Columns

Honoring the Dead (But Only Some of Them)

On Memorial Day, Joe Biden followed in the footsteps of other presidents and laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier—and thereby promoted in a decades-long cover-up.

According to a Brown University study: "At least 800,000 people have been killed by direct war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan." The casualties included "thousands of service members and… thousands of contractors" (read: "mercenaries") but "the vast majority of people killed are civilians. More than 310,000 civilians have been killed in the fighting since 2001." By some estimates, while 9.7 million soldiers have died in wars, around 10 million civilians have been recorded as "collateral damage."

If soldiers are "laying down their lives" (a phrase that makes a brutal death sound like an act of voluntary sacrifice) to "defend" human freedoms, why do we not also honor the majority of war's "fallen"—the innocent civilians whose freedoms are supposedly the justification for waging bloody conflicts?

What are the odds that a "Tomb of the Unknown Civilian Family" might be added to the architecture at the Arlington Cemetery? (It's more likely that Congress would fund construction of a "Tomb of the Unknown Military Contractor.") 

In the meantime, you can watch how Veterans For Peace spent Memorial Day in cities across the US. 

Chalk One Up for One-Upping Your Schoolmates 

A lot of chalk was expended recently to create a super hopscotch track over the asphalt in the playground area of the MLK Middle School along Hopkins Street. The hopping grid covered more than 50 feet of payment and, instead of the standard ten squares, it contained 40. Quite a challenge for young scotch-hoppers. 

The hyped-up hop-spot was further adorned with a colorful chalk declaration in large, block letters that read: "I'm COOLER than YOU!" 

And, underneath, some come-lately TikTok tyke had scrawled an addendum: "And I'm HOTTER, too!" 

Pentagon Papers at 50: Live Webinar with Dan Ellsberg on June 13 

Here's your invitation to join the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee at 4:30 PM on Sunday, June 13 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers—and Dan Ellsberg's contribution to peace in Indochina. 

The publication of the Pentagon Papers torpedoed the government's case for war in Vietnam and helped scuttle the Nixon White House.  

Daniel Ellsberg will be the featured speaker on the June 13 webinar. Join in to honor Ellsberg, cohorts Anthony Russo and Senator Mike Gravel, and the newspapers that dared to publish the top-secret documents. 

Other speakers will include Noam Chomsky, Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, Gar Alperovitz, Barbara Myers, and moderator Jay Craven. 

For full program, speaker bios, resources and registration link, click here. 

Fighting Crime with Gift Coupons 

In a desperate ploy to convince the un-vaxxed to put their best arm forward and accept a Covid-fighting "jab," state officials have announced a $160 million plan to dole out cash and gift cards to California's unvaccinated multitudes. 

But there's more to this story! Governor Newsome's "pay for a poke" plan might just provide the model for a new era of kinder, gentler policing. Instead of "militarizing" police by giving them flak jackets, stun grenades and assault rifles, why not try "monetizing" them with pouches filled with cash and gift coupons? 

Perhaps it's time to try a switch from "Stop and Frisk" to "Stop and Gift." 

Here's how it would work. When police stop someone on suspicion of committing a criminal act, only to discover that the individual is innocent, the officer will apologize for the inconvenience, compliment the citizen on his or her innocence, and offer a complimentary $25 gift coupon to a local grocery outlet or popular bistro. (The program also would be a boon to local merchants.) 

This new policy could reduce the some of the friction currently involved in police-citizen encounters. With a "Stop and Gift" policy in force, citizens would no longer need to fear police encounters. Coupon-hopeful citizens would be on their best behavior. How transformative is "Stop and Gift"? If it works, innocent people might actually start looking forward to cop-stops! 

Tree Farts and Sea Snot 

Don't blame me for those narsty phrases, they're straight outta Steve Newman's Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet. And don't blame Newman for those tacky Nature-dissing phrases, they're straight from a couple of scientific studies cited by Earthweek. 

Researchers at North Carolina State U came up with the term "tree farts" to describe the fate of Eastern Seaboard trees that are being slowly destroyed by saltwater intrusion from rising seas. As the trees decay, they release invisible plumes of climate-roasting methane, nitrous oxide and CO₂. 

And "Sea snot" is a "mucus-like organic matter that threatens coral and the fishing industry in parts of the Mediterranean." The growing appearance of sea snot in the world's oceans is attributed to global warming, which is attributable to "tree farts." 

Do you see a pattern here? The media seems engaged in "blame the victim" reporting that dishes up servings of what might be called "bio-shaming" or "Earth-dissing. In both cases, reports of problems linked to unsustainable human activities—e.g., the burning of carbon—are construed to place the blame for environmental degradation ("smog," "wildfires," "birch burps," "sea slime") on victimized nature instead of on human nature. 

Name Your Fave Anti-War Super-Hero 

World BEYOND War has begun accepting its first nominations for the honor of being voted the "War Abolisher of the Year." Got someone you think is deserving of the title? (I nominated East Bay whistleblower Dan Ellsberg.) There's a short online form to fill out. Nominations are being accepted through July 31 at this link. 

Vote No on Planetary Extinction 

In the last week of May, Rep. Raul Grijalva (representing Arizona's 3rd Congressional District) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CN) introduced the Extinction Prevention Act of 2021 to provide "much-needed resources to protect some of the most imperiled wildlife species in the United States." 

"In a Congress this divided," Grijalva wrote, "it's important for us to show that this bill has strong public backing. So, I'm asking you today to add your name in support of the Extinction Prevention Act of 2021." 

As Grijalva notes: "More than one million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction—and species of all kinds are already disappearing at an alarming rate due to human activity. Among the species at the highest risk are those considered less 'charismatic' because support for the protection of these species has been underfunded for decades. 

"This bill will provide crucial resources for conservation projects that will protect, restore, and monitor four groups of species that are most at risk of extinction, which include North American butterflies, various Pacific Island plants, freshwater mussels, and Southwest desert fish. 

"The Extinction Prevention Act of 2021 will give these highly imperiled wildlife species a fighting chance to survive the extinction crisis. But we don't have time to waste." 

Leading conservation groups are already supporting this legislation. 

Why We Need an Independent 1/6 Investigation 

The January 6 invasion and violent ransacking of the US Capitol was propelled, to a major degree, by false information and a diet of hypnotizing conspiracy gumdrops doled out by social media mediums like QAnon and #RealDonaldTrump. 

In the absence of a through investigation and repudiation of "Big Lie" fear-fodder, smaller lies will just continue to crouch and pounce, frightening the unwary. 

Case in point: There is a foreign-linked trolling apparatus that I track (but will not promote by name) that routinely refers to "Supreme Socialist Leader Joe Biden" as head of "a Democratic Party that has fought against every major civil rights initiative." In one of its recent, daily dispatches, it informed its vast, global audience that the Dems have been "manipulating" the events of January 6. 

The truth, these trolls propose, is that the pro-Trump hoards were gathered peacefully outside the Capitol on January 6, only to be sucker-punched by "US Capitol police forces firing exploding flash grenades into crowds of men, women and children." 

When the besieged family members attempted to escape the clouds of teargas, they were offered an escape route by "US Capitol police waving them into the [Capitol] building." But that proved to be a trap since hundreds of terrified patriots invited into the Capitol soon found themselves "arrested and thrown into a hell-dungeon, where they're kept in solitary confinement, regularly beaten and starved." 

A thorough, transparent, bipartisan investigation would counter the persistent mental pandemics of Conspiracy Contagion. 

Remember Benghazi? 

In 2015, the GOP was gung-ho to endorse an investigation of an attack that left four Americans dead in Libya. The Benghazi investigation—one of the longest (more than two years) and costliest (more than $7 million) congressional probes in history—failed to find any evidence of misconduct or dereliction. The real purpose of the investigation, the New York Times concluded, "was specifically intended to damage [Hillary] Clinton’s presidential prospects." 

There is only one explanation for the GOP's objections to a fair and impartial investigation of the events of January 6 and it can be summed up in six words—words that should start appearing on handbills, T-shirts, bumper stickers, banners, and billboards across the nation: "What Have They Got To Hide?" 

"Stand Back and Stand By" 

The list of 400-and-counting citizens who stormed the Capitol Building includes members of the Proud Boys, a white rights gang famously praised by a certain former-and-twice-impeached president. The PeeBees are not pleased that they now face prison terms for exercising their Fist Amendment Rites. And when they go to court, their best defense is likely to be: "Trump made me do it!" 

Messages from Proud Boy Ethan Nordean to his sedition-minded scheme-mates (messages subsequently seized by the FBI) should be a cause for alarm for the Orange-hued Denizen of Mar-a-Lago. 

Here, courtesy of the FBI, is a snippet: 

"Alright I’m gunna say it. FUCK TRUMP! Fuck him more than Biden. I’ve followed the guy for 4 years and given everything and lost it all. Yes he woke us up, but he led us to believe some great justice was upon us … and it never happened, now I’ve got some of my good friends and myself facing jail time cuz we followed this guys lead and never questioned it.  

"We are now and always have been on our own. So glad he was able to pardon a bunch of degenerates as his last move and shit on us on the way out. Fuck you trump you left us on [t]he battle field bloody and alone." 

Meanwhile, several Proud Boys chapters (including Nordean’s Northwest group) have broken with the national organization—after discovering that the Proud Boys' national chairman was secretly working as a federal informant. 

Barbara Lee's Resolution to End Poverty 

Congressional Reps Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Pramila Jayapal (D-) have joined forces with the Poor People's Campaign to co-author a "People's Agenda" designed to "end poverty in the richest country on Earth." 

In 2020, more than 40% of American's were poor or low-income, living within $400 of winding up destitute and homeless. The pandemic made it worse, pushing the number of Americans living in poverty from 140 million to 148 million. 

"While vaccines may eventually contain the pandemic," Lee and Jayapal write, "our costly and ineffective health care system will still leave us with the lowest life expectancy and the highest infant and maternal mortality rates among our peer countries." 

Joe Biden's "American Rescue Plan" is welcomed but it won't rescue most poor Americans who will continue to be at increasing risk of hunger, crime, poor health, and police violence. Instead of "ballooning spending" on endless wars, Lee and Jayapal want to see the funds currently spent on militarizing the nation's police redirected to provide social welfare services, job creation programs and "a national, universal, single-payer health care program that puts people before profits." 

Getting the Real Goods 

Back in 1991, I was a big promoter of Read Goods, a California-based alternative-tech collective that once had a storefront on Shattuck Avenue). Real Goods, a pioneering solar panel/wind-turbine supplier began in a garage with a stash of less than $3,000 in operating capital and eventually opened two stores in Berkeley. 

Walking into the Real Goods store was like walking into Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog. The shelves were filled with eco-tech gizmos like solar-powered flashlights and triple-bladed wind-turbines were on display overhead. 

When Real Goods because a publicly owned company, it sold $1 million worth of stock in less than four months. As Real Goods president John Schaeffer beamed, this marked "the fastest public offering of its type ever completed in America." Relying on grassroots investors instead of "banks, venture capitalists, or large corporations," Real Goods expanded to create an "Institute for Independent Living," a 12-acre Solar Living Center in Hopland, California, and offered prizes for new green inventions that could be built and sold in Real Goods stores. The only caveat was: "No Rube Goldberg, perpetual motion machines, auto mileage extension devises or crystal-powered pet rocks." 

I was so enamored by Schaeffer's vision that I actually bought 15 shares of Real Goods stock and—as frequently happens over the years—I completely forgot about the purchase. 

A few weeks back, a letter from the California State Controller's Office informed me that they had discovered some "unclaimed property" that I might want to claim. 

The property turned out to be the Real Goods shares from 30 years ago. There had been a merger and the shares were now in the hands of Gaia Inc. My imagination perked up with expectations of an unexpected financial windfall. After all these years, could I be sitting on an unclaimed treasure of hidden wealth? 

Well, not quite. After several cross-country phone calls, emails, and envelopes containing reams of small-print compliance requests, I discovered that the market value of my 15 shares of Real Goods stock was now worth a whopping $11.30—or 75 cents per share. (Much less than my original investment.) And it turned out that, in order to process my claim to this compounded wealth, I needed to provide a copy of my birth certificate, hire a notary, and pay a $50 administrative fee to a corporate administration firm in New Jersey. 

As I wrote in response to this request: 

"It looks like I have no positive financial reason to proceed further. Thus ends my one-and-only experiment in portfolio investing."