Published on Tuesday, November 21, 2017 by Common Dreams In America and Around the World, the Poor Will Pay for the GOP Tax Plan A large cut in corporate rate in the U.S. would be perceived internationally as a full throttle acceleration of the global race to the bottom on corporate taxation. byLéonce Ndikumana 3 Comments "Clearly," writes Ndikumana, "the spillover effect of the proposed US tax bill would be endured by the poorest people in the world, not just the United States." (Image: Oxfam) It is Donald Trump's main promise as a candidate: convincing American firms to come back home, creating millions of jobs, and launching a growth that would reverse two decades of sluggish investment and stagnant wages. It is in the name of this promise that Congress is legislating on tax, especially its corporate part. Among other things, the tax bills now being considered in Congress, would cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% and allow multinational corporations to repatriate trillions of dollars they are holding abroad at a low tax rate. This is, according to the White House, a strategy to boost the competitiveness of American companies. The argument has no empirical foundation. Claiming that lower corporate taxes would generate a leap in corporate spending is based on the idea that firms have held off making capital investments because of high tax rates. In reality, figures show that American companies can borrow money at record low interest rates and they don't have any cash-flow problems. Low capital investment rates have probably much more to do with a lack of demand, a problem that the Trump tax plan would fail to address. And while Trump the candidate criticized the growth of US national debt, his plan would add trillions to the debt in the next ten years. "If enacted, the tax plan would seriously undermine the ambitious commitments made by the international community to tackle poverty and inequality through the Sustainable Development Goals." The tax bill’s proponents also argue that lowering the corporate rate to 20% from 35% would prevent US companies from shifting their investments, employment, and operations out of the United States to lower-tax jurisdictions. According to Kimberly Clausing’s research, the U.S. Treasury loses more than $100 billion a year because of tax dodging by multinational companies. Most of their profits come from work done in the United States, but the profits are attributed to a foreign subsidiary, using transfer prices, to avoid taxes. Despite the headline 35% rate, US companies pay on average only 14% in corporate income tax, thanks to tax loopholes, incentives, and successful lobbying, which is well within the range of being competitive. In any case, even a very low tax rate cannot compete with zero taxes, which is what many tax havens offer. There would still be an incentive to shift profits to countries that have an even lower tax rate. What is certain is that a large cut in corporate rate would be perceived internationally as a full throttle acceleration of the global race to the bottom on corporate taxation. The British government has already vowed to keep the lowest tax rate amongst G7 countries. Mexico has promised to reciprocate against harmful tax measures taken by the United States. Most developing countries would reduce their rates even further and increase tax privileges for corporations to compete for investment. Governments would make up budget shortfalls from tax breaks by cutting back on public services and infrastructure investments, and by increasing taxes such as VAT and fuel, which hit ordinary citizens harder. Clearly, the spillover effect of the proposed US tax bill would be endured by the poorest people in the world, not just the United States. Oxfam estimates that just eight men control as much wealth as half of humanity. Inequality is a growing problem that we must address. But if enacted, the tax plan would seriously undermine the ambitious commitments made by the international community to tackle poverty and inequality through the Sustainable Development Goals. As a group of leaders from government, academia, and civil society, the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) urges the United States to work with the international community, to reform international corporate tax systems to address the problems the entire world is facing today: widening income inequality, growing job insecurity, climate change, and anemic productivity growth. The creation of an intergovernmental body on tax cooperation within the United Nations system is the only way to ensure a coherent global coordination, with stronger cooperation, less unilateral action, and consistent action against tax havens. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License Léonce Ndikumana is a Professor of economics and Director of the African Development Policy Program at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts. He is a Commissioner on the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT).

Published on

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

by

Common Dreams

In America and Around the World, the Poor Will Pay for the GOP Tax Plan

A large cut in corporate rate in the U.S. would be perceived internationally as a full throttle acceleration of the global race to the bottom on corporate taxation.

by

Léonce Ndikumana

 3 Comments

"Clearly," writes Ndikumana, "the spillover effect of the proposed US tax bill would be endured by the poorest people in the world, not just the United States." (Image: Oxfam)

It is Donald Trump's main promise as a candidate: convincing American firms to come back home, creating millions of jobs, and launching a growth that would reverse two decades of sluggish investment and stagnant wages. It is in the name of this promise that Congress is legislating on tax, especially its corporate part.

Among other things, the tax bills now being considered in Congress, would cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% and allow multinational corporations to repatriate trillions of dollars they are holding abroad at a low tax rate. This is, according to the White House, a strategy to boost the competitiveness of American companies.

The argument has no empirical foundation.  Claiming that lower corporate taxes would generate a leap in corporate spending is based on the idea that firms have held off making capital investments because of high tax rates. In reality, figures show that American companies can borrow money at record low interest rates and they don't have any cash-flow problems. Low capital investment rates have probably much more to do with a lack of demand, a problem that the Trump tax plan would fail to address. And while Trump the candidate criticized the growth of US national debt, his plan would add trillions to the debt in the next ten years.

"If enacted, the tax plan would seriously undermine the ambitious commitments made by the international community to tackle poverty and inequality through the Sustainable Development Goals."

The tax bill’s proponents also argue that lowering the corporate rate to 20% from 35% would prevent US companies from shifting their investments, employment, and operations out of the United States to lower-tax jurisdictions. According to Kimberly Clausing’s research, the U.S. Treasury loses more than $100 billion a year because of tax dodging by multinational companies. Most of their profits come from work done in the United States, but the profits are attributed to a foreign subsidiary, using transfer prices, to avoid taxes.

Despite the headline 35% rate, US companies pay on average only 14% in corporate income tax, thanks to tax loopholes, incentives, and successful lobbying, which is well within the range of being competitive. In any case, even a very low tax rate cannot compete with zero taxes, which is what many tax havens offer. There would still be an incentive to shift profits to countries that have an even lower tax rate.

What is certain is that a large cut in corporate rate would be perceived internationally as a full throttle acceleration of the global race to the bottom on corporate taxation.  The British government has already vowed to keep the lowest tax rate amongst G7 countries. Mexico has promised to reciprocate against harmful tax measures taken by the United States. Most developing countries would reduce their rates even further and increase tax privileges for corporations to compete for investment. Governments would make up budget shortfalls from tax breaks by cutting back on public services and infrastructure investments, and by increasing taxes such as VAT and fuel, which hit ordinary citizens harder.

Clearly, the spillover effect of the proposed US tax bill would be endured by the poorest people in the world, not just the United States. Oxfam estimates that just eight men control as much wealth as half of humanity. Inequality is a growing problem that we must address. But if enacted, the tax plan would seriously undermine the ambitious commitments made by the international community to tackle poverty and inequality through the Sustainable Development Goals.

As a group of leaders from government, academia, and civil society, the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) urges the United States to work with the international community, to reform international corporate tax systems to address the problems the entire world is facing today: widening income inequality, growing job insecurity, climate change, and anemic productivity growth. The creation of an intergovernmental body on tax cooperation within the United Nations system is the only way to ensure a coherent global coordination, with stronger cooperation, less unilateral action, and consistent action against tax havens.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Léonce Ndikumana is a Professor of economics and Director of the African Development Policy Program at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts. He is a Commissioner on the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT).

Share This Article

Trump and the Nuclear Button

Trump 

and the Nuclear Button

Pablo Delcan; Photo by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

To the Editor:

Re “Rethinking the President’s Nuclear Trigger” (editorial, Nov. 16): We applaud the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s decision to hold hearings on the president’s authority to launch nuclear weapons. As you note, President Trump’s “glib talk about nuclear weapons and his impulsiveness” constitute reason to scrutinize this power.

Virtually any first use of nuclear weapons would constitute an act of war. International law prohibits their use except to address a threat that is “instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.”

Our Constitution imposes a further constraint. Absent an actual or imminent attack, the president must seek prior congressional authorization to initiate war.

Congress has not authorized use of force against North Korea. Nor does the president’s status as commander in chief carry a right to declare or commence war. If that were so, the power of Congress to declare war and the constitutional check on unilateral action would be meaningless.

In light of the threat that nuclear weapons pose, further constraints may be appropriate. But existing laws already limit the president’s power to use them.

JOHN KIERNAN, MARK R. SHULMAN
NEW YORK

The writers are, respectively, president of the New York City Bar Association and the chairman of its Task Force on National Security and the Rule of Law.

To the Editor:

In view of the devastation that would result from nuclear war, there is an obvious need for checks on the president’s authority to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike. That need will continue in the future, regardless of who occupies the Oval Office.

Moreover, this is an international problem: The world would be a safer place if all nuclear-weapon states took steps to limit the authority of their civilian and military leaders to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack.

Verification of any international agreement would be difficult, but the process of negotiating it could lead to safer procedures in other capitals. Making this an international process should also make new checks on presidential authority more palatable to the president.

LAWRENCE FINCH, CARMEL, CALIF.

The writer, a retired Foreign Service officer, served with the United States delegation to the comprehensive test ban negotiations in Geneva in the Carter administration.

To the Editor:

There is a clean solution to prevent a trigger-happy president from launching a nuclear attack: a declaration by the United States of no first use of nuclear weapons, backed by federal law. In the absence of verifiable evidence of first use by another party, no first strike could be ordered.

Earlier advocacy of no first use was not against a rogue nuclear state like North Korea, so it is legitimate to ask whether no first use might undermine the deterrent capability of the United States.

If North Korea launched a nuclear attack against South Korea, Japan or even the United States, it would face a devastating retaliatory response, and its leadership knows it. There is no evidence that Kim Jong-un is suicidal.

What about deterring a major power like Russia or China? Because of the United States’ strong second-strike capability, no first use will remain effective against major powers.

There is no good reason for the United States to remain a laggard. The adoption of no first use might well induce other nuclear states to choose it, which could lead to a new equilibrium: an effective ban on the use of nuclear weapons.

STEVEN J. BRAMS, NEW YORK

The writer is a professor of politics at N.Y.U. and a co-author of “Game Theory and National Security.’’

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MAPA Nuclear Disarmament" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mapa-nuclear-disarmament+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to mapa-nuclear-disarmament@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mapa-nuclear-disarmament/13F892E1-DF1E-472E-847F-050B808CAC8C%40mit.edu.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Free The Class-War Prisoners-Support Those Inside From Those On The Outside During The Holiday Season-Join The Committee For International Labor Defense (CILD)

Free The Class-War Prisoners-Support Those Inside From Those On The Outside-Join The Committee For International Labor Defense (CILD)

Comment by Lance Lawrence

A number of people in the Greater Boston area, many having worked on political prisoner campaigns from freeing Black Panthers in the old days (and a few who still inside the walls all these years later putting emphasis on the FBI vendetta against that organization and other militant black organizations as well) to more recently Mumia, Leonard Peltier, Chelsea Manning and Reality Leigh Winner have over the past couple of years decided to form a Committee for International Labor Defense. If those last three words ring a bell it is because this group consciously is trying to model itself after the organization started many years ago back in the 1920s initiated by the American Communist Party and led at first by founder James P. Cannon and others like Big Bill Haywood and his fellow anarchists who saw the need for the labor movement to defend its own and others who were being persecuted by the capitalist state. In all an honorable tradition including stalwart defenses of the martyred immigrant anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti and the Alabama Scottsboro Boys cases.

In practice what the original ILD (and now the CILD) attempted to do was make sure that those class-war prisoner not all of them necessarily in political agreement with the Communist Party or any party were not forgotten. That those inside were treated with the same dignity as those outside the wall (outside for the present anyway given the ups and downs of capital existence that can be a very close thing). For those who have spent time behind bars knowing that there are others outside looking after your interests has been a tremendous morale booster. That along with taking care of families, providing stipend to prisoners to purchase items inside, providing legal defense funds and personnel, writing letter to those inside are just some of the things that the ILD (and now the CILD) was committed to seeing done. Not as charity or social work as Cannon made very clear but as acts of hard solidarity with those inside. Read the statement, check out the website listed, and if possible support with anything from writing letters to donating legal fund in order to get our class-war prisoners freed as quickly as possible. Thank you   

Bath Iron Works-parent company in poor house - Needs Maine state welfare check

BIW parent company in poor house - Needs Maine state welfare check

Global Network

11/20/2017 5:53 PM

To  Stop War Machine  

• Quick reply all
• Reply
• Forward
• Delete
• Actions

BIW parent company in poor house - Needs Maine state welfare check

General Dynamics (which own Bath Iron Works - BIW) is embarking on a statewide public relations campaign to ask the state legislature in Maine for a $60 million tax break over the next 20 years for their Navy shipbuilding operation in Bath.

They claim that in order to stay competitive they must have state financial support - what I'd call corporate welfare.

Already over many years General Dynamics has received more than $197 million in state and local tax breaks for BIW.  In 2013 BIW asked for another $6 million tax break from the City of Bath.  I worked with a small committee that organized a local campaign to oppose the tax cut and in the end a very reluctant city council voted to cut the request in half giving General Dynamics/BIW $3 million. That meant that citizen intervention saved the community $3 million that could be used for other local needs like salaries for firefighters, police, and for fixing crumbling infrastructure.

Now they dare to come around to an already financially strapped state of Maine with their corporate silver cup in hand asking for another $60 million. 

On top of this I recently discovered an article in the Providence (Rhode Island) Journal entitled Defense firms spend big on lucrative stock buybacks.  The article reports (as shown in the photo above) General Dynamics spent $9.4 billion buying back its own stocks during 2013-2016.

In the article William Lazonick, an economist at UMASS-Lowell and an expert on stock buybacks says, "I think, as taxpayers, we're being taken for fools.  At a minimum, I would have a rule saying, 'You're not getting any subsidies if you're doing buybacks.  You're showing us you don't need the money.' "

The article also suggests that buybacks are bad for workers and average shareholders because the real beneficiaries are savvy traders who can time their sales and corporate brass with pay packages linked to stock performance and earnings per share.

In fact the top CEO at General Dynamics, Phebe Novakovic, last year made $21 million ($5 million of which was bonuses). It was Novakovic who accelerated General Dynamics stock repurchases since taking over the corporation in 2013 - so her bonuses are likely due to these fiscal shell games.

Novakovic netted $49 million in take-home pay in her first four years as General Dynamics CEO, with an annual average 43% of her total compensation coming by way of stock-based pay.  So essentially this whole thing is a scam to bleed the taxpayers.

What is most disgusting is how they play one state against another saying that if they don't get more tax breaks in Maine then they can't maintain their operations because a similar shipyard in Mississippi gets tax breaks from their state.  So the poor in Maine are pitted against the poor in Mississippi and all the politicians - Republican and Democrat alike - get on their knees and give these thieving corporate pirates everything they want.

Of course some of the politicians get a kick-back too in campaign donations for having played the Wall Street game.  It's sick.

General Dynamics, like most weapons corporations, get the vast majority of their operating funds from the federal treasury.  The taxpayers are paying the freight from the start.  But then the military industrial complex adds another twist – a strategy to extract even more profit from the taxpayers by going to the states and even to small cities like Bath demanding additional tax breaks.

We all should demand that our state legislators oppose this corporate welfare giveaway. Before General Dynamics gets anymore state taxpayer dollars they should be required to begin a transition process to build commuter rail systems, tidal power and offshore wind turbines to help us deal with our real problem - global warming.

We have the right, and the responsibility, to speak out and demand this nonsense stops now.  We are handing a collapsing nation, facing the ravages of global warming, to our children and grandchildren.  The least we can do is call upon on state legislators to go to Augusta and say no to General Dynamics. Enough is enough.

Let General Dynamics take back some of the extravagant pay increases and bonuses from their top executives before they come poor mouthing to our already financially barren state treasury.

 

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
http://www.space4peace.org 
http://space4peace.blogspot.com  (blog)

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. - Henry David Thoreau

Guardian: Russian nuclear facility denies it is source of high radioactivity levels

Amy Hendrickson

11/21/2017 11:55 AM

To  brookline-announce@lists.riseup.net,    wilpfa   and 2 others

• Quick reply all
• Reply
• Forward
• Delete
• Actions

Russian nuclear facility denies it is source of high radioactivity levels

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/21/russia-radioactivity-986-times-norm-nuclear-accident-claim?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=253338&subid=5509345&CMP=GT_US_collection

Greenpeace calls for investigation after levels of ruthenium-106 in atmosphere near Urals site found to be 986 times norm

Nuclear experts have said there was no evidence to suggest the leak posed a significant hazard to human health or the environment. [!]

Shaun Walker in Moscow and Hannah Devlin

Tuesday 21 November 2017 10.05 EST First published on Monday 20 November 2017 20.59 EST

A secretive Russian nuclear facility has denied it was behind high atmospheric concentrations of the radioactive isotope ruthenium-106, after Russia’s meteorological service confirmed levels several hundred times the norm were found in several locations in the country during tests in late September.

Greenpeace has called for an investigation into a potential cover-up of a nuclear accident after Russia’s nuclear agency had deniedEuropean reports of increased ruthenium-106 levels. Rosgidromet, the weather monitoring service, released test data on Monday that showed levels were indeed much higher than normal. The most potent site was Argayash in the south Urals, where levels were 986 times the norm.

Argayash is about 20 miles from Mayak, a facility that reprocesses spent nuclear fuel. The plant facility issued a denial on Tuesday. “The contamination of the atmosphere with ruthenium-106 isotope registered by Rosgidromet is not linked to the activity of Mayak,” a statement said.

It went on to reassure people that the measurements were well below dangerous levels: “The measurements which Rosgidromet has released suggest that the dose people might have received is 20,000 times less than the allowed annual dose and presents no threat at all to health.”

Nuclear experts also said there was no evidence to suggest the leak posed a significant hazard to human health or the environment.

A report this month from France’s Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) said ruthenium-106 had been detected in France between 27 September and 13 October.

In mid-October, the state nuclear agency Rosatom issued a statement saying that samples from across Russiaduring the same period showed no trace of ruthenium-106 after European agencies had reported levels that were higher than usual.

Greenpeace Russia called on Rosatom to open “an in-depth inquiry and publish the results about the incidents at Mayak”, and the group also said it would ask prosecutors to look into the potential concealment of a nuclear incident.

Later on Tuesday, Rosatom released a statement saying the scare had been down to a “misreading” of the data.

“Rosatom categorically confirms there have been no unreported accidents or reportable events on any of its nuclear sites. It also confirms that the recent Ru-106 emission which is being reported is not linked to any Rosatom site,” the nuclear agency said.

Rosatom said the high readings in Argayash were still lower than those taken elsewhere in Europe, such as in Bucharest, suggesting the emission did not take place on Russian territory.

Neil Hyatt, professor of nuclear materials chemistry at the University of Sheffield, said: “This isotope comes from recycling of nuclear fuel or medical isotope targets. It’s quite short-lived so that means it must be relatively young fuel. It must have come out of a reactor recently and been reprocessed recently.”

Ilya Yarmoshenko, a scientist, told a Russian news agency that the high levels of ruthenium-106 were harmless, and levels 10 times higher of other radioactive substances could be found inside normal homes. He said there was no need to evacuate any of the residents of the affected areas but added that the most important thing now was to identify the source of the radiation.

Hyatt agreed: “It’s certainly not a major health concern based on what we know at the moment. If it’s concentrated you would certainly want to limit access to that area. If it’s not ingested then the hazard is going to be lower.”

Prof Paddy Reagan, a nuclear expert at the University of Surrey, said: “When they say this was 900 times the background level it’s a surprising number, but the background level is basically zero. I don’t think there’s any radiological danger from it.

“The measurement of this highlights how sensitive radiation detectors are. It’s basically impossible to hide a leak. If it was a weapon explosion or a reactor leak there’d be other radioisotopes, so it looks like a leak from waste reprocessing.”

Hyatt said it was unusual that other radioisotopes had not been detected as normally waste fuel would contain a mix of different nuclear materials. One possibility is that the fuel was being processed and concentrated for use in nuclear batteries, which are used in satellites.

“If the plant that’s making those has sprung a leak it might explain why they’ve detected that and nothing else,” he said.

Evgeny Savchenko, the top health and safety official in Chelyabinsk region, where the Mayak facility is located, dismissed health fears as “hysteria” and said the fact that the information came from abroad was suspicious, noting that France also has a nuclear fuel processing site “that competes with our Mayak”.

Savchenko said there was absolutely no reason for the population to fear health effects. “Note that officials and their families don’t have injections against radiation … so you’d have to be a total fool to hide dangerous information and not take steps to save people,” he said.

In 1957 Mayak was the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, which at the time was covered up by the Soviet regime. This year shipments of spent nuclear submarine fuel that had been left at an Arctic naval base since the Soviet period began to be shipped to Mayak, where it will be reprocessed and repurposed for use in civilian nuclear reactors. Much of the plant’s operations remain shrouded in secrecy.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MAPA Nuclear Disarmament" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mapa-nuclear-disarmament+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to mapa-nuclear-disarmament@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mapa-nuclear-disarmament/035f01d362e9%24768cfe50%2463a6faf0%24%40texnology.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

The Ongoing Agony of the Obama-Trump War on the People of Yemen!

Obama-Trump War on the People of Yemen!

VFP Smedley via smedleyvfp

10:12 AM

To  smedleyvfp@googlegroups.com  

• Quick reply all
• Reply
• Forward
• Delete
• Actions

The Ongoing Agony of the Obama-Trump War on the People of Yemen!

by Ajamu Baraka / November 21st, 2017

https://dissidentvoice.org/2017/11/the-ongoing-agony-of-the-obama-trump-war-on-the-people-of-yemen/#more-74100

We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation.

— Martin Luther King, “Beyond Vietnam”

Yemen, the poorest Arab nation on Earth, is the victim of a savage, illegal war waged by the Saudi Arabian monarchy.  Armed to the teeth with the most sophisticated weapons in the world manufactured and supplied by the merchants of death in the United States, the Saudis are providing another grotesque example of what happens when a powerful nation with modern weapons is unrestrained by law and basic human decency.

Flying hundreds of sorties and targeting the civilian infrastructure—water and sanitation plants, the electrical grid, agricultural fields, food storage facilities, hospitals, roads, schools the result is over 20 million people, or 70 percent of the population,  are now dependent on food imports; 7 million of them are facing famine-like conditions and rely completely on food aid to survive. Conservative reports put the number of dead from the Saudis’ barbaric air war since March 2015 at over 11,000, with the vast majority being innocent civilians. Meanwhile, untold millions have been displaced.

All of the above acts against the Yemenis are war crimes.

But the trauma and devastation of the people doesn’t end here.

For the last two weeks, the gangster family running the Saudi state has imposed a murderous air, sea and land blockade preventing vital aid to those millions now dependent on it for their basic survival.

However, the Saudis are not the only ones implicated in this unfolding international crime. Like most of the egregious, international human-rights crimes of the late 20th and 21st centuries, the U.S. state is once again complicit.

The fact is the Obama administration gave the green light to the Saudi war on Yemen. This is a war that could not then or today have been launched and executed without direct support from the U.S. military. The United States provided critical support in the form of intelligence sharing and targeting, air-to-air refueling, logistics support, participation in the naval blockade, and billions of dollars in weapons sales.

That support continues under the Trump administration, including the finalization of the multi-billion-dollar arms deal with the Saudis that was initiated under the Obama administration.

Starvation is rampant, and the innocents are dying but who cares when there is money to be made and geopolitical interests to protect. As the indispensable nation, the nation above all nations, it is of no real concern that starvation is a war crime. Rogue states, especially if they believe in their “exceptionality” don’t restrict themselves to the rules that apply to others. So like other elements of international law that the United States ignores, starvation according to the Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Defense considers starvation a legitimate weapon. Therefore, its use is strategic, and morality or its legality is of no concern to the masters of the universe.

Mass starvation is not the only tragedy the people are facing. Yemen is also experiencing one of the worst outbreaks of cholera in the world since the epidemic in Haiti that began in 2010. The Red Crossreports that there are over 750,000 cases of infection with the number expected to rise to over 900,000 by the end of the year. So far there have been over 3,000 deaths.

In this period when the corporate capitalist press and social media companies coordinate with the U.S. state to determine the range of acceptable information and selected facts presented to the U.S. public, it is not surprising Yemen has received scant coverage. Yet, in those few instances when the Obama administration felt compelled to comment on the situation—usually when the foreign press asked—it downplayed its role. When pressed, the Obama administration provided a ludicrous explanation: Apparently, Saudi Arabia was justified in intervening for its own security and to restore democracy in Yemen!

Today, the Trump administration doesn’t even need to bother to provide an explanation for continued U.S. support to the barbarism in Yemen. More focused on domestic political intrigue, his critics are not concerned about the crimes against humanity and war crimes being committed by the U.S. administration in Yemen. Recent legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in the form of a resolution to compel the administration to comply with the War Powers Act on Yemen or withdraw U.S. forces has stalled after generating miniscule interest. Since the people who are dying are “over there,” to borrow from Senator Lindsey Graham, who cares, and who cares if U.S. involvement is constitutional or not!

Once again, the hypocritical morality of the U.S. and the West is exposed. With all of its moralistic pontificating about human rights, humanitarianism, the responsibility to protect, the global public is reminded that U.S. and Western geo-political interests will always “trump” their supposed commitments to the rule of law, human rights, and all of the other high-sounding principles that they have consistently violated through practice.

Dr. King suggested 50 years ago that the United States was approaching spiritual death, that the deep malady in the “American” spirit was producing a sick people and making the United States a danger to the world. With mass shootings, the epidemic of suicides, pervasive drug addiction, intensifying anti-Semitism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, misogyny, white supremacy, generalized narcissism, and the normalization of war, the conclusion should be obvious today, the United States is a much sicker nation and an even more dangerous threat to the world.

The people of Yemen are suffering. They cry out for help, for an end to their misery, respect, and protection of their human right to live. But their voices are unheard, drowned out by the noise of Russia-gate, arguments about the meaning of Trump’s latest tweet, and the latest episode of the TV show “Scandal”.

While many activists in the U.S. who are aligned with the democratic party would reject it, the people in the global South, the racialized “others” whose lives have never mattered, understand clearly that Trump is not an aberration, he is the reflection of the “American” spirit.

-- 

Cole Harrison

Executive Director

Massachusetts Peace Action

11 Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138

w: 617-354-2169

m: 617-466-9274

f: /masspeaceaction  t: @masspeaceaction

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SmedleyVFP" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to Smedleyvfp+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

From The Archives But It Reads Like Today-Targeting Professor Terri Ginsberg's Academic and Speech Freedoms - by Stephen Lendman-Reinstate Professor Ginsberg!

Saturday, July 02, 2011

Targeting Professor Terri Ginsberg's Academic and Speech Freedoms

Targeting Professor Terri Ginsberg's Academic and Speech Freedoms - by Stephen Lendman

Post-9/11, anyone challenging America's war on terrorism faces possible recrimination, especially vulnerable Muslims, targeted for political advantage to incite fear to justify war.

Moreover, anyone critical of Israel leaves them vulnerable to vilification, intimidation and persecution. Even university professors are targeted, including distinguished tenured ones - censured, suspended and/or fired unjustly.

Yet America's First Amendment states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Of all Bill of Rights freedoms, this one's most important because without it all others are at risk.

Some would also argue that academic freedom derives from First Amendment rights, including US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (1939 - 1975). In 1952, he cited it in an Adler v. Board of Education opinion, calling its denial a violation of speech freedom.

He also believed that doing so is "the most dangerous of all subversions....There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies."

In Wieman v. Updegraff (1952), Justice Felix Frankfurter (1939 - 1962) concurred, saying:

"To regard teachers - in our educational system, from the primary grades to the university - as the priests of our democracy is therefore not to indulge in hyperbole. It is the special task of teachers to foster those habits of open-mindedness and critical inquiry which alone make for responsible citizens, who, in turn, make possible an enlightened and effective public opinion."

"They cannot carry out their noble task if the conditions for the practice of a responsible and critical mind are denied to them. They must have the freedom of responsible inquiry, by thought and action...."

In Sweezy v. New Hampshire, Justice Earl Warren (1953 - 1969) concurred with a High Court majority, saying:

"We believe that there unquestionably was an invasion of petitioner's liberties in the areas of academic freedom and political expression - areas in which government should be extremely reticent to tread. The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident....To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation....Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die."

In Keyishian v. Board of Regents (1967), Justice William Brennan (1956 - 1990) notably said:

"Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom."

American jurisprudence today is much more hardline than earlier because two-thirds or more of all federal judges are from, affiliated with, or sympathetic to the extremist Federalist Society. It advocates rolling back civil liberties; ending New Deal social policies; opposing reproductive choice, government regulations, labor rights and environmental protections; as well as subverting justice (including speech and academic freedom) in defense of privilege.

As a result, academia is easily threatened, especially when challenging mainstream dogma, notably through honest discourse about Israeli/Palestinians relations.

North Carolina State University (NCSU) Professor Terri Ginsberg is one of many victims. She was denied tenure-track positioning, then fired as a visiting professor, "pertaining to (her) scholarship and teaching on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."

Ginsberg's Distinguished Credentials

After receiving her doctorate in Cinema Studies at New York University (NYU), she taught film, media, and literary studies at Rutgers University, NYU, Dartmouth, Ithaca College, SUNY-Purchase College, and Brooklyn College-CUNY.

Her expertise includes:

-- Palestinian/Israeli cinema;

-- German cinema;

-- Holocaust films;

-- Critical theory; and

-- Gender and sexuality studies.

Her authored, co-authored, and edited books include:

-- "Historical Dictionary of Middle Eastern Cinema;"

-- "Holocaust Film: The Political Aesthetics of Ideology;" and

-- "Perspectives on German Cinema."

She's also written articles for the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Spectator, Situations, Arab Studies Quarterly, and other publications, including on Palestinian/Israeli conflict issues.

From 2006 - 2008, she co-chaired the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Middle Eastern Caucus. In New York, as part of Jews against Israel's Occupation and International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, she's also been a community organizer. In addition, she's an International Council for Middle East Studies (ICMES) Programming Committee member.

Ginsburg's Case

In December 2009, she sued NCSU. At an October 25, 2010 Summary Judgment hearing, Judge Shannon Joseph summarily dismissed it without reason. At issue was either not understanding or being dismissive of First Amendment rights. "(S)he was apparently only looking for direct evidence of discrimination and speech suppression," or bent the law to support power and privilege over justice.

Despite "mountain(s) of circumstantial evidence," she dismissed it out of hand. In April 2011, Ginsberg's Record of Appeal was filed, then "an Appellate Brief with the North Carolina Court of Appeals" on June 24. A late summer or early fall hearing should follow.

Litigation Background

Ginsberg sued in December 2009. A State of North Carolina mandated mediation hearing followed in May 2010. No settlement was reached. During a week of subsequent depositions, NCSU "admitted that it suppressed (her) speech critical of Zionism and supportive of the Palestine liberation struggle" while employed as a visiting professor.

As a result, "it chose not to interview or hire (her) for a tenure-track position because" her scholarship focused honestly on Israel/Palestine, the Middle East, "Jewish" and related issues. "Amazingly, (NCSU) claims that it has the right to suppress, refuse and reject on the basis of these considerations." As a result, Ginsberg filed a Record of Appeal and Appellate Brief for redress.

In September 2010, when discovery ended, "NCSU filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, held on October 25 as explained above. "By dismissing the case, Judge Joseph essentially decided that" the North Carolina Constitution's Article I, section 14 free speech provision excludes anti-Zionist criticism and views supporting Palestinian, Arab and Muslim rights.

As a non-tenure-track faculty member at the time, Ginsberg was fired as a visiting professor and denied a campus grievance hearing - one a tenure-track/tenured faculty member likely would have gotten. "(T)he judge's decision also impacts the labor rights of contingent academic workers" nationally because they comprise 70% of faculty members today.

Ginsberg strongly believes her Summary Judgment dismissal was improper. As a result, she was denied a jury trial on grounds that no speech violations occurred. In fact, Judge Joseph's ruling ignored evidence that "NCSU faculty exhibited symptoms of discomfort with (her) political views and public statements."

For example, NCSU witnesses, including its Film Studies Program director, admitted they reacted negatively to views she expressed at a Palestinian film screening, during which she thanked audience members "for supporting the expression of a Palestinian liberation perspective in an alternative film screening."

As a result, NCSU witnesses said they believed they would thus "perceive the Film Studies and Middle East Studies programs as biased. Shortly thereafter, (she) went from being the favored candidate for a tenure-track position to be denied an interview."

Later, NCSU claimed she was denied for being "overqualified," and because her scholarship "shift(ed) to Middle Eastern interests," making her inappropriate for a European film position despite her "voluminous publication record" and European film work, "far exceed(ing) the prevailing candidate."

Based on bogus reasoning, however, she was also denied a jury trial, a decision Ginsberg hopes will be reversed on appeal.

Terri Ginsberg v. Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina

Its Statement on the Grounds for Appellate Review says:

"Judge Joseph's order, which entered judgment as a matter of law in favor of the defendant on all of the plaintiff's claims, is a final judgment and appeal is therefore proper pursuant to NC Gen. Stat. 7A-27(b)."

In October 2007, Ginsberg applied for a Film Studies tenure-track position. It requires candidates with "a primary concentration in at least one area of European Cinema, although additional areas of expertise are welcome (other national cinemas, digital media, theory, etc.)," as well as "an excellent research and teaching record in the area advertised."

The search committee initially listed her most qualified among "First Tier Candidates" until "suddenly" she "fell out of favor (and) was not listed in either the first or the second tier, but moved to the bottom of the 'reject' tier, and was not even granted an interview for the position."

The reason given was that she was "now working with Palestinian/Israeli, rank issue(s)...." Moreover, it called her "experience and the quantity of her publications exceed(ing) that which normally would be expected of a beginning assistant professor in our department."

"Included in the tier above her were candidates who did not even appear to be in the field of Film Studies, including (one) about whom the notes said, 'is he really film studies?' "

Despite being the most qualified candidate, another one was chosen "whose publication and teaching records were not nearly as strong as Ginsberg's...."

Moreover, although the applicant wrote about Holocaust film, she didn't challenge Zionism, include alternative Jewish perspectives, or publish books. In addition, Ginsberg's contract wasn't renewed despite her cinema expertise and distinguished scholarship.

Clearly, her activist views about Israel/Palestine, Zionism, and America's one-sided Middle East policy got her punished. As a result, her academic and speech rights were violated, subjecting her to Inquisition justice.

A Final Comment

University of Chicago Professor Peter N. Kirstein, a noted academic freedom supporter, said Ginsberg was fired:

"for daring to cross the ideological line into artistic and pedagogical assessment of the Palestine Question. (She's) just one of many academics who support human rights and the decolonization of Palestine whose academic freedom has been denied. Many have either been silenced, fired, denied tenure, or non-renewed throughout academia" for daring to defend right over wrong - especially when challenging Israel, Zionism, or America's one-sided support for both.

As a result, each censor victory "is a defeat of free speech and the right to conscience that this nation and the academy cynically trumpet," while waring lawlessly against democratic values, including truth, justice, rule of law standards, human rights, civil liberties, and courageous activists who champion them.

Among others well known to this writer, Ginsberg notably qualifies honorably.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

posted by Steve Lendman @ 7:51 AM