THE 2023-2024 CRISIS IN GAZA AND ISRAEL REQUIRES AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH
I have written a series of articles on the Gaza/Israel crisis. The first in that series was published here and in Portside. This article shows that militarism and terrorism are distinct (but related) and describes the limits to a variety of the “post-colonial” approach. Taken to its extremes, that approach perpetuates the cycle of violence. Anyone who doubts that many so-called “post-colonialists” have taken Edward Said’s ideas and instead generated absolute rubbish can simply consult this video of Said in which he explains that both Palestinians and Jews have historic claims on Israel/Palestine. The problem is not that colonialism is good–it is not. The problem is that many varieties of post-colonialism are bad.
The second article which I will re-edit and break into components was published here. I focus on the useful idiots on the left who support Hamas directly, indirectly and obliquely. They are found in the ranks of social movements, universities, and journalists.
The third article, published here, explains various concepts which relate to how Israeli transgressions are leveraged to promote idiotic, superficial and even anti-Semitic arguments. I explain the concepts of “Anti-Zionist-Splaining” used by various persons to defend these memes. I illustrate the formula used by these persons to defend their idiocy by pointing to Israelis transgressions.
The fourth article, published here, deals with a variety of topics but includes an analysis of the Gaza conflict, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in a Swedish context.
These four articles show the limits of the New Left descendants, the pseudo-post-colonial approach, and a pathway which is foreshadowing the end of the current left paradigm based on deconstruction, selective rallying to one set of victims, and the trivialization of the crisis facing Palestinians and Israelis alike. The last article focuses more on the limits to the liberal-centrist approach to political discourse.
THE 2022-2023 UKRAINE CRISIS REQUIRES A SYSTEMATIC RESPONSE: OPPOSE NATO EXPANSIONISM AND OPPOSE RUSSIAN MILITARISM, OPPOSE ALL VARIETIES OF IMPERIALISM AND MILITARISM
A colleague of mine wisely pointed out that the grand movement against Putin and Russia’s invasion is saturated with a Putin-like demand for consensus and conformity. Those promoting personal flack are especially guilty of being a kind of psychological warrior front line worker for gross militarism, rudeness and pride in one’s ignorance and indulgence in elite thinking. On the other hand, one of the biggest barriers to ending the war is Russian authoritarianism that attacks Russian peace protesters. #DefundtheRussianPolice Another huge barrier is the greater emphasis placed on punishing Russia than promoting diplomatic solutions. The public in “advanced” Western democracies as well as in Russia itself faces a flood of information and news stories that are often misleading, one-sided, false or inadequately researched. A magical belief in the power of weapons to preserve democracy or the conflation of “diplomacy” and “concessions” with “appeasement” are two symptoms of intellectual breakdown. In contrast, the problems of militarism and expansionism require other solutions such as disarmament, conversion of defense industries, and alternative forms of security. We must expand the ecological industrial complex and cooperative sector which provide alternatives to both militarist, managerial expansionism as well as dystopian petroleum-based economies and energy systems. War is the ultimate form of wasteful growth. Foreign policy crises and the military expansionism of greater military powers are central problems. The following series of articles and media presentations offer a discussion of various problems and solutions.
2022
The first article, published in Portside on February 26, 2022, in a series of many articles illustrates the problem of militarist, managerial expansionism, particularly as manifested in NATO. Such expansionism is also described in detail by Jan Oberg in an analysis published here.
The second article, published in Counterpunch on February 25, 2022, describes “Mutually Assured Paranoia,” the way in which competing militarisms of Russia and NATO/US support each other.
The third article, published in Counterpunch on March 8, 2022, focuses on how a once semi-neutral state, Sweden, now exports weapons to Ukraine, a mistaken proposition.
The fourth article, published on the Global Teach-In webpage on March 11, 2022, explains the systematic weakness of the right-wing support for Swedish membership in NATO.
The fifth article, also published on the Global Teach-In webpage on March 14, 2022, explains the limits of yet another proponent of NATO membership, this time an argument published in the left-leading Dagens Arena.
An article published in Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish) on March 16, 2022, interviewed Global Teach-In founder, Jonathan M. Feldman and explained the problems with arms transfers to Ukraine and military build ups.
A sixth article, published on the Global Teach-In webpage on March 20, 2022, examines the limits of linking Ukraine to Nazism, how this claim is used to neglect anti-Semitism (and domestic racism more generally) within Sweden, as well as Russian attacks on Jewish areas in Ukraine. The article shows how the large-scale military build up against Russia occurs at the same time when the Sweden can barely protect its own Jews in the country’s third largest city, neglecting security there.
On March 20, 2022, a Webcast with Jonathan M. Feldman and others on the Ukraine crisis appeared here, on the Shelter & Solidarity platform (see also this Youtube channel).
The seventh article, published on the Global Teach-In webpage on March 22, 2022, examines how parts of the Swedish (and Italian) lefts (as well as potentially other lefts in other countries) have engaged in a Faustian bargain with NATO/US militiarism. They are subject to the Stockholm Syndrome in which they have entered into a close bond to the very militarists which they sometimes opposed.
The eighth article, published on the Global Teach-In webpage on April 2, 2022 shows how NATO proponents in Sweden try to railroad the truth by citing experts whose arguments don’t make much sense, by giving examples which contradict their claims, and by displacing democracy by talking about state obligations and a fait accompli.
This brief entry explains why Swedish diplomacy and Sweden’s relatively non-aligned status helped promote the country’s security with respect to Russia (the Soviet Union) during the U-137 submarine crisis, when a Russian (Soviet) ship entered Swedish waters in 1981. In contrast, others argue or imply that Sweden’s military power alone preserved Sweden’s security. Of course, other states’ military power becomes relevant in this passage, but one could argue that Sweden’s relative neutrality provided advantages to states outside Sweden who could offer protection to Sweden. Sweden’s contributions created goodwill among these states and leverage with respect to Russia (the Soviet Union). In other words, the system in which Sweden was formally outside NATO did not prevent Sweden from gaining potential military or diplomatic support (such as to constrain Russian projection of force) from outside Sweden. The defense of Sweden was partially operationalized by its diplomacy or non-aligned status. There is always some measure of security that comes from weapons and some measure that comes from diplomacy, but military security can be devalued by a devaluing of diplomatic power. In the current Ukraine crisis, Sweden has devalued its diplomatic power and thus the value of its military investments. During the U-137 crisis, these two forms of power worked in a mutually supporting fashion. The military power did not seem sufficient in my view for securring Sweden’s security. It is one thing for Russia to enter Sweden’s territory with military means and face a relatively neutral Sweden. It is far different for them to do so when Sweden is relatively aligned with NATO, an alliance ostensibly aimed against Russia (despite protestations that this alliance is “defensive,” which is simply factually inaccurate as seen in Libya, Serbia and allied actions in Iraq).
The ninth article published in the Global Teach-In website on April 7, 2022 illustrates how ecological xenophobia and surplus demonization constrain diplomatic solutions and perpeture militarism and war.
The tenth article scrutinizes how security experts are utilized to promote NATO, diminish the risks of Sweden joining NATO and avoid critical discussion of NATO by analyzing a news story in the leading Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter.
The eleventh article examines how a “left” newspaper in Sweden, Aftonbladet, under-emphasized and displaced the prospects for diplomacy in Ukraine. The focus is on a recent diplomatic mission by the Chancellor of Austria, Karl Nehammer, and various ways diplomacy or diplomatic expertise is potentially marginalized.
The twelfth article takes a critical look at Gilbert Achcar’s essay entitled, “Contemptuous Denial of Agency in the Name of Geopolitics and/or Peace.” It shows how Achcar fails to consider various limits to arms transfers to Ukraine or the utility of the peace movement’s approach to the crisis.
The thirteenth article looks at the limits of the pro-NATO arguments by a leading left Social Democrat, Daniel Suhonen.
The fourteenth article examines “left arguments” for NATO as published on the Rosa Luxemborg Foundation website.
The fifteenth article examines how the Swedish parliament’s move to reduce the country’s wolf population is partially related to a “politics of scarcity” facing farmers which is encouraged by extensive and unnecessarry military spending.
The sixteenth article published here on May 28th and 29th, 2022, and as part of a symposium in Counterpunch, published on June 3, 2022, responds to a letter by Ukrainian academics that unfairly criticized Noam Chomsky and distorted the issues at hand relevant for an equitable and realistic response to the Ukraine crisis.
The seventeenth article published here June 28, 2022 examines how Swedish documentaries on weapons transfers manage to evade and displace essential questions.
The eighteenth article written by Seda Aksoy, published on June 20, 2022 in Syre, interviews GTI founder Jonathan M. Feldman about bias in the discourse about the Ukraine War (in Swedish and requires subscription).
The nineteenth article, published here on June 28, 2022, examines why and how Swedish discourse on NATO, the Ukraine War, and diplomacy is so superficial. A key explanation is the power gained by being superficial by leaders’ links to the U.S. war machine and the actions of grassroots-focused Swedish popular celebrities like Lars Wilderäng who are overly interested in things military.
The twentieth article, published in at the Swedish Development Forum website on June 30, 2022, argues that we must redirect resources away from military and oil firms, and their supporters in banks, towards alterantive civilian and ecological platforms.
The twenty-first article, published in Counterpunch on September 20, 2022 expalins why the Swedish left lost in the 2022 parliamentary elections as a bloc and in fact will continue to lose.
The twenty-second article, published here on October 10, 2022 explains how Swedish political leaders have created a system of morality that is disposable when it concerns civilians attacked by Turkey’s military. The article describes how Sweden has normalized a Turkish regime which is militaristic, de-democratizing, and involved in systematic repression of Kurds. A November 8, 2022 news story explained that “Sweden’s leader vows to counter terror threats to Turkey,” but what about Sweden’s support for Turkey’s military threats to Kurds?
2023
The twenty-third article, published here on March 23, 2023 examines the capacities of ChatGPT to address the problems of Swedish militarism. Here we have a computer program which mimicks liberal equivalencies, i.e. different sides of an issue are presented with the emotional detachment of Spock in Star Trek. If ideas lack emotion, passions and engagement behind them, then what are they?
The twenty-fourth article, published here on April 8, 2023, Counterpunch on April 11, 2023, and Portside on April 15th, 2023, explores how Michael Kazin has recycled Cold War positions in his analysis of the war in Ukraine. The article explains how parts of the U.S. left have leveraged Russian militarism to support a domestic equivalent. This pattern is similar to what can find in Sweden and many other champions of the war in Ukraine, even if Russia’s war is akin to a terrorist attack on a civilian population.
The twenty-fifth article, published here on July 23 and in Portside on July 29, 2023, examines the extent to which Sweden’s Green and Left parties have challenged militarism. The research shows that when it comes to Turkey and Thailand cases (through arms exports) and aid to beligerents in the war in Yemen, these parties have done an inconsistent job in challenging militarism.
The twenty-sixth article published here on August 8, 2023 and Counterpunch on August 11, 2023, examines the extent to which Sweden interacts with and supports nations responsible for ecocide. The research shows that Sweden, while decreasing links to Russia, has extensive links to China and some engagements with Saudi Arabia. There are aspects of Sweden’s engagements in Russia and Saudi Arabia that are more revealing than trade statistics. Sweden tried to establish a weapons factory in Saudi Arabia, a key fossil fuels champion, and also was instrumental in helping to establish the Russian petroleum industry.
The twenty-seventh article published here on August 10, 2023 and Z on September 18, 2023 examines some of the leading nations behind ecocide which include China, India, the United States, Russia, Germany, and Saudi Arabia. The article shows that a key way to accelerate change is to promote demilitarization, yet the extent of the connection made between demilitarization and ecological transformation is rather weak. Despite the ongoing conflict between the United States and Russia over the war in Ukraine, the two nations both significantly contribute to ecocide, creating a certain degree of convergence in the two systems. The BRIC nations, involving Russia, India, and China, while attempting to rival the Group of Seven, are basically a coalition of leading ecocidal nations. While the current regime in Brazil, a BRIC member, is more progressive on climate change, that nation follows the pattern of significant investment in military technology and deepening cooperation with ecocidal nations.
The twenty-eighth article published here on September 11, 2023 and Counterpunch on September 15, 2023 examines how security has been sacrificed for militarism when considering the issue of transferring European fighter jets to Ukraine. First, Sweden’s own security assessment was that they could not afford to transfer such weapons without sacrificing their own security. Despite that, party leaders on the left and right persisted with proposing such transfers. Second, the transfers potentially represent a dangerous escalation of the war. One reason is the risk such weapons would be used to attack Russia itself or how dog fights could spill over into other NATO nations. Third, the U.S. military has already acknowledged the danger of such transfers as potentially triggering a dangerous escalation. Of course, Ukraine “needs” these fighters for self-defense. But a more pressing need has been for greater diplomacy and dropping the appeasement arguments which are simply code words for militarist expansionism in the present context.
The twenty-ninth article published here on October 1, 2023, examines how Seymour Melman’s ideas might be deployed to analyze the war in Ukraine. The analysis shows the limits of AI to answer this question.
The thirtieth article published here on October 15, 2023 (updated October 20, 2023) and Portside (October 28, 2023) examines how we should frame the Israel-Palestine security crisis that errupted in October 2023, but has deeper historical roots. The analysis runs parallel to an earlier essay on 9-11 published here.
The thirty-first article published here on October shows how Dagens Nyheter’s coverage of the Swedish Left Party raises more questions than it answers. Yes, Left Party links to Hamas or support is objectionable. But there is more to the story than that!
2024
This article, published here on April 7th, traces the superficiality of the debate between the left and right in Israel. I show while the Left Party is able to criticize military links to Israel, they do less well in opposing indigenous militarism.
This article, published here on June 13th, reveals hypocrisy at the University of Helsinki centered on how they engage in questions related to war and peace.
This article, published here on July 5th, examines various debates in Sweden particularly related to anti-Semitism, the Gaza crisis, and ecological questions.
This article, published here on September 22nd, examines how television programming covers up the failures of Swedish industrial policy and related green development efforts.
This article, published here on October 15th, examines the acceleration Swedish militarist discourse in television.
This article, published here on October 19th, examines the superficiality of the debate about anti-Semitism and the Gaza crisis in Sweden.
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ON JUNE 15th, 2020, 18:00 Stockholm Time and 12:00 New York Time we held the following event which you can read about here.
You find all the streams from the May 26, 2020 Global Teach-In at the following addresses:
Watch the first 1.5 hours with presentations and discussions here: https://www.facebook.com/globalteachin/videos/282273272811227/
Watch the last 1 hour with reports from local groups here: https://www.facebook.com/globalteachin/videos/249212952975546/
The event was also streamed and broadcasted by: https://www.pacifica.org/
TIMES FOR THE GLOBAL TEACH-IN ON MAY 26, 2020:
7:00 Los Angeles and San Francisco;
9:00 Madison, Wisconsin;
10:00 Ann Arbor; Boston; La Paz; and New York City;
14:00 Accra, Ghana;
15:00 Bamenda; Lagos;
16:00 Copenhagen, Cologne, Johannesburg, Lusaka, Rome, Stockholm;
17:00 Tampere;
18:30 Kabul;
19:00 Islamabad;
19:30 New Delhi.
WHAT IS THE GLOBAL TEACH-IN?
The Global Teach-In is an educational and political organizing event designed to address both topical issues and long-term concerns. On May 26th we discussed ways to promote a more resilient and democratic alternative to the underlying institutions lying behind the Covid-19 crisis in its various health, political, economic and media dimensions. Scholars helped us identify problems or potentially identify solutions. Local communities discussed what made sense for their communities and reported back to a larger group.
This globally broadcast event involved multiple countries and locations. It took place in three parts:
- PART I: A Global Broadcast with various speakers (for a global audience), 16:00-17:30 Stockholm Time
Watch here: https://www.facebook.com/globalteachin/videos/282273272811227/
PANEL I
Esty Dinur (Host, WORT Radio, Madison); Karen Baker-Fletcher (Professor of Systematic Theology, Southern Methodist University); Jonathan M. Feldman (Stockholm University); David Graeber (London School of Economics Professor and author); Hillary Wainwright (green conversion champion, co-editor at Red Pepper) and Dario Padovan (Turin University Associate Professor and environmental activist).
PANEL II
Jon Rynn, Author, Manufacturing Green Prosperity and Nina Py Brozovich, Founder, Fridays For Future Bolivia.
Alhassan Pereira Ibrahim, Centre for Democracy & Development, Nigeria and Michael McEachrane, Founding and Consultative Member, European Network of People of African Descent.
Sizwe Mkwanazi, Africa Cooperatives Institute of South Africa and Patrik Witkowsky, Co-founder, Centrum för personalägande
- PART II: Local (Virtual) Meetings (involving persons in your region or country), 17:35-18:20 Stockholm Time
For information on local virtual meetings that took place, go here: https://www.globalteachin.com/locations
- PART III: Reports from Local Meetings (a representative from each member of the global network reports to the Global Broadcast), 18:25-19:30 Stockholm Time
Watch it here: https://www.facebook.com/globalteachin/videos/249212952975546/
HOW TO JOIN THE GLOBAL TEACH-IN?
May 26, 2020
7:00 Los Angeles and San Francisco; 9:00 Madison, Wisconsin; 10:00 Ann Arbor; Boston; La Paz; and New York City; 14:00 Accra, Ghana; 15:00 Bamenda; Lagos; 16:00 Copenhagen, Cologne, Johannesburg, Lusaka, Rome, Stockholm; 17:00 Tampere; 19:00 Islamabad; 19:30 New Delhi.
Tune in on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/globalteachin/
View the teach-in on this page (here): https://www.globalteachin.com/
WHO IS THE GLOBAL TEACH-IN?
The global teach-in on May 26, 2020 involved various speakers including David Graeber, Hillary Wainwright, and Dario Padovan. But more importantly, in the future the Global Teach-In is you! You get to participate and shape the discussion in local/regional workshops and listening groups (where these are organized) and in thematic or language-grouped thematic workshops. The audience becomes the participant to balance the one-way communication flow of the expert. The critical public tests, adapts and reconfigures ideas of experts. We link the best of vertical information flow and horizontal applicability and accountability. To participate in the over 25 organizing groups, find your local contact here: https://www.globalteachin.com/locations. If you want to form a group for future events, contact us on Facebook or Twitter.
WHO ENDORSED THIS EVENT?
The Global Teach-In 2020: Democratizing the Crisis is endorsed by: Commons.fi (Finland), Demokratisk Omställning (Sweden), Goliathwatch (Germany), the Stockholm Centre for International Social and Economic Reconstruction (Sweden) and the UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Development and Territory Management, University of Turin (Italy).
WHERE WAS THE GLOBAL TEACH-IN?
We are in locations in countries throughout the globe and will broadcast live on Facebook. See the links for more information. You can participate in a local, national or transatlantic meeting in the languages of participating regions, e.g. English, German, Swedish, Italian. The Global broadcast will be in English, however.
WHAT IS THE TEACH-IN AGENDA?
The immediate goal is to advance: a) knowledge and resource sharing among organizers and local communities; b) advancement of short-term solutions; c) promotion of long-term structural reform; d) creating organizing bridges through reconstructive institutions, e) testing of long-term and short-term proposals; f) integration of diverse issues, “connecting the dots”; g) creating a mass media and political focal point. These seven principles provide a way to #democratizethecrisis and are explained in detail here. A global meeting like this is an ideal platform to advance the idea and practice of “transnational social production networks” in which we reutilize design, innovation, manufacturing and related capacities to meet social needs.
Ultimately we need democracy on a local, regional, national and global basis by extending the capacities of individuals and groups. By “democracy” we mean the citizen and community input if not control over economic, political and media spheres, e.g. decision-making power at work, accountability vis-à-vis the state and enhanced representational power. Democracy is constrained by intermediaries that diminish the community’s input, control and design preferences. Such power must be linked to critical knowledge and ethical outcomes.
THE EVENTS: FIVE KEY THEMES #democratizethecrisis
The public has the power to promote the policy reforms and systemic change necessary to limit the worst impacts of the corona virus crisis. Global organizing linked to a discussion of local needs provides a model. In 2012, the first Global Teach-in brought together seven nations in about a dozen locations. It involved leaders from the environmental, labor, and peace movements joined experts in the academic and policy communities. In 2020, we will hold a series of virtual meetings in May/June to address the health, economic and political threats posed by the corona crisis. These meetings will be virtual global teach-ins linking participants across the globe. The format of these meetings will be to link a centralized broadcast over the first hour, with later deliberations in smaller localized groups. A key goal is to advance solutions to the immediate crisis and related long-term problems.
The 2020 meetings will link the coronavirus crisis to five key themes: (a) alternative land use, food and farming policy in rural and urban regions; (b) conversion and innovation policies designed to promote conversion of existing facilities to the design, manufacturing and distribution of health products or the creation of networks linking start up innovators, health professionals and others; (c) alternative platforms for government aid and local economies; (d) we need enhanced citizen involvement in planning including greater public participation and dialogue with experts who engage in forecasting threats, i.e. social forecasting; and finally (e) a permanent mobilization of the public in the workplace, media and politics. Below we now discuss these five themes, providing links to relevant arguments.
ALTERNATIVE LAND USE, FOOD AND FARMING
First, alternative land use, food and farming policies which would help limit or mitigate future virus crises. The basic goal is to reduce the erosion of natural environments which produce greater exposure to wild animals that are virus carriers. The corona crisis is part of a broader series of systemic problems. At the same time, a socially innovative farming policy would help break down the urban-rural divides which often plague progressive politics. An example of a proactive solution would be: to figure out how to build or further develop networks which link farmers, farmers’ markets, and urban food consumption; promote alternative energy development as a diversified option to unregulated forest clearing; or to link new production platforms of medical equipment stocks in rural regions. Already in the voluntary and community response to the crisis, farmers markets play a critical role in food delivery.
The idea of a public commons provides one way to organize related thinking. We need alternatives to land grabs linked to agribusiness transnationals and other interests in Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere through a threefold program of: a) divestment against encroaching entities; b) indigenous manufacturing so as to decrease the economic power of encroaching corporatist state-firm alliances; c) legal protections and anti-corruption measures; and d) an environmental cooperative development bank or landbank scheme which can buy up properties threatened by external interests.
ECONOMIC CONVERSION AND INNOVATION POLICIES
Second, economic conversion and innovation policies build on a diversity of innovation and production platforms which can be used to develop health products like defensive shields, face masks and ventilators or alternative energy and mass transit alternative to fossil fuel use. These platforms can involve university-based innovators, healthcare workers in hospitals, vehicle manufacturers, defense firms, engineers working for the armed services, incumbent heath technology manufacturers, technology-based suppliers and other actors. The conversion and innovation policies that are needed involve re-inventing or developing from scratch supply chains of needed health, food and other items on a national or multi-national basis. Such conversion and innovation can be advanced by a large role for public planning to commission resources and organize production. Plans for green conversion are usually part of a larger discussion about a Green New Deal. Movements and binding international agreements to support divestment from (or diversifying out of) oil and carbon-producing industries is a necessary complement to green conversion. We need a system that supports decarbonization linked to economic alternatives for businesses, workers and communities in the oil and related industries. Economic conversion is about getting rid of wasteful economic activities, industries and technologies that systematically do more harm than good for the ecosystem, but replacing the jobs and economic activity with clean alternatives.
ALTERNATIVE PLATFORMS FOR GOVERNMENT AID AND LOCAL ECONOMIES
Third, alternative platforms for government aid distribution potentially involve employee and community ownership as well as other measures including: nationalization, rent strikes, community food mobilization and mortgage deferments. Gonza Tej has argued that government-financed coronavirus aid packages should be used to establish employee ownership. Tej argues that “the ongoing crisis warrants a significant new initiative that will result in systemic and broad-based employee ownership in firms receiving government aid.” Rather than make investments in firms that using government money to: pay shareholders dividends, buy back stock or develop and expand production platforms overseas, a company with employee ownership and cooperative control could be used to anchor such aid in local communities. Alternative platforms must involve an equity system in which working class persons who depend on face-to-face engagement or face-to-artefact engagement (nurses, supermarket checkout persons, broadband installers, pharmacists, etc.), gain access to the protective equipment, job designs, or work layout that mitigates health risks.
People of color and immigrants often hold jobs where they can’t easily work at home or live in spatially dense neighborhoods, leading to greater corona cases in their communities. A Brookings Institution essay in early April explains: “In Chicago 68% of deaths from the virus are among African-Americans who make up only 30% of the city’s population, and in Wisconsin, a state with a small (6%) African American population, they constitute nearly 50% of deaths.” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has analyzed the more general pattern in which African Americans have been affected by this plague. In the United Kingdom, a study publicized in May found that “black people [were] more than four times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white people.” The trends by which people of color become affected to a greater degree likely reflect underlying occupational or class categories, however, which shape the types of jobs and living conditions of certain groups.
In the U.S., the crisis has hit women hard. A study there by Lean In “showed that more than a third of women report being laid off or furloughed, or receiving pay cuts because of the coronavirus outbreak.” This “disparity is even greater among women of color, as black women are twice as likely to report these financial issues as white men.” Nevertheless, one report noted that by mid-March in Italy about 80% of men and only 20% of women were victims of the virus, potentially because of certain health problems which men were more likely to have. In any case, the vulnerabilities of some groups are based on how work is organized and the lack of decision-making power among many workers.
We need economies where workers have a stronger ownership stake in their place of work. There are models for such control in Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. These models show how communities can leverage their purchasing power, knowledge and ability to organize to create a locally-anchored economy less subject to outsourcing, plant closures and capital flight. Economic democracy, where workers control decision-making, is a key solution to address the problems caused by workplaces which fail to address employees’ health and safety needs. A participatory economy can address various social ills as can a local economy supported by publicly owned utilities and green transportation.
SOCIAL FORECASTING AND CITIZEN PLANNING
Fourth, social forecasting is a term that can be used to describe the necessity to bridge specialized knowledge about threats (like terrorism, climate change, life threatening viruses and the like) to a network that links diverse and general publics to specialized expertise. One reason for engaging the public is that sometimes government officials sometimes fail to heed early warnings about security threats, something that happened with the corona virus in China, the E.U., Spain, the U.K., the U.S. and elsewhere. Politicians can fail to act on advance warnings issued by experts, i.e. knowledge is separated from (implementation) power. Even experts can fail to heed early or advance warnings.
The solution is to find mechanisms that integrate knowledge and power. There are technical versions of forecasting to predict the spread or potential return of problems like the coronavirus. One model for such forecasting is the “consensus conference” which links scientists, engineers and the general public. These conferences provide a way to gather public input and disseminate technical knowledge. The technical division of labor means that the knowledge held by persons with specialized knowledge necessary for public decisions is often remote from public consciousness. For example, while Bill Gates is now famous for a Ted talk in 2015 about a looming and vast virus threat like the one we’re now experiencing, this talk can be viewed as a point-to-mass communication that is less engaging than a mass-to-mass and iterative discussion about such problems. The abstract threat that Gates pointed to needs to be complemented by a dialogue about what is being done or not done at any moment in response to such threats.
We must also assume that official, incumbent experts making policy decisions influencing health outcomes could be challenged by alternative or more critically informed experts. In theory a virtual network could assemble such persons such that the citizen/voter/audience could be exposed to multiple sources of expertise, although such expertise must always adapt to local conditions. For example, in Sweden there were delays in assessing the threats posed by ISIS recruitment in urban ethnic enclaves and debates on the problem of shortages in medical equipment only came on April 1st. Part of the surveillance capacity of the public can also involve surveillance of security threats caused by backlashes associated with security threats like terrorism and pandemics, e.g. Islamophobia or racism against Asians blamed for the coronavirus.[1] Citizens must participate in planning to insure accountability in how aid is managed and health policies are implemented and provide mutual aid to deliver needed services to those in need.
A PERMANENT ENGAGEMENT OF CITIZENS: AT WORK, IN MEDIA, THROUGH POLITICS
Fifth, the above proposals all require a politically engaged public on a regular, institutionalized basis. We see that the breakdown in the state in Brazil and Italy means that criminal gangs and the mafia are filling a planning or logistics vacuum regarding health regulations and support systems. This vacuum means that the public is under-organized for self-protection and self-help and a kind of shadow state is necessary. This state can be seen in cooperation among localities and the creation of large scale cooperative or voluntary networks.
In the workforce, some employees (depending on occupation and location) are being forced to work under unsafe conditions with risk of exposure–sometimes leading to death. Safety and other concerns related to the crisis have lead to strikes or calls for labor actions in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, the UK, the US and other locations. Opposing strategies here vary from sickouts to calls for a general strike. In the media realm, certain news organizations outlets have perpetuated problems based on the character of their news reporting. Responses here call for supporting a diversity of news programming to promote a diversity of opinions regarding solutions and documenting media failures in reporting (including racial profiling). In the political realm, authoritarian leaders and political opportunists are also exploiting the crisis for political gain. In some countries like France and the U.S., elections were held and votes collected without sufficient regard for safety concerns. One response to the political crisis is to deepen democracy through more consistent and diverse forms of citizen engagement. We must complement if not replace traditional forms of face-to-face voting because of health risks. For example, a March 2020 assessment found that there were: “more than 70 national elections scheduled for the rest of year worldwide,” but “the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is putting into question whether some of these elections will happen on time or at all.” Mail in ballots are one solution, but so are networks which mobilize citizens’ capacities outside the ballot box.
Refugees, countries in the global south with weaker healthcare systems, and poorer communities across the globe risk being overwhelmed by the corona crisis. One projection is that the corona virus crisis could push an additional half billion persons into poverty. For this reason, foreign aid systems have to be reinvented so that solidaristic networks can become far more effective than they have been until now. Briefly, a permanent engagement of citizens can take a global scale as grassroots movements do four things: a) support debt-relief in overburdened regions; b) promote technology transfer tied to a bank of technicians that pools engineering skills and builds up the capacities of developing countries to be more self-sufficient in alternative energy and manufacture of other technologies to mitigate global warming, meet agricultural and transportation needs and advance health; c) link this bank to a new fund to support cooperative development such as in the Global Development Co-operative; and d) organize political campaigns linking disarmament and development, military budgets must be cut to fund more resilient health and welfare systems.
Knowledge without power (and by extension diverse sorts of resources) risks sitting on a shelf or stagnating in selective, isolated networks. A politically mobilized public can advocate for the alternative policies discussed above. There are various models for how to engage such a public but the basic elements involve: expertise on particular case study examples of proactive change, diagnosis and feedback about the relevance of these examples to diverse and geographically differentiated users, and relay of such diagnosis back to experts for further refinement necessary for proposing solutions or making locally tailored solutions. The youth turn away from television and the opportunities of new and social media illustrate how teleconferencing can promote a socially engaged public.
Seymour Melman has argued that social movements fail by failing to link short-term crisis to long-term solutions. While true, a focus on long-term solutions may cloud short-term solutions.[2] While the crisis may be linked to attempts to mobilized around systemic reforms, there is an immediate health security threat posed by a political failure to “do the right thing” related to social isolation and related health protection measures. Nicholas Kristof identifies a series of problems in a recent New York Times article: “health experts warn that this may be just the first wave of what may be many waves of infections until we get a vaccine sometime in 2021. Already, Japan after initial success is seeing a surge of infections, while China and South Korea have struggled with imported infections; that seems inevitable as economies restart and travel resumes.” Dr. Mark Poznansky of Harvard Medical School says: “There’s this biological fact that still in South Korea, the people who haven’t been infected aren’t immune, and as soon as there’s an end to social distancing they’ll be vulnerable again.”
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
Interested individuals, activists and practitioners should contact us through our Facebook page or through through our Twitter account, @globalteachin.
[1] There are complications based on an ability to engage in nuance. The fight against terrorism has encouraged systemic Islamophobia. Yet, early fears of Islamophobia prevented action against fundamentalists aligned with terrorists in France and other countries. Trump has made many statements viewed as racist at worst or at the very least certainly enabling racists. Yet, Trump’s ban on travel to China was initially criticized as racist, but has been identified as slowing the spread of the virus, although the first New York cases came from Europe.
[2] One radical series of proposals, which have clear potential advantages, also says absolutely nothing about social distancing and related basic public health measures. If the government later abandons those measures it has already adopted in a way that threatens renewed outbreaks, then a lot of these proposals will be reactive at best, irrelevant at worst.
THE GLOBAL TEACH-IN MISSION STATEMENT
The Global Teach-In is a research and educational organization dedicated to developing and disseminating a coherent program of policy reforms and institutional reconstruction. Global Teach-In’s mission is to transform existing political and economic arrangements, which concentrate wealth and power, perpetuate militarism, and threaten ecological and climate stability. These negative outcomes are part of a cycle of scarcity, violence and misallocation of resources that aggravates other problems like unemployment, racism, government surveillance, and a weakening social welfare system. Solutions to these problems do not readily occur because of the gaps between leaders, the traditional large corporate sector, the mass media and established experts on the one hand and citizens, social needs and a critical, solutions-focused dialogue on the other.
We view the creation of viable alternatives as a process requiring a new kind of collaboration involving scholars, activists, and office-holders at the local, regional, national and global levels. We pursue this mission by organizing global teach-ins using cyber-conferencing technology, podcasts and associated radio programming. We also maintain a website that hosts the latest version of our transformative program and an archive of policy papers and videos of Teach-In proceedings. The teach-ins serve to disseminate our program as a framework for interdisciplinary, international communication. We update our website periodically based on the ideas and information communicated during teach-ins, while maintaining and improving the coherence of our core program: a Green New Deal, demilitarization, and the formation of locally controlled enterprises. This program informs the research and activities of teach-in participants, who in turn inform updated versions of the program, enabling us to think and act on multiple levels from the local to the global.
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“The logic of planetary responsibility is aimed, at least in principle, at confronting the globally generated problems pointblank—at their own level. It stems from the assumption that lasting and truly effective solutions to planetwide problems can be found and made to work only through the renegotiation and reforming of the web of global interdependencies and interactions. Instead of aiming to control local damage and local benefits derived from the capricious and haphazard drifts of global economic forces, it would pursue results in a new kind of global setting, one in which economic initiatives enacted anywhere on the planet are no longer whimsical and guided by momentary gains alone, with no attention paid to the side effects and ‘collateral casualties’ and no importance attached to the social dimensions of the cost-and-effect balances. In short, the logic is aimed, to quote Habermas, at the development of ‘politics that can catch up with global markets.’”
—Zygmunt Bauman, Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers?, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008: 29.
“The elementary republics of the wards, the county republics, the state republics, and the republic of the Union, would form a graduation of authorities, standing each on the basis of law, holding everyone its delegated share of powers, and constituting truly a system of fundamental balances and checks for the government. Where every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward-republic, or some of the higher ones, and feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day; when there shall not be a man in the state who will not be a member of some one of its councils, great or small, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte.”
—Thomas Jefferson, quoted in Richard K. Matthews, The Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson, Lawrence, Kansas, 1984: 82-83.
AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY AND DYSTOPIA
In the U.S. and U.K., Kenan Malik has argued in an essay in The New York Times: “With the dismantling of the postwar political system has gone, too, the old division between social democracy and conservatism. The new fault line — not just in British politics but throughout Europe — is between an elite, technocratic managerialism, governing through structures that often bypass democratic processes, and a growing mass of people who feel alienated and politically voiceless. The new divide cuts across old distinctions of right and left. To survive, many of the old parties have embraced the elite, technocratic approach. At the same time, hostility to the established order has led to a rise of populist parties, from the far-right National Front in France to the left-leaning Scottish National Party. (There are signs of a similar process in the United States: Witness the popularity of both Mr. Trump, among Republican voters, and Senator Bernie Sanders, among Democrats.)” One reason for the rise of the populists is the decline of wealth capacity in manufacturing, with many commentators ignoring the problem.
The limit to Malik’s analysis is that we need explanations for how to address these choices. We need to do more than simply sanction the “progressive candidates” running for office or deconstruct their limitations. This is spelled out in an extensive analysis here. We have to do more than petition elites. The alternatives to deconstruction can be seen once we examine how deconstruction applies in the cultural realm. The ability to articulate and appreciate a new economy will be enhanced through a different kind of reconstructionist culture and reconstructionist economy. These alternatives can help us move beyond the limits of recent social movements. Industrial policies linked to competent firms and social movement accountability structures are needed. We need to analyze the limits to how bureaucracies that deliver basic services are organized.
We can’t just celebrate dystopias as if that is our only cultural response. Listen to this short lecture (audio file link) on this topic. The ability to provide a reconstructionist alternative in the economy can be seen in Jonathan M. Feldman’s interview on the Keiser Report (taped December 18, 2012, broadcast December 29, 2012, @16:29). How can we create a peoples’ economy? Here’s is how! And here is how! And please check out the webpage of the Stockholm Centre for International Social and Economic Reconstruction (in Stockholm, Sweden) and the webpage of Community Reinvest (in London, UK) our partners in social and economic reconstruction.
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POLICY AND POLITICAL ALTERNATIVES FOR THE 21st CENTURY
A series of articles shows how to combat right-wing populism with citizen engagement in comprehensive alternative green planning and policy:
Article one examines its rise in Sweden and the relative weakness of the Left and how to create a new kind of democratic politics and economics (published September 17, 2014 in Counterpunch). Sweden is an exemplar of larger forces in Europe. This movement is based on long-term trends which many leaders in politics, the media and university have failed to address.
Article two examines the onslaught of police shootings in the U.S. and the politics behind attacks as in Ferguson, Missouri (published December 1, 2014 in Counterpunch).
Article three examines the political economy of vigilantes, gun violence and the NRA with a focus on the Charleston shootings and shows and how to oppose these forces tied to both extreme and mainstream society (published July 22, 2015). The article was distributed via Portside, the left information network, and The London Progressive Journal).
Article four returns to the Swedish scene and explains how mainstream society and the Left have been unable to systematically oppose the structures supporting the far-right (published August 8, 2015).
Articles five and six analyze how media elites have reacted to the far-right. This includes an analysis of how the media has reacted to the the far right’s propaganda offensive as well as the protest movement against it (in Swedish and English, published August 10, 2015 and in English September 2, 2015). The limitations of Swedish media coverage in analyzing questions related to immigration and new Swedes have lasted for several years.
Article seven looks at the new end game and code words for Swedish politics: “the politics of scarcity.” Wasting resources on a phantom Russian threat, inflating the military budget as a result, the surplus necessary for a dramatic increase in refugee absorption was squandered on the Swedish military-industrial complex and the false prophets of Russophobic defense intellectuals. The Left, mostly unable or unwilling, to use the discourse of budgetary alternatives either embraces the dampening of refugees or using moralistic arguments that have already failed. While some have discussed alternative kinds of participatory governance, this discourse is totally marginalized in Sweden, a nation considered a key emblem of welfare states and moral progress.
Article eight looks at Brexit and Lexit, explaining the limits to both the proponents and opponents of the campaign for the UK to leave the EU. We analyze the dangers associated with just remaining in the EU and failing to make systematic changes. The Brexit campaign was associated with the far Right’s agenda and the article predicts that it has and will empower that agenda. While the EU is an elitist institution with some democratic elements, it is in need of radical reform. This analysis explains how to promote such reforms. If the EU cannot be reformed, we still need an alternative to the EU but both reform and alternatives both depend on systematic changes to the way economic, media and political power are organized. The political short cuts of both exit and remain strategies must be opposed by a more comprehensive program of Social and Economic Reconstruction.
Article nine follows up on the Brexit and Lexit discussion, applying it to the larger problem of a Left caught between opposing Right Nationalism and a de facto aligning itself with Right Cosmopolitanism. The article discusses the Marx 2016 conference held recently in Stockholm in which various speakers addressed issues related to the far-right ascendancy and the electoral (and other) collapse of the Left.
Article ten, published at Portside on November 23, 2016, returns to the United States, examining why Trump really won. The answer is rooted not simply in gender, race, and class, but partially in the attitude of the liberal to left spectrum towards the working class. One key problem is the apparent contempt which parts of the Left have for far right voters. The problem is that we must win back some of these voters to stop the far right. Contempt is not really a political strategy, but rather part of a deconstructionist movement to inflate the projector of contempt in a social hierarchy.
Article eleven, published in Counterpunch on December 14, 2016, examines what should be done now that Trump has won. The politics of contempt is now followed by the politics of remorse. Neither turns out to be sufficient. The tactical and strategic approach that is needed is rather straightforward but much of the Left is totally oblivious because of the way in which power is accumulated by following a lost yet hegemonic paradigm.
Article twelve looks at an exhibit at the Police Museum in Stockholm which documents growing hate crimes in Sweden. It complements the analysis of the exhibit with statistics and an explanation for some elements of racism in Sweden.
Article thirteen returns to the theme of police shootings. How do the organizational of governmental resources and power scarcities sustain a certain design of police forces that may sustain their incapacity to limit violence against innocent citizens?
Article fourteen, published June 7, 2017 examines how parts of the Left are basically recruitment agents for the right-wing through their “politically correct” and anti-Enlightenment politics. This Left, sustained by certain “liberal arts” colleges, are incubators for conformism taking the form of activism. The Left form of activism is married to bigotry, hatred and mass stupidity. Here we see how the most retrograde parts of the New Left now indirectly generate soundbites for right-wing white nationalists, Fox News, and the political mafia backing Donald Trump. Hint: Without getting rid of this kind of Left, we have the reincarnation of the Communist Party and Stalinism.
Article fifteen, published in August 2017, examines Noam Chomsky’s critique of antifa, especially important in light of far-right, racist/nationalist movement that descended upon Charlottesville, Virginia.
Article sixteen, published in September 2018, examines the “Fearless Cities” movement. To what extent is the post-Occupy left on the right track or not?
Article seventeen, written July 18, 2019, explains how parts of the Left still do not understand Donald Trump. One reason is that the universities have become incubators of Neoliberal friendly dogma in which tropes about gender, race and identity are used to displace (negate and bury) ideas about militarism, class, the design of institutions, ethics, contingency, biography and other ideas.
Article eighteen, published November 1, 2019, explains why the Left is in big trouble. The basic problem is a consistent preference for symbolic politics in a milieu in which political entrepreneurs are very distant from capacities tied to production systems and organizing work. The post-growth and post-work tendencies in the Left will facilitate the political organizing of right-wing populists.
Article nineteen, published here on January 12, 2020, offers a critique of the new Swedish public television program, Kalifat. The marketing of this program not only reveals the cultural affinity of mainstream society with the far-right and racist elements of society, but also reveals how persons with immigrant backgrounds are enlisted as part of the front line assault on any egalitarian or cosmopolitan vision of what a society should look like. It’s the noble Swedish immigrant crime fighter who is lifted up to justify tropes about threatening migrant Swedes.
Article twenty published at the Sciser.org page on November 28, 2019 examines the status of recent Swedish thinking about the Green New Deal. We see that there has been a substantive time lag in development of proactive ideas, even if some developments are positive.
Article twenty-one published in Portside explores the economic impacts of the corona crisis and how we could reorganize the economy to respond.
Article twenty-two published in Social Europe, looks at “transnational social production networks” in which we utilize our design, innovation, production, and related manufacturing capacities to meet social needs.
[For links, click on the word article above].
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PROMOTIONAL VIDEO FOR: “GLOBAL TEACH-IN 2020: DEMOCRATIZE THE CRISIS”
“Here are some presentations from the first Global Teach-In which took place on April 25th, 2012! (The original teach in was a live video conference, here we present some of the audio, video and written presentations from the event.)
PART ONE: AUDIO PRESENTATIONS
Gar Alperovitz, US, Speaking on Economic Democracy
Pam Brown, US, Speaking on Student Debt
Ellen Brown, US, Speaking on Alternative Banking
Colin Hines, UK, Speaking on a New Political Agenda
Read some of the testimonials about the Global Teach-In here!
PART TWO: VIDEO PRESENTATIONS
Bill McKibben, US
Portland Oregon, US
Burlington, VT, US
Edinburgh, UK
PART THREE: WRITTEN PRESENTATIONS
Read the presentation by Lloyd J. Dumas about “Democracy, Technology and Alternative Planning,” here. Read about Brian D’Agostino’s new book here.
The first Global Teach-In took place simultaneously in seven countries and multiple cities, starting on April 25th, 2012 at 12:00 Noon Eastern Daylight Time. This interactive and participatory event included discussions by experts, grassroots activists and citizens at large concerned about developing solutions to policy problems and creating alternative institutions. The Teach-In involved face-to-face deliberation, teleconferencing and an internet-based broadcasting network. Local teach-in groups already exist or are in formation. We encourage you to contact us at globalteachin [at] gmail.com or find us on Twitter and plan for organizing local teach-ins in your community!
Teach-In Locations & Some of the featured speakers.
FINAL Working Schedule for the first Global Teach 25 April 2012
Read about how to promote economic democracy at the United Steel Workers blog here and the critique of everyday economics at Counter Punch here.