What rhymes with Putin?

I don’t know Ukrainian, but I’m sure Ukrainians have their zingers.

In English, Zero clued in works.

Rasputin stand-in does the job.

This frivolous Putin query comes as we approach the anniversary of a madman’s attempt to rewrite world history. On February 24th, 2022, Putin let loose the power of the Russian military – with a destructive force not seen in Europe since World War 2 – on a peaceable neighbor, Ukraine. There was nothing frivolous about Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

What rhymes with madman?

Con man.

Convinced I can.

Bad man.

Putin thought he was invincible.

What rhymes with invincible?

Despicable.

Unpredictable.

Unthinkable.

This time last year, Putin was on top of the world, about to rewrite Russian history; he imagined himself emulating Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, also known as Catherine the Great, once Empress of Russia, his long dead and gone heroine.

What rhymes with Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst?

I have no idea.

I do know what rhymes with Putin’s attempt to rewrite history.

Dark night.

Quenched light.

Instead of imposing his will on the populace of Ukraine, approximately 44 million souls, or about the populations of Florida and New York State combined, or even Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Georgia combined, Putin became the first easily identifiable despot of our new century, shockingly pushed back to where he came from by the pure force of Ukrainian willpower.

What rhymes with despot?

Guess what?

Crackpot.

On February 24th, 2022, Putin lent his name to a mega invasion of a nonbelligerent neighbor on an international level never imagined. The consequences were disastrous.

In November, 2022, mere months ago and just months after Putin’s initial decision to ‘take’ Ukraine, the BBC reported that the most senior US general, Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated that 100,000 Russian and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured in the war in Ukraine so far. Gen Milley added that at least 40,000 civilians had died by November of last year.

Thanks to our zero clued in, Rasputin stand-in, demented man in Moscow, epicenter of Putin’s mythical former USSR, innocent lives are being lost on a daily basis in Ukraine in numbers that are nothing short of abominable.

What rhymes with abominable?

Dishonorable.

Unconscionable.

And what rhymes with demented?

Disoriented.

Unbefriended.

Dented  – big time where it counts, in Putin’s internal psyche.

Lest we get suckered into a Putin-defined cesspit and bogged down in the mindset of an autocrat, I was inspired by one of the catchiest songs of 2023 so far, the brilliant Colombian Shakira’s take-down of her ex, to imagine how Putin might deserve his own rhyming put-down.

In a hugely publicized 2022 breakup, the former Barcelona football player Gerard Piqué left Shakira, his wife of 12 years and the mother of his 2 children, for a new paramour, a much younger woman called Clara Chía.

Shakira is resilient if anything. She is no push-over. On Jan 11th, she released a masterpiece, a blockbuster hit with the enigmatic title of SHAKIRA || BZRP Music Sessions #53.

Even though sung in Spanish, the title shot to the top of Apple’s iTunes charts in the U.S. on release. Many, so many of us it would seem, can resonate with revenge. The song’s video, with English subtitles, went viral. The song is not only catchy, bitching and biting, but cathartic. It broke YouTube records, registering more than 64 million views within 24 hours. Lord, does Ukraine need revenge!

Think about it for a minute. Millions upon millions of us can resonate with what is happening to Shakira. Millions more of us around the world identify with what is happening to Ukraine. Billions of us have reasons to get angry with Putin over Ukraine daily. The man seems unaccountable.

What rhymes with unaccountable?

Incomprehensible.

Unfathomable.

Shakira is a genius at rhyming. In her Spanish lyrics for SHAKIRA || BZRP Music Sessions #53, she found a way to connect her philandering ex, Piqué, to mortification, (te mortifique), chewing up (mastique), and a host of other rhymes and homonyms that might be enough reason for any year-abroad undergraduate or graduate student to want to learn Spanish. Shakira doesn’t let go. The video has already had 288,109,016 views on YouTube as of this writing. It’s averaging more than 5 million new views daily.

Imagine if Shakira took on Putin?

Imagine how she, stand-in for Ukraine, could destroy this pseudo Westerner, this false Russian prophet, this wannabe Catharine the Great, this Putin, with just a few rhymes and words.

Shakira can do that. She has that power. She is, after all, the reigning queen of World Cup Soccer anthems. Her Waka Waka video from the 2010 World Cup has had more than 3,472,939,423 (3 billion!) views.

Shakira knows how to garner world attention. Sorry Piqué. Maybe she’s right. Maybe you did choose a Twingo over a Ferrari, just as Putin fell into his own Twingo hell with his decision to try to absorb Urkaine into a mythical Russia.

Here’s how Shakira might put Putin – our present-day world pariah – in his place. And here, too, is how that very same Putin might feel, shamed, hearing himself belittled in a song where billions more than the billions that have watched Shakira’s Waka Waka see him as a wuss.

Just imagine Shakira’s singing these rhymes as she does on SHAKIRA || BZRP Music Sessions #53, but addressed to Putin, and here we go:

Putin?

Zero clued in

Rasputin stand-in

Madman?

Con man.

Convinced I can.

Bad man.

Invincible?

Despicable.

Unpredictable.

Unthinkable.

Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst?

History rewrite?

Dark night.

Quenched light.

Despot?

Guess what.

Crackpot.

Abominable.

Dishonorable.

Unconscionable.

Demented.

Disoriented.

Unbefriended.

Dented

Unaccountable?

Incomprehensible.

Unfathomable.

Despicable.

Unpredictable.

Unthinkable.

Abominable.

Dishonorable.

Unconscionable.

The post Shakira nails Putin appeared first on Occasional Planet.

 As Americans, we are not one in any way, shape or form.

We are diverse, inclusive, at times exclusionary, conflicted, self-righteous and, more often than not these days, divisive. In our fast-evaporating sense of who we are, or once were, we have left our beacon of hope for the world at large adrift in a sea of uncertainty.

It was once easy to tout the United States as the symbol of desirable values, a sort of Rhodes port of entry for democracy. Oh, how we have stumbled as a nation, and precipitously, in recent years.

We continue to be warm, insensitive, confused, confusing, at times at one with ourselves, at times just a human bunch of some 331.9 (as of a 2021 count) million souls trying to make sense of what we have been given, the United States of America, and our place in the world beyond.

We are, and have always been, far from being one, and way far from being perfect. Yet our Constitution and our daily lives once allowed us to be just that, imperfect, with guaranteed freedoms … at least until the next crazed teenager or over-armed adult decided to pick us off with an automatic shotgun one by one in some unsuspecting mall, school or Home Depot.

As Americans, we are easy to hate, difficult to love, and as often as not misunderstood. Where some of us attempt to break down barriers, those of us across the street, or across our national divide, have been happy to build borders, walls and barriers. At times, it would seem that we are completely unknowable, political pundits aside.

There are still many of us alive today who remember the torn country that we were during the Vietnam War. We remember how it felt to be American then. It was confused and confusing all at once, day after day. The rest of the world did not like us at all, to put it kindly.

So, give a thought for Russians now.

Just for a minute, put yourself in the skin of a Russian today.

Russia is right now the Big Bad Wolf in headlines worldwide, and justifiably so. Russians, after all, elected Putin president once again by a vast majority as recently as 2018. Yet, remember that the Vietnam War, our Vietnam War, was prolonged under 5 Presidents until it eventually folded in April 1975.

This is hardly good news for the people of Ukraine. For a World Power to recognize its mistakes can take decades.

Are Russians as conflicted as we were during the Vietnam War? I imagine they are. Are their opinions of their country fraught? They must be. Can Russians protest within Russia? Not at all. Thousands upon thousands have been removed from the streets and silenced in a way that is unthinkable here in the United States.

I was, in more ways than one, reminded of our United States – yes, those same conflicted United States above – on a recent arrival in Madrid.

The EU is still a much newer concept in co-living than our American Union. Within the European Union, things are even now falling into place. The EU as we know it today had its beginnings with the Maastricht Treaty of 1993. The European Union is a work in progress. The United Kingdom was a reluctante partner for awhile, until they decided in 2019 to Brexit. However, their example is far from being the norm. Other countries are lining up to join the Union.

According to Wikipedia:

There are seven recognised candidates for membership of the European Union: Turkey (applied in 1987), North Macedonia (2004), Montenegro (2008), Albania (2009), Serbia (2009), Ukraine (2022), and Moldova (2022). Additionally, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Kosovo (whose independence is not recognised by five EU member states) are considered potential candidates for membership by the EU.^[1][2] Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Georgia have formally submitted applications for membership, while Kosovo has a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU, which generally precedes the lodging of a membership application.

 Ukraine sees things differently than the UK. Ukraine doesn’t have the UK’s options of history and geography. Putin didn’t decide to invade the United Kingdom, after all.

Putin choose a defenseless neighbor, still not a member of a nascent European Union, to try to exert his late-blooming and misbegotten manhood by invading a benign neighbor to prove somehow his macho worldview. As is now evident to anybody paying attention worldwide, Putin misjudged, and exiled his eternal reputation to the gutter.

Back to landing in Madrid. At Barajas, there were Russians dragging and pushing way-overweight bags along their way, any which way, far from Russia. That was understandable. Until it wasn’t.

For Russians with money, Madrid is just one of many escapes from the horror of the motherland to a neighbor that still extends a welcoming embrace.

The sight of Russians at Atocha, Madrid’s train station, toting Louis Vuitton bags filled with recent purchases, was unsettling. Louis Vuitton in times of war? Drinking beer, happy with their day of shopping, joking around, the Russians at Atocha disquieted me.

The disquiet continued.

On the Metro in Rome, I sat next to a bunch of loud Russians wisecracking among themselves, laughing and seemingly happy on their way to view the ruins of the Coliseum. They were oblivious to any discomfort they might have been communicating to their fellow passengers concerned about their country’s invasion of a helpless neighbor, Ukraine.

These Russians didn’t seem to care about the nuances of co-existence. Nuances be damned was what I, unfortunately, understood.

These joyous Russians were, for me, somehow complicit in Putin’s imperious view of the world.

We can do what we want, they seemed to be saying as they joshed around, just as their elected leader, Putin did, toasting a glass of champagne high in celebration of his invasion of Ukraine not even a month later.

I was disturbed by the attitude of the Russians that I saw in Italy and Spain.

Could it be that Russians, at large, really support Putin? I found myself wondering.

Could it be that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine might represent the true mindset of the majority in Russia?

I know, I know, that Russians are as diverse as we are. See above.

I know that many have been swept off the streets, disappeared forever.

Yet, could it be that Putin really represents Russia? I found myself thinking in Rome.

Could it be that Russians in general could care less about Ukraine?

Just maybe, I found myself thinking.

Is Putin the true champion of a Russia anathema to our Western view of civilization? That’s what I really wondered.

Could that be true?

Just maybe, I found myself thinking again.

The post Is Putin Russia, and Russia Putin? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Being a Republican in Congress is a lot easier than being a Democrat. That’s because there are very few things that Republicans have or want to do. Most Democrats have full plates in front of them as they want to reform our society so that government provides a strong and secure safety net for all of us, particularly those most at risk. If we reach a point of gridlock, of stalemate, it is the right that wins, because if nothing happens, that is exactly what they want.

In the wake of the January 6, 2021 insurrection and other rebellious acts from the right, there is increasing talk of a new American civil war. What shape it might take is open to all kinds of interpretation. It certainly would not be like America’s first civil war, or even a feared possible upcoming war between Russia and Ukraine.

That does not mean there would not be violence. The January 6 insurrection resulted in the deaths of five individuals and the injuring of hundreds. The Right certainly does not hesitate to use threats of violence against those with whom they merely disagree.

For example, Fox News anchor Jesse Watters recently told a group of conservatives to “ambush” Dr. Anthony Fauci with questions and “go in for kill shot.” Fox News has not reprimanded Watters; in fact, they have not said a word about his using their platform to threaten to kill someone. Fox did the same things with correspondent Lara Logan who compared Fauci to the Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele (also included in the clip below).

As we approach the end of 2021, the Washington Post reports “Inside the nonstop pressure campaign by Trump allies to get election officials to revisit the 2020 vote.” The Big Lie continues more than thirteen months after the 2020 safe, secure and democratic elections.

The fallout has spread from the six states where Trump sought to overturn the outcome in 2020 to deep-red places such as Idaho, where officials recently hand-recounted ballots in three counties to refute claims of vote-flipping, and Oklahoma, where state officials commissioned an investigation to counter allegations that voting machines were hacked.

The important point in the article is that the Trumpsters are continuing their efforts to intimidate Republican-controlled state legislatures to undo the past and change the future so that free and fair elections become something of the past.

A “civil war” could include numerous other acts of aggression by the right including the intimidation of teachers, vigilante forces, Congressional action to not raise the debt limit and not fund necessary programs that are the framework of our social and economic safety net.

COVID has already played a key role in dividing the nation and threatens to do so for some time to come. Samuel Goldman in The Week suggests:

I’m not the first to compare the way of thinking about the pandemic still dominant in official statements to the military disasters of the last two decades. My colleague Noah Millman and the journalist Daniel McCarthy have both noted parallels between the interminable conflicts that followed 9/11 and the “war” on COVID. “Like the old Afghan government,” Millman wrote, “those in charge of public health have little practical ability to shape events. But they speak as if they are sovereign and in control.”

It is hard to imagine what aggressive actions those on the Left may take. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, extremists far to the left of the Democratic Party engaged in bombing attacks on both public and private buildings. But there was very little coordinated about that and as it became apparent that the bombings were counter-productive, the bombings essentially ended.

Regrettably, there is very little that the Right needs to do now to win a “civil war.” The current stalemate allows those on the Right to generally get their way.

Progressive legislation will not pass. The right to safe and legal abortions will be ended in most states when Roe v. Wade is overturned, elections will be rigged to favor far-right Republicans, COVID and other infectious diseases will continue to run rampant, gun-control measures will not be passed, climate change legislation will stall and those who do not agree with those on the Right will live in fear of violence.

The only real way that progressives and others can prevent an escalated “civil war” is by winning big in elections and having protections against Republican electoral manipulation. This means that the U.S. Senate is going to have to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in order to maximize the chances of free and fair elections. Additionally, Democrats are going to have to figure out a way to elevate the popularity of Joe Biden and improve their chances of winning 2022 Congressional races. Perhaps a backlash to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade would help, but that seems unlikely.

The stakes are truly high for progressives; we need to do all that we legally and non-violently can do.

The post Why A “Civil War” Would Be So Hard for Progressives to “Win” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It was another of the many “last straws” in the Trump era. Kyle Murphy, a senior analyst in the US Defense Intelligence Agency, went public with his resignation, appearing on tv news shows and

publishing an op-ed on the highly regarded Just Security site. Murphy said that what he saw in the Trump administration had “grave similarities between events in our country and the processes by which autocratic leaders have brought their countries to the brink of civil conflict and beyond. Each day, Trump’s approach looks more like the autocrats I warned about as an analyst.”

Here is the full text of his powerful op-ed:

I recently resigned as a senior analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency after experiencing firsthand the actions of U.S. government leaders to suppress nonviolent dissent during the recent nationwide protests for racial justice.

I have seen up close the president’s disdain for democratic values, and recent events should be put in the context of a continuous slide toward authoritarianism. In 2015, I was detailed to the White House as an apolitical civil servant on the National Security Council (NSC) staff. My term was set to conclude in January 2017, but I agreed to extend for two months at the request of NSC leaders to support an orderly transition between administrations. I briefed President Donald Trump before several introductory calls to foreign heads of state, and as is customary, I listened in and prepared the official transcripts. I was appalled by the ways he actively undermined the democratic principles we have long aspired to model and to advance globally.

In my years analyzing foreign political and military decision-making for senior policymakers, part of my job was to observe whether foreign governments protected their national security services from politicization and whether they committed abuses against their own populations. These are critical measures of the health of a democracy, and failures not only disqualify countries from U.S. partnership but also can be a warning sign that a country may play a destabilizing role in the world. Our laws enshrine a fundamental belief that a nation’s security forces should defend, not undermine, the core principles of democracy, and that they are not a leader’s personal tool to silence critics and retain power. Respect for this principle is one of the starkest lines dividing democratic and authoritarian leaders, and I see grave similarities between events in our country and the processes by which autocratic leaders have brought their countries to the brink of civil conflict and beyond.

Each day, Trump’s approach looks more like the autocrats I warned about as an analyst. I am alarmed by the decision to send federal forces to Portland and additional cities, over local objections, as well as the abusive approach of those forces to protesters in operations well beyond their normal jurisdiction. The use of intelligence elements to monitor citizens engaging in constitutionally-protected activity is deeply disturbing and strikingly similar to illegal domestic spying that prompted the Church Committee in 1975 and resulted in our modern intelligence oversight structure. Set against the backdrop of the dereliction and callous disregard for the more than 160,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19, I fear the president and his allies may choose further escalation in an attempt to avoid the personal consequences of defeat in November.

I saw several patterns repeated in the behavior of foreign leaders who lacked majority support and refused to respect their constitutions and constituents. They ignored or manipulated facts, rejected legitimate criticism, sought to disenfranchise opposition voters, invited foreign interference, and planted seeds of doubt about their own institutions and electoral processes. They also identified security elements willing to spy on their own citizens and to use force to put down protests calling for the leader to step down. Sadly, the similarities to current events in the United States are striking.

I have seen up close the president’s disdain for democratic values, and recent events should be put in the context of a continuous slide toward authoritarianism.

But some of the same situations I watched overseas give me reasons to be hopeful. I have seen several authoritarian leaders attempt but ultimately fail to subdue populations deeply committed to advancing democratic values – including Yahya Jammeh in The Gambia and Blaise Compaore in Burkina Faso. In these cases, massive turnout for elections and non-violent protest as part of disciplined and enduring social movements were vital to resetting the course of countries on our current trajectory.

These basic acts of civic participation, undertaken by millions, help rebuild the foundations of democracy and bolster governing institutions against efforts to tear them apart. It is up to all of us to ensure historic and safe participation in this election, and to be prepared to peacefully reject any efforts to subvert the will of the people.

The post Senior analyst quits Defense Intelligence Agency, citing U.S. “slide into authoritarianism” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Many are familiar with Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Physics: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and three of his colleagues killed an innocent man, George Floyd, on Monday, May 25. It’s hard to find any persons besides Donald Trump and William Barr who won’t say that the officers’ acts were criminal.

Most Americans were truly pissed off and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have taken to the streets over the past two weeks. Ninety-nine percent of them have been peaceful, and it’s understandable why the protestors have so demonstrably shown their frustration and their suggestions for change.

But these protests have gone on far longer than most other occasions of citizens taking to the streets, and I’m fearing that there will be an equal and opposite reaction to the fortnight of demonstrable marches. When we’re talking about human behavior, as opposed to physics, the reaction does not have to be exactly equal and opposite. But it will be characterized by significant force and will run counter to the movement that spawned it.

Over the past several days, a new demand / request / talking point, whatever you want to call it, from some of the protestors has been to defund the police. Such a contention makes emotional sense in light of what Chauvin and numerous other white police officers have done, not only recently, but through the entirety of American history, in arbitrarily dispensing violence against African-Americans, in many cases resulting in the deaths of innocent victims. Almost without exception, police officers have gotten away with their misconduct without any penalties or repercussions.

But this does not mean that we should defund police departments. Here are a few reasons why I think that would be a very counter-productive move.

1. There are many police officers who do their jobs well, serve the public well, and should not be penalized.
2. There are many police departments that have transitioned into community policing and by and large have developed practices that honor human rights.
3. Police departments are a lot like teachers in schools. You get what you pay for. We have a lot of police officers who go into the profession for the wrong reasons and are essentially clueless about what is needed if you are a frontline official connecting government with the citizenry. We need to raise the pay of police officers, perhaps double or triple it, in order to bring a whole new breed of individuals into the profession. We need to make policing attractive to individuals who are not by nature belligerent. We need men and women who know the skills of conflict resolution and do not consider the public to be their enemy.
4. It is much easier to hire “the right people” and give them necessary training than to hire those who are less than ideal and then have to spend the time, money and energy to try to train them, with questionable probability of success.
5. Some have suggested diminishing the amount of money that goes into the funding of police departments and transfer that money into providing social services. Again, this might sound right, but I doubt that it’s good policy. First, it would leave us with poorly paid police officers who would not be skilled in conflict resolution, perhaps the most important quality needed in a law enforcement officer. Second, it would set up new social service bureaucracies. That means bringing in universities, administrative agencies, professional this and thats with enormous duplication and inefficiencies. Let’s focus on bringing the best people possible into policing.

We have written before about making police officers into law-enforcement social workers. This can only happen If we get the best and the brightest into the profession. That won’t happen without paying them well. So, let’s not defund police; let’s fund law-enforcement social workers. One other thought. Every time you piss off the police, you give Donald Trump more votes. Is that what you really want?

The post Think Twice Before Underfunding Police appeared first on Occasional Planet.

With the release of a public letter explaining their reasons for supporting the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, more than 750 American historians are sounding the alarm about the duty and necessity for lawmakers to vote in favor of impeaching the president.

Co-authored by Sean Wilenta, professor of American history at Princeton University, and Brenda Wineapple, author of a book about Andrew Johnson – the first of only three U.S. presidents to be impeached thus far –  the letter sites the uncannily prescient words penned in 1792 by the venerable Alexander Hamilton:

We are American historians devoted to studying our nation’s past who have concluded that Donald J. Trump has violated his oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” His “attempts to subvert the Constitution,” as George Mason described impeachable offenses at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, urgently and justly require his impeachment.

President Trump’s numerous and flagrant abuses of power are precisely what the Framers had in mind as grounds for impeaching and removing a president. Among those most hurtful to the Constitution have been his attempts to coerce the country of Ukraine, under attack from Russia, an adversary power to the United States, by withholding essential military assistance in exchange for the fabrication and legitimization of false information in order to advance his own re-election.

President Trump’s lawless obstruction of the House of Representatives, which is rightly seeking documents and witness testimony in pursuit of its constitutionally-mandated oversight role, has demonstrated brazen contempt for representative government. So have his attempts to justify that obstruction on the grounds that the executive enjoys absolute immunity, a fictitious doctrine that, if tolerated, would turn the president into an elected monarch above the law.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist, impeachment was designed to deal with “the misconduct of public men” which involves “the abuse or violation of some public trust.” Collectively, the President’s offenses, including his dereliction in protecting the integrity of the 2020 election from Russian disinformation and renewed interference, arouse once again the Framers’ most profound fears that powerful members of government would become, in Hamilton’s words, “the mercenary instruments of foreign corruption.”

It is our considered judgment that if President Trump’s misconduct does not rise to the level of impeachment, then virtually nothing does

Hamilton understood, as he wrote in 1792, that the republic remained vulnerable to the rise of an unscrupulous demagogue, “unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents…despotic in his ordinary demeanour.” That demagogue, Hamilton said, could easily enough manage “to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day.” Such a figure, Hamilton wrote, would “throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”

President Trump’s actions committed both before and during the House investigations fit Hamilton’s description and manifest utter and deliberate scorn for the rule of law and “repeated injuries” to constitutional democracy. That disregard continues and it constitutes a clear and present danger to the Constitution. We therefore strongly urge the House of Representatives to impeach the President.

If you are an historian, you are invited to add your signature to this historic document. Click on the link below.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScorrGrlDoKp-BdaUfreuvDfQiidP2pIq84BwsAOrwKuWHcPg/viewform

The post 750 historians say Trump should be impeached appeared first on Occasional Planet.

While the Trump administration blusters and tries to discredit the brave staffer who blew the whistle on Trump’s politically motivated extortion of the president of Ukraine, 90 former top brass in national security have issued an open letter in support of the whistle-blower. Released on Oct. 7, 2019—just before a second whistle-blower came forward—the letter emphasizes that revealing wrongdoing is the right thing to do, and that the individual involved deserves protection from retaliation.

The people who signed on to the letter are a who’s who of national security — some who are refugees from the current administration that doesn’t value expertise, thoughtful decision-making or moral responsibility, and many from previous administrations that — for the most part — did (or pretended to). Listed among them are marquee names like Brennan and Clapper, who had served in different roles under both the Obama and Bush administrations. The letter isalso signed by former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and former Senior Director for Counterterrorism on the National Security Council Javed Ali, along with a number of other former Defense Department, State Department and CIA officials.

Some of the signatories had even worked under the Trump administration, including James Nealon, who served as the assistant secretary for international engagement at the Department of Homeland Security until he resigned in February 2018 over the government’s immigration policies, as well as Roberta Jacobson, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Mexico until she resigned in May 2018, and Andrea Kendall-Taylor, who was a deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia until resigning in July 2018.

The letter speaks for itself. Here it is in its entirety:

We are former national security officials who proudly served in a wide array of roles throughout the U.S. Government,” they wrote. “We are writing about the Intelligence Community whistleblower’s lawful disclosure, which was recently made public. While the identity of the whistleblower is not publicly known, we do know that he or she is an employee of the U.S. Government. As such, he or she has by law the right — and indeed the responsibility — to make known, through appropriate channels, indications of serious wrongdoing. That is precisely what this whistleblower did; and we applaud the whistleblower not only for living up to that responsibility but also for using precisely the channels made available by federal law for raising such concerns.

“A responsible whistleblower makes all Americans safer by ensuring that serious wrongdoing can be investigated and addressed, thus advancing the cause of national security to which we have devoted our careers. What’s more, being a responsible whistleblower means that, by law, one is protected from certain egregious forms of retaliation. Whatever one’s view of the matters discussed in the whistleblower’s complaint, all Americans should be united in demanding that all branches of our government and all outlets of our media protect this whistleblower and his or her identity. Simply put, he or she has done what our law demands; now he or she deserves our protection.”

The post 90 top US national security pros say whistle-blower did the right thing appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Sometimes it takes just one person to spark a movement. Swedish student Greta Thunberg is one such person. In August 2018 the then fifteen-year-old sat down to protest for the first time in front of the Swedish Parliament House in central Stockholm. For three weeks during every school day, Thunberg skipped her classes and sat down to protest the Swedish government’s lack of meaningful action on climate change.

One month later, Thunberg made the decision to stay out of school every Friday and to continue to demonstrate weekly until the government of Sweden committed to take action on policies to cut carbon emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement signed in 2015.

As word of her strike spread via Twitter and Instagram, Thunberg’s solitary act of dissent became a global student movement, called Fridays for Future, that spread to countries on five continents.

In cities across Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, the U.S., Latin America, Africa, and India tens of thousands of students have responded enthusiastically to Thunberg’s call to walk out of their classrooms and join the worldwide fight for the future.

On March 1, addressing thousands of students in Hamburg, Germany, the now sixteen-year-old activist rallied her followers. “Yes, we are angry,” she began. “We are angry because the older generations are continuing to steal our future right now. For way too long the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything to fight the climate crisis. But we will make sure that they will not get away with it any longer. We will continue to school-strike until they do something.”

Thunberg’s success in rallying students worldwide has given her the platform to expand her message even to world leaders. At the 2019 Davos conference in January, Thunberg explained how the responsibility to act on climate change falls on young people because “their future is at risk, and they need to get angry and then transform that anger into action.” Later, at an EU conference in February, Thunberg urged representatives to double the bloc’s commitment to greenhouse-gas cuts. In Germany, where Fridays for Future rallies have sparked widespread support among students, Chancellor Angela Merkel felt compelled to offer her support of the rallies in a controversial podcast video. While stating her strong support for the protests and the students’ long-term goals, the chancellor offered a note of caution about the challenges Germany faces in the process to end the country’s reliance on coal and coal-fired power plants.

For students interested in getting involved and voicing their concerns about climate change, Thunberg urges them to demonstrate every Friday in front of their own local town halls and to take a picture and post it with the hashtag #Fridaysforfuture or #Climatestrike. Thunberg also urges students who might hesitate to walk out of their classrooms to think creatively about how they might find symbolic ways to “strike” and to share their tactics with the Fridays for Future community.

The post 15-year-old Swedish student sparks international Fridays for Future movement appeared first on Occasional Planet.

A stunning and unprecedented moment occurred on December 10, 2018, when forty-four former senators – among them, thirty-two Democrats, ten Republicans, and two Independents – publicly released a letter written to their colleagues now serving in the Senate. The letter was published in the op-ed section of The Washington Post.

This bipartisan letter represents a call to action to sitting senators to put aside party loyalty, self-interest, or fear of public humiliation and to recommit themselves to their oath of office and their constitutional obligations as senators serving in a co-equal branch of government.

The signers of this eloquently composed letter unflinchingly acknowledge the internal dangers threatening our democracy and national security. Their urgent call for the defense of our democracy is both frightening and unambiguous.

“Dear Senate colleagues,

As former members of the U.S. Senate, Democrats and Republicans, it is our shared view that we are entering a dangerous period, and we feel an obligation to speak up about serious challenges to the rule of law, the Constitution, our governing institutions and our national security.

We are on the eve of the conclusion of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation and the House’s commencement of investigations of the president and his administration. The likely convergence of these two events will occur at a time when simmering regional conflicts and global power confrontations continue to threaten our security, economy and geopolitical stability.

It is a time, like other critical junctures in our history, when our nation must engage at every level with strategic precision and the hand of both the president and the Senate.”

We are at an inflection point in which the foundational principles of our democracy and our national security interests are at stake, and the rule of law and the ability of our institutions to function freely and independently must be upheld.

During our service in the Senate, at times we were allies and at other times opponents, but never enemies. We all took an oath swearing allegiance to the Constitution. Whatever united or divided us, we did not veer from our unwavering and shared commitment to placing our country, democracy and national interest above all else.

At other critical moments in our history, when constitutional crises have threatened our foundations, it has been the Senate that has stood in defense of our democracy. Today is once again such a time.

Regardless of party affiliation, ideological leanings or geography, as former members of this great body, we urge current and future senators to be steadfast and zealous guardians of our democracy by ensuring that partisanship or self-interest not replace national interest.”

The letter was signed by :

• Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
• Evan Bayh (D-Ind.)
• Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.)
• Bill Bradley (D-N.J.)
• Richard Bryan (D-Nev.)
• Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.)
• Max Cleland (D-Ga.),
• William Cohen (R-Maine)
• Kent Conrad (D-N.D.)
• Al D’Amato (R-N.Y.)
• John C. Danforth (R-Mo.)
• Tom Daschle (D-S.D.)
• Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.)
• Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)
• Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.)
• David Durenberger (R-Minn.)
• Russ Feingold (D-Wis.)
• Wyche Fowler (D-Ga.)
• Bob Graham (D-Fla.)
• Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.)
• Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)
• Gary Hart (D-Colo.)
• Bennett Johnston (D-La.)
• Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.)
• John Kerry (D-Mass.)
• Paul Kirk (D-Mass.)
• Mary Landrieu (D-La.)
• Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)
• Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.)
• Richard Lugar (R-Ind.)
• Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.)
• Ben Nelson (D-Neb.)
• Sam Nunn (D-Ga.)
• Larry Pressler (R-S.D.)
• David Pryor (D-Ark.)
• Don Riegle (D-Mich.)
• Chuck Robb (D-Va.),
• Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.)
• Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.)
• Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.)
• Mark Udall (D-Colo.)
• John W. Warner (R-Va.)
• Lowell Weicker (I-Conn.)
• Tim Wirth (D-Colo.)

The post Former U.S. Senators urge colleagues to defend democracy in a “dangerous era” appeared first on Occasional Planet.