government to stop interfering in Venezuela because it would make their desperate situation worse.
Sanctions imposed by the US and its capitalist allies have been strangling the economy of Venezuela for months if not years. The oil company Citgo has not been allowed to transfer from the US $1 billion in profits to Venezuela, and the Venezuela government has not been allowed to borrow money to help them get through the crisis resulting from lower oil prices in that oil-rich nation. The US has tried to overthrow Venezuela’s socialist leader Hugo Chavez in the past. The coup attempt which began on Monday the 21st with a failed military plot violates the Charter of the Organization of American States.
Wise people on all sides are urging negotiations and the peaceful settlements of the disputes in this economic and political crisis.
Elliott Abrams worked for President Reagan as an Assistant Secretary of State for nearly 8 years. He was severely criticized for hiding atrocities by the militaries of the US-supported governments of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, and of the Contra rebels fighting against Nicaragua. He denied that more than 500 civilians were killed in the El Mozote massacre in December 1981, calling it FMLN propaganda. In 1982 the Boland Amendment ended US aid to the Contras. Abrams pleaded guilty to withholding evidence during the Iran-Contra investigation by Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh that began in December 1986, but President H. W. Bush pardoned him in December 1992.
In June 2001 President George W. Bush hired Abrams as “Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Operations” at the NSC. Abrams favored the coup attempt against Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez in April 2002 and also the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. He criticized US policy for attempting to make Israel give concessions for peace. During Bush’s second term Abrams was deputy national security adviser for Global Democracy Strategy.
In May 2016 Abrams wrote an article criticizing candidate Trump, and for that reason Trump vetoed Tillerson’s choice of Abrams as Deputy Secretary of State, but Secretary of State Pompeo appointed Abrams a Special Envoy to Venezuela on Friday.
If the US gives military support to the opposition party in Venezuela and escalates that crisis into a civil war, it will be a serious crime against peace that could lead to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
My presidential campaign is dedicated to ending US war crimes and bringing about world peace through nonviolence, democracy, and international law.
Yesterday I attended the “50 Years After the Santa Barbara Oil Spill: A Call to Action” meeting that filled an auditorium with about a thousand people. The response to that major oil spill at Santa Barbara in 1969 stimulated the environmental movement that soon led to Earth Day, the EPA and much ecological legislation.
Wake up America! Support the Green New Deal that is coming in the 2020 election and will help bring about a peaceful revolution in 2021.
Today I read two excellent articles at comondreams.org. Michael Galant wrote “The Green New Deal is Not Enough: We Need an Alternative Globalization,” explaining how the world economy needs to be reformed. Eric Margolis wrote “Afghanistan: America's Shameful War” with stunning insight on America’s longest war.
Anyone who does not see the beautiful revolution that is coming to this country and the world is not paying attention.
Yesterday the Trump government robbed $7 billion in assets from the people of Venezuela, and yet they blame Maduro for “mishandling” Venezuela’s economy!
Trump is a bully and threatens to make US imperialism much worse. The people must insist on his being removed from office asap. We (US) should be helping the people of Venezuela, not harming them.
Bolton issued another military threat which makes him a criminal for violating the United Nations Charter.
Yesterday Julian Borger reported in The Guardian that the US is making the 6-kiloton W76-2 nuclear weapon for Trident II submarines, and they could be “operational” before September. This smaller weapon is being made because Trump complained he did not have any nukes he could really use in a war. This is intended to supplement the 100-kiloton W76 weapon on Tridents. 12 of the W76 thermonuclear bombs could be put on each Trident II missile, but a treaty limits them to 8. Trump already has access to “tactical” atomic weapons on cruise missiles that can be as small as 0.3-kilotons including some between 5 and 10 kilotons and up to 170 kilotons. US thermonuclear weapons available go up to 1,200 kilotons in explosive power which is 80 times the Hiroshima bomb. The “modernization” of US nuclear weapons is estimated to cost between $1.2 and $2 trillion over the next ten years.
Meanwhile Russia has developed the hypersonic RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile that can carry 15 nuclear warheads and can fly more than ten times the speed of sound. Putin has also bragged about making laser weapons and nuclear-powered cruise missiles that can fly for an indefinite period. So far the Strategic Defense Initiative begun by Reagan in tests fails most of the time and could not counter these new weapons.
In 1989 I stepped over an imaginary line on a sidewalk outside the Kings Bay Trident base and spent six months in prison for that misdemeanor. In my opinion humanity will be much better off without these expensive and holocaustic weapons.
Senator Ed Markey and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) have re-introduced the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act (H.R. 669 / S. 200), legislation to block the President from launching a nuclear weapon without a Congressional declaration of war.
This essential safety precaution is especially important now with the erratic Trump in office. If Republicans refuse to support this legislation to prevent a nuclear war, voters should replace them in the next election.
Yesterday on President Franklin Roosevelt’s birthday the Social Security Subcommittee Chairman John Larson introduced the Social Security 2100 Act with more than 200 Democratic sponsors but no Republicans so far.
Because of Republican opposition the minimum benefit established in 1972 has not been improved since then. Republicans tried to scare people that Social Security was going bankrupt, and President George W. Bush even tried to privatize the highly successful retirement program by which the government has each generation pay for the retirement of previous generations. Thank goodness that failed because his irresponsible policies of decreasing taxes for the rich while spending more on foolish wars caused the economic crash in 2008.
As American wealth has been increasing, there is no difficulty in increasing benefits as Democrats propose. Polls show that two-thirds of voters favor expanding Social Security benefits.
The FICA tax paid by employees and employers would be increased gradually from 6.2% to 7.4% by 2043. The new minimum benefit would be set at 25% above the poverty line, and average benefits would increase about 2% and according to changes in the cost of living. The cap on annual income subject to this tax is currently $132,900, and the new law would apply the tax also to annual incomes over $400,000.
I support this bill but would also favor removing the cap altogether rather than exempting income between $132,900 and $400,000. I believe that those with such rich incomes should be paying society back some of the benefits they are gaining since they can most afford to do so.
Progressive House Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Tlaib, and Omar urge no aid for Trump’s battles against immigrants by cutting funding from Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). They also advise theconference committee to prohibit transfers fromDHS funding such as Trump has done. They call for “comprehensive immigration reform driven by justice.”
House Democrats can now control federal spending as the US Constitution states, “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.”
I support the efforts of Progressives to stop xenophobic funding and to phase out fossil fuels in the Green New Deal.
Although the United Nations General Assembly has designated 2019–2028 United Nations Decade of Family Farming (A/RES/72/239) and 2021–2030 International Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (A/RES/72/73), they have not yet decided what to call the decade 2020-2029. I propose that this be declared the International Decade of Peace.
To Donald Trump: You claim to be the best President in American history and a great deal-maker. Here are ways you can show the world that those things are true. You could support the International Decade of Peace by making peace with the nations your administration has so far considered as enemies and adversaries such as North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and Nicaragua. You could also show how you can make peace with Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Somalia, and Venezuela. You then could greatly reduce the military budget, and by increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations you could create a surplus and begin paying off the national debt.
You could also begin to work toward stabilizing the climate. We know you believe in climate change because you asked for a permit to build a wall around your golf course in Scotland to protect it from the rising sea level. This is a wall everyone will support. You could provide refuge for immigrants fleeing from violence in Central America which would make you a humanitarian hero.
My presidential campaign is dedicated to doing all I can to help bring peace and justice to this nation and the world. If I get enough support to be in the Democratic presidential debates, then I will explain how we can make peace and bring about universal disarmament and effective international law so that all nations and peoples can live safely without wars.
Yesterday presidents Trump and Putin both announced that they are suspending the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty signed by Reagan and Gorbachev in 1987. Although that treaty did not include air- or sea-launched missiles, it certainly made people feel safer especially the Europeans and Russians who were facing land-based weapons from their Cold War enemies that could destroy them in less than ten minutes.
Trump had announced on 20 October 2018 his intention to withdraw the United States from this treaty because he believed that Russia is in violation. Putin replied that Russia would not be the first to launch a nuclear weapon in a future conflict, and Russia at the UN urged negotiations on the treaty. US National Security Advisor Bolton suggested the US and Russia discuss Chinese missiles. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Russia had new missiles. Putin in November again asked to discuss INF and warned that Russia would “retaliate” if the US withdrew. On 23 January 2019 Russia revealed details of its 9M729 (SSC-8) missile, and today Russia started working on new hypersonic missiles.
This nuclear madness threatens a renewed nuclear arms race but also should wake up people to the need to abolish all nuclear weapons as all the nuclear powers agreed to do in article 6 of the 1970 the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT). The US, Russia, and every nation with nuclear weapons is violating that important treaty. This criminal activity threatens the survival of all humanity.
Currently ranked the happiest nation in the world, Costa Rica has not had any military forces for 70 years in the Central American region that has suffered many violent conflicts during that time. Costa Rica is the only country that has met all five of the United Nations Development Program criteria for environmental sustainability. By 2016 Costa Ricans had 98% of their electricity from clean sources, and they are planning to have zero net carbon emissions by 2021.
Their government provides excellent health care at low cost. Housing is affordable, and Costa Rica has the best educational system in Latin America. The United Nations University for Peace was founded in its capital San José in 1980. Costa Ricans on average live longer than people in the United States where longevity is strongly affected by income, race, and location.
Oil prices began collapsing in 2014. In an election in December 2015 the opposition party won a majority in the Venezuela Assembly. After they passed a law granting amnesty for violent crimes at public rallies, Venezuela’s Supreme Court ruled that law unconstitutional, and since July 2016 they have held the Assembly in contempt of court. Trump imposed heavy sanctions against Venezuela in 2017, reducing its oil revenue by about $7 billion and exacerbating Venezuela’s severe economic crisis, and Trump officials began meeting with coup plotters. Venezuela reduced its oil production from about 1,960 barrels per day in July 2018 to 1,137 in November. On 9 January 2019 President Maduro became president of the OPEC alliance of oil-exporting nations and urged OPEC to deal in currencies other than the US$. The next day Maduro was inaugurated for his second term as President of Venezuela after the May 2018 election in which he got 68% of the vote in a turnout of 46%; despite the main opposition party boycotting the election 16 parties participated.
On the 11 January protests led by National Assembly president Juan Guaidó resumed, and US Secretary of State Pompeo pledged support to him. On the 15th the Assembly declared Maduro illegitimate. As the protests became more violent, arrests were made. On the 21st about 25 National Guardsmen led a mutiny against Maduro and were arrested. Two days later US VP Pence released his video urging Venezuelans to overthrow the government, and Pence called Guaidó and told him the US would back him. The next day Guaidó proclaimed himself president. On the 25th 18 nations of the Organization of American States (OAS) rejected Guaidó’s claim. At a UN Security Council meeting Russia and China warned the US not to intervene in Venezuela.
On 29 January the US transferred Venezuela’s assets to Guaidó, and the Venezuelan Supreme Court froze his bank accounts and barred him from leaving Venezuela. After Maduro rejected an ultimatum, on 4 February seven European Union nations recognized Guaidó.
Higher oil prices help the Venezuelan people and the climate because they help alternative energy sources. However, Trump and capitalists oppose the socialist government in Venezuela and also want lower oil prices to increase short-term profits. The Trump government has also been threatening socialist Cuba and Nicaragua in a revived cold war.
Meanwhile progressive Democrats are urging a more mixed economy balancing social programs for health, education, and the environment with free enterprise moderated by progressive taxes. Will the US remain stuck in imperialism and militarism, or will we learn how to make peace and provide for human needs without hostility and violence toward others?
Capitalists use their money to make more money. Plutocrats use wealth to dominate politics. Fascists use nationalism and military power to try to dominate the world. These three tend to work in combination, though the first two can avoid the violence of fascism which derives from Mussolini’s party in Italy that allied with German National Socialists or Nazis who misused the term “socialist.” Communism means sharing all things in common and started in ancient tribalism and was tried in a pure form by the Jewish Essenes and by Jesus and his disciples. The Marxist Communism of Soviet Russia was perverted by Joseph Stalin who turned it into totalitarianism and fascism.
In my trial before a federal magistrate without a jury (in violation of the US Constitution) for trespassing at Vandenberg AFB twice in March 2003 I told the judge that people are beginning to use the “F word” more now, and that the F word is fascism. When he wanted to sentence me to more than the maximum sentence of six months for refusing probation, I told him that is illegal. He looked it up and said, “You have won your point,” and he only gave me three more months in prison for a nonviolent trespass to inform the US Air Force that they were in complicit with crimes against peace and war crimes. A letter from my friend Macgregor Eddy was withheld from me in prison because it had the words “you have won” in it.
Trump showed that he is a fascist when he said that he could stand on 5th Avenue in NY and shoot someone without being held accountable. Fascists use wars to promote national interests. In making his SOTU speech Trump mimicked Mussolini as he arrogantly thrust out his jaw. In Fear Woodward quoted Trump saying “we should be winning some wars” because killing people is easy. Trump believes that socialism is his enemy, and his fascist National Security Advisor Bolton wants to overthrow the three socialist governments in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.
Socialists use government to provide essential services for all the people to promote equal opportunity. Democrats allow all the people to influence government. Nonviolent activists work for reforms peacefully. Last night MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell in his “Last Word” praised the socialism of Social Security and Medicare and then criticized what he called “sports socialism” for using government funds for stadiums. I agree with his opinions but suggest that he should be more careful with his language because that is not socialism but corruption. Sports socialism would be if the people owned the teams and operated them for the benefit of all rather than for the profit of the capitalists. MSNBC fired Ed Schultz in 2015 for giving too much time to Socialist Bernie Sanders. Trump got $5 billion in free air time from the mainstream media in 2016. Green candidate Jill Stein got almost no free time on TV and was excluded from debates on the commercial stations as was Ralph Nader.
Democratic socialists would have the democratically elected government act for the benefit of all the people. Socialists and others want government to respond to the climate emergency with a Green New Deal. Global heating has been happening for a century with every decade being warmer than the one before. Already the climate has warmed one degree Celsius. Even if the heating is kept to 1.5 degrees, one-third of the ice in the Himalayas will melt. If it reaches 2 degrees, then half that ice will melt and even more drastically affect about a billion people.
FAIR.org reporter Adam Johnson has explained that President Madura suspects the US will again try to smuggle arms to the opposition through US AID shipments because Elliott Abrams has done this before. US media were tricked.