Extra

Tell the Great Pumpkin It's Time to Squash Louis DeJoy

I recently waited five weeks for a birthday gift to travel from VA to CA and—in the end—the USPS lost it. They promised an "investigation" that would take "60 days."

It doesn't take an investigation to see what's wrong here—it's Postmonster General Louis DeJoy. Let's give Trump's Postmaster General the boot. Cancel him! Stamp him out! And, if you feel like sending a message to the White House, here's an Action Network link that will insure your message gets delivered while saving you postage. 

Trigger Tweet 

On October 28, a Tweet from CodePink (citing an article from Defense One) raised concerns about the global Climate Conference in Galsgow. The headline read: "US Defense Officials Will Not Attend Global Climate Conference." CodePink's response:
"#Pentagon blows #COP26! The world's single largest institutional consumer of oil & emitter of GHGs a no-show on world stage. Yo Let's rethink this." 

This call to involve Pentagon officials in the critical climate negotiations prompted a response from David Swanson, Executive Director of World BEYOND War:
"Respectfully do not want them anywhere near it." 

I backed up Swanson's tweet on behalf of my organization, Environmentalists Against War, writing:
"Same here. Militaries have no business meddling in affairs of state—let alone global agreements. The Pentagon's a perp not a partner. Call the COPs." 

Swanson's response: 

"Right on. And the Tesla tank they rode in on." 

Fill Up My Tank, Lieutenant 

It's true. The Pentagon wants to build electric tanks for its future foreign invasions. It's a matter of economy, not environment. We're running out of oil and that's no small matter when a US armored division powered by huge, 1,500-horsepower engines can easily burn to 500,000 gallons of fuel a day. 

In 2020, the German firm Flensburger Fahrzeugbau Gesellschaft debuted an eight-wheeled, all-electric battle-tank prototype. The Pentagon has also toyed with the idea of solar-powered tanks. 

If Tesla were to step up with an electric tank design, there's a good chance Elon Musk might want to include a self-driving option. And that's just what we don't need. It's bad enough that we have remote-controlled "assassination drones." The last thing we need is remotely controlled—or, worse, autonomous—"killer tanks" roaming through contested cities blasting other vehicles to flaming bits and bombing buildings into smoking rubble. 

There's another problem with electric tanks, and it's semantic: If you're running low on electricity on the battlefield, the last thing you want to yell is "Charge!" 

Two Overlooked Climate Change Challenges: Animals and Armies 

With COP26, the most consequential climate change conference in world history, getting underway in Glasgow, a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions is not on the agenda. Billie Eilish and other celebrities, along with Humane Society International, are calling on the United Nations to acknowledge the role of Animal Agriculture (aka "Meat Farming") in global climate change.  

The message to the COP26 delegations in Scotland is simple: "It will be impossible to meet the Paris Agreement without fixing our global animal agricultural system!" 

For more details on how Meat Farming pollutes the planet—and, more importantly, how alternatives like Agroecology can greatly reduce pollution and restore natural systems—see Fritjof Kapra's article, recently reposted on Environmentalists Against War. 

Spelling It Out: GLOBALWARming 

Meanwhile, there's another Climate Chaos problem—an intentional, self-imposed blindspot regarding the role of military pollution in fueling climate change. The long-suppressed fact is this: The Pentagon is a major driver of climate change. The truth has been staring us in the face. Literally. Let's spell it out: "Global War is the Major Part of GLOBALWARming." 

That's why more that 400 national and international organizations and 20,000 people from around the planet will be presenting the COP26 delegates with a petition "Demanding that Military Pollution Be Included in Climate Agreements." The event will be broadcast live as a Facebook Event. 

As World BEYOND War's David Swanson notes: "The world is all gathering to impose limits on greenhouse gas emissions that make an exception for militaries. Why? What possible excuse is there for that, unless killing people in the short-term is so important to us that we’re willing to kill everyone in the long-term. We need to speak up for life, and soon.” 

“War and militarism are amongst the unnamed enemies of our ecosphere,” says Chris Nineham of the Stop the War Coalition. “The US military is the biggest single consumer of oil on the planet, and the last two decades of war have polluted on an almost unimaginable scale. It is a scandal that military emissions are being excluded from the discussion. If we want to end warming we need to end war.” 

“War is obsolete. There is no doubt, the quicker we get rid of it, the quicker we improve the climate,” adds Tim Pluta, World BEYOND War Chapter Organizer in Asturias, Spain. David Swanson provides more details on the problem in this video:
 

Up in Arms (and Fists): Up in the Air 

Reports of aggression-in-the-air seems to be trending as steadily as school shootings on the ground. It's just another week in America—the Land of the Feared and the Home of the Depraved. Turn on the evening news and, right behind the latest update on COVID vaccines, there's a report featuring cell-phone footage of some unruly airline passenger protesting mask-wearing rules by tossing punches as flight attendants and other passengers try to restrain him. And, yes, it's always a "him"—usually some beefy-looking anti-vaxxer with a short haircut. 

While women may cast an angry look at bad behavior it's the men who come out swinging. And so the evening newscasts have assembled their vast media resources to bring us the latest installment of "The In-flight Fight of the Night." 

Question: If the plane's captain announces a "loss of cabin pressure," will these die-hard anti-vaxxers refuse to wear the oxygen masks? 

The Great Divide-and-Conquer 

The equality gap in the US is worse than ever. More people are becoming impatient with empty "trickle down" promises and starting to focus more on the foibles of the tax-avoiding super-rich. The Corporate Deep-State—Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Banks, etc—is being subjected to growing scrutiny by journalists and whistleblowers who are exposing legacies of long-standing lies, abuses, evasions, and fabrications. Even the millions spent on Congressional lobbying have failed to mute rising calls for reform—with proposals including increased corporate tax rates, a "Billionaires Tax," and other financial refinements designed to "Make the Rich Pay Their Fair Share." 

So what can the Barons of Wall Street and the Minions of the Military-Industrial Complex do to avoid a class-reckoning? Well, one longstanding option to prevent the rise of Popular Democracy is to stage a Corporate Coup—replacing a crippled, restive, and barely functioning democracy with a flat-out fascist take-over. That's the cure that Trump offers—and it's the Kool-Aid that a majority of Republicans appear ready to swallow. 

The tools for seizing power rely on a simple, road-tested strategy—"divide and conquer." If the majority of Americans can be persuaded to turn on one another, they won't have time to train an eagle eye on the illegal lies of the super-rich. Just stir up a "culture war" to pit the Red Team against the Blue Team and neither contingent will have time to focus on their common enemy—the Gold Team. 

That's why conservative social media and Faux News operatives stirred up the false vaccination scares, demonized "critical race theory," and pilloried the "cancel culture." And that's where Superman comes in. 

Short of the US flag, few other icons are as sacrosanct than the all-American Clark Kent and his muscular, caped alter-ego. But recently, the Man of Steel has become the "Man of Steal." Instead of standing for "Truth, Justice and the American Way," Superman's motto has been rewritten to replace "the American Way" with a more subversive, neo-socialist pledge dedicated to delivering "A Better Tomorrow." 

In the fifth issue of the DC Comic featuring the adventures of Superboy Jon Kent (the child of Clark Kent and Lois Lane), Jon comes out as gay and declares his love for a male reporter named Jay Nakamura. Clearly, The Forces Who Would Destroy America have delivered a divisive masterstroke by showing our Next Generation Superman coming out of the closet (instead of coming out of his dad's telephone booth). 

What next? Will the Far Faux Right start a rumor that Biden's Socialist Government wants to declare the Statue of Liberty to be a gender non-conforming monument? 

The Copper Vs. Rapper Gas-Station Shooting 

At first hearing, the news that a retired police chief had shot and killed a would-be robber during a brazen mid-day robbery attempt at a gas station, sounded like a bloody instance of "just deserts." But was it justice? 

When I first heard the radio report, my initial response was: "They got what they deserved." But when I watched the surveillance video, my assessment changed. The three assailants successfully robbed Joyner (somehow failing to discover that he was carrying a handgun). Did they brandish weapons during the robbery? Quite likely. But who fired the first shot? 

It was retired police captain Ersie Joyner, who fired the first shot, killing robber Desoni Djuan Lamar Gardner, a Vallejo rapper. After shooting Gardner, Joyner took it upon himself to pursue the other two robbers—opening fire on them as they were attempting to flee. One of the fleeing felons ("reasonably believing he was in imminent danger of being killed" opened fire, wounding Joyner. 

This seems to be standard "cop practice": If you try to run from a cop, he or she has the right to shoot you—in the back, if necessary. That mandate is enshrined in policing's best-known phrase—"Stop or I'll shoot!" 

So was Joyner in the right or in the wrong? Well, in 2020, Assembly Bill 392 tightened rules for police use-of-force, permitting the use of firearms only "when an officer reasonably believed it was necessary to prevent death or serious injury." As the Chronicle's Rachel Swan reported, regarding the Joyner case: "Under California law, a person can claim self-defense in a killing if they reasonably believed they or someone else were in imminent danger of being slain or badly injured, or that they were in danger of becoming the victim of forcible crimes such as robbery or rape." 

But making it legal to take someone's life for attempting to steal someone's cash, places a greater value on possessing property than it does on clinging to existence. This is not surprising in a country founded on privileging ownership. The same rule applies to burglaries in which homeowners have the right to kill an unarmed intruder discovered on the wrong side of the front door, so long as they "reasonably believe" an intruder is intent on stealing something—cash, jewels, electronic gear. 

There is another question that intrigues me. What prompted these three men to target Joyner—not in the dark of night and well out of public sight—but while he was filling his car at a popular gas station in the middle of the day? 

I can't help but wonder if there was a "cannabis angle" to the crime. Joyner was known to have embarked on a new career as an investor in the cannabis industry. Because federal laws prevent banks from doing business with members of the weed scene, it is common knowledge that pot shops and their personnel are forced to stockpile large amounts of unbanked Benjamins in-house and on-person. Could this have provided the impetus for Joyner being targeted in this brazen—and ultimately bloody—heist-gone-wrong? 

Forget What Tony the Tiger Says: Kellogg's Policies Aren't So Grrrreat 

The workers' solidarity group, More Perfect Union (MPU), is posting a petition targeting the Kellogg's corporation for forcing employees to work excessive, unpaid hours. Kellogg’s has a policy of compelling employees to “volunteer” for overtime, "7 days a week, with inconsistent scheduling forcing 24-hour availability." 

Kellogg's is a "cereal offender" whose CEO, Steven Kahillane, exploits workers by instituting a "second-class" status for "transitional" employees who have to work for less pay ($12 an hour), with no paid sick leave, no paid healthcare, no paid vacations and no pension benefits. 

Things are so bad that this week, President Biden’s Secretary of Labor, Marty Walsh (a 32-year member of Laborers Local 223 in Boston), joined Kellogg’s workers on a picket line—the first time any Labor Secretary has ever joined a group of striking workers. 

MPU has created a petition that will send a protest letter right to Kahillane's in-box. Just click here. My message to Kahillane was a simple one: "Marty Walsh speaks for me. Respect your workers. It's crunch time, Kellogg's. Don't be flakey!"