alternet--2020-12-08--Brazil President Bolsonaro rejects COVID-19 vaccine — undermining a century of progress

The world is eagerly awaiting the release of several COVID-19 vaccines , but Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is not .
“ I 'm not going to take it .
It 's my right , '' he said in a Nov. 26 social media broadcast .
Bolsonaro , who came down with COVID-19 in July , has also criticized face masks .
He and his more faithful supporters oppose any suggestion of mandatory coronavirus vaccinations .
In November 1904 , thousands of people in the city of Rio de Janeiro protested government-mandated smallpox vaccinations in a famous revolt that nearly ended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had arrived in Brazil almost a century earlier .
But the syringes were long , left skin pockmarked and could transmit other diseases such as syphilis .
Between 1898 and 1904 , only 2 % to 10 % of Rio 's population was vaccinated yearly , according to historian Sidney Chalhoub .
In 1904 , smallpox killed 0.4 % of Rio residents – a higher percentage of the population than COVID-19 's victims in New York City this year .
But these were not the only reasons Brazil made vaccinations mandatory in 1904 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' plan to attract European immigration and foreign investment , President Rodrigues Alves was committed to eradicating epidemics – not just smallpox , but also yellow fever and the bubonic plague .
To rid Rio de Janeiro , then the nation 's capital , of sanitary hazards while opening space for Parisian-style avenues and buildings , hundreds of tenements were demolished between 1903 and 1909 .
Almost 40,000 people – mostly Afro-Brazilians but also poor Italian , Portuguese and Spanish immigrants – were evicted and removed from downtown Rio .
Many were left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hillsides or in distant rural areas .
Meanwhile , public health agents accompanied by armed police systematically disinfected homes with sulfur that destroyed furniture and other belongings – whether residents welcomed them or not .
Politicians and military officers who opposed President Alves saw opportunity in the outrage these health initiatives caused .
They stoked discontent .
With the help of labor organizers and news editors , Alves ' opponents led a campaign against Brazil 's public health mandates throughout 1904 .
Newspapers reported on violent home disinfections and forced vaccinations .
Senators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccinations encroached on people 's homes and bodies .
In mid-November of that year , thousands of protesters gathered in public squares to rally against public health efforts .
Rio police reacted with disproportionate force , triggering six days of unrest in the city .
A racially diverse crowd of students , construction workers , port workers and other residents fought back , armed with rocks , housewares or the tools of their trade , flipping over streetcars to barricade the streets .
Meanwhile , behind the scenes , conspirators were mobilizing young @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overthrow Alves ' government .
Their scheme was foiled when the president called upon both the Army and the Navy to contain protesters and detain alleged insurgents .
Brazil 's great vaccine revolt was soon suppressed .
Afterward , newspapers portrayed protesters as an ignorant mass , manipulated by cunning politicians .
They deemed one of the uprising 's popular leaders , Horácio José da Silva – known as “ Black Silver '' – a “ disorderly thug . ''
But Brazil 's vaccine revolt was more than a cynical political manipulation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ are learning what really motivated the uprising .
The violent and segregationist features of Alves ' urban plan are one obvious answer .
In early 20th-century Brazil , most people – women , those who could n't read , the unemployed – could n't vote .
For these Brazilians , the streets were the only place to have their voices heard .
But why would they so virulently oppose methods that controlled the spread of disease ?
Delving into newspapers and legal records , I have found that critics of Brazil 's 1904 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in terms of “ inviolability of the home , '' both on the streets and in courts .
For elite Brazilians , invoking this constitutional right was about protecting the privacy of their households , where men ruled over wives , children and servants .
Public health agents threatened this patriarchal authority by demanding access to homes and women 's bodies .
Poor men and women in Rio also held patriarchal values .
But for them there was more than privacy at stake in 1904 .
Throughout the 19th century , enslaved Afro-Brazilians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even on plantations , carving out spaces of relative freedom from their masters .
After slavery was abolished in 1888 , many freed Afro-Brazilians shared crowded tenements with immigrants .
By the time of Alves 's vaccination drive , the poor of Rio had been fighting eviction and police violence for decades .
For Black Brazilians , then , defending their rights to choose what to do – or not to do – with their homes and bodies was part of a much longer struggle for social , economic and political inclusion .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rio was struck by another smallpox epidemic .
With so many people unvaccinated , deaths doubled ; almost 1 % of the city perished .
It was a deadly learning experience .
From then on , Brazilian leaders framed mandatory smallpox , measles and other vaccines as a means to protect the common good , and invested in educational campaigns to explain why .
Throughout the 20th century , vaccinations were extremely successful in Brazil .
Since the 1990s , 95 % of children have been vaccinated , though the numbers are dropping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic .
As in the past , Afro-Brazilians are hurting more than others .
By invoking Brazilians ' individual right not to get vaccinated against COVID-19 , President Bolsonaro is ignoring the lessons of 1904 – undermining a century of hard work fighting disease in Brazil .
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license .
Read the original article .

by Pedro Cantisano, University of Nebraska Omaha
The world is eagerly awaiting the release of several COVID-19 vaccines, but Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is not.
“I'm not going to take it. It's my right," he said in a Nov. 26 social media broadcast.
Bolsonaro, who came down with COVID-19 in July, has also criticized face masks. He and his more faithful supporters oppose any suggestion of mandatory coronavirus vaccinations.
Vaccine resistance has a long history in Brazil.
In November 1904, thousands of people in the city of Rio de Janeiro protested government-mandated smallpox vaccinations in a famous revolt that nearly ended with a coup.
Making modern Brazil
The smallpox vaccine had arrived in Brazil almost a century earlier. But the syringes were long, left skin pockmarked and could transmit other diseases such as syphilis.
Between 1898 and 1904, only 2% to 10% of Rio's population was vaccinated yearly, according to historian Sidney Chalhoub. In 1904, smallpox killed 0.4% of Rio residents – a higher percentage of the population than COVID-19's victims in New York City this year.
But these were not the only reasons Brazil made vaccinations mandatory in 1904.
As part of a “modernization" plan to attract European immigration and foreign investment, President Rodrigues Alves was committed to eradicating epidemics – not just smallpox, but also yellow fever and the bubonic plague.
To rid Rio de Janeiro, then the nation's capital, of sanitary hazards while opening space for Parisian-style avenues and buildings, hundreds of tenements were demolished between 1903 and 1909. Almost 40,000 people – mostly Afro-Brazilians but also poor Italian, Portuguese and Spanish immigrants – were evicted and removed from downtown Rio. Many were left homeless, forced to resettle on nearby hillsides or in distant rural areas.
Meanwhile, public health agents accompanied by armed police systematically disinfected homes with sulfur that destroyed furniture and other belongings – whether residents welcomed them or not.
Conspiracy and barricades
Politicians and military officers who opposed President Alves saw opportunity in the outrage these health initiatives caused. They stoked discontent.
With the help of labor organizers and news editors, Alves' opponents led a campaign against Brazil's public health mandates throughout 1904. Newspapers reported on violent home disinfections and forced vaccinations. Senators and other public figures declared that mandatory vaccinations encroached on people's homes and bodies.
In mid-November of that year, thousands of protesters gathered in public squares to rally against public health efforts. Rio police reacted with disproportionate force, triggering six days of unrest in the city. A racially diverse crowd of students, construction workers, port workers and other residents fought back, armed with rocks, housewares or the tools of their trade, flipping over streetcars to barricade the streets.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, conspirators were mobilizing young military cadets. Their plan: to overthrow Alves' government.
Their scheme was foiled when the president called upon both the Army and the Navy to contain protesters and detain alleged insurgents. Brazil's great vaccine revolt was soon suppressed.
The language of rights
Afterward, newspapers portrayed protesters as an ignorant mass, manipulated by cunning politicians. They deemed one of the uprising's popular leaders, Horácio José da Silva – known as “Black Silver" – a “disorderly thug."
But Brazil's vaccine revolt was more than a cynical political manipulation. Digging into archives, historians like me are learning what really motivated the uprising.
The violent and segregationist features of Alves' urban plan are one obvious answer. In early 20th-century Brazil, most people – women, those who couldn't read, the unemployed – couldn't vote. For these Brazilians, the streets were the only place to have their voices heard.
But why would they so virulently oppose methods that controlled the spread of disease?
Delving into newspapers and legal records, I have found that critics of Brazil's 1904 public health drive often expressed their opposition in terms of “inviolability of the home," both on the streets and in courts.
For elite Brazilians, invoking this constitutional right was about protecting the privacy of their households, where men ruled over wives, children and servants. Public health agents threatened this patriarchal authority by demanding access to homes and women's bodies.
Poor men and women in Rio also held patriarchal values. But for them there was more than privacy at stake in 1904.
Throughout the 19th century, enslaved Afro-Brazilians had formed families and built homes, even on plantations, carving out spaces of relative freedom from their masters. After slavery was abolished in 1888, many freed Afro-Brazilians shared crowded tenements with immigrants. By the time of Alves's vaccination drive, the poor of Rio had been fighting eviction and police violence for decades.
For Black Brazilians, then, defending their rights to choose what to do – or not to do – with their homes and bodies was part of a much longer struggle for social, economic and political inclusion.
Deadly learning experience
Four years after the 1904 revolt, Rio was struck by another smallpox epidemic. With so many people unvaccinated, deaths doubled; almost 1% of the city perished.
It was a deadly learning experience. From then on, Brazilian leaders framed mandatory smallpox, measles and other vaccines as a means to protect the common good, and invested in educational campaigns to explain why. Throughout the 20th century, vaccinations were extremely successful in Brazil. Since the 1990s, 95% of children have been vaccinated, though the numbers are dropping.
Today, Brazil is one of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. As in the past, Afro-Brazilians are hurting more than others.
By invoking Brazilians' individual right not to get vaccinated against COVID-19, President Bolsonaro is ignoring the lessons of 1904 – undermining a century of hard work fighting disease in Brazil.
Pedro Cantisano, Assistant Professor of History, University of Nebraska Omaha
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.


alternet--2020-12-08--Democracy is under siege in both the United States and Peru

by Jorge H. Sanchez-Perez , McMaster University and Denisse Rodriguez-Olivari , Humboldt University of Berlin A recent report by the group Varieties of Democracy has revealed that currently there are more non-democratic than democratic countries , and a majority of the world 's population lives under a non-democratic regime .
It 's the first time this has happened since 2001 .
Hungary recently became the first European Union country to be considered an authoritarian regime .
Latin America has also regressed to worse non-democratic levels than were seen in the early 1990s .
The decline of democracy around the globe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ important to understand that legal actions can also be used to undermine democracy and that the systematic erosion of democratic norms and institutions is as much a problem for western countries as it is for any other region of the world .
There are two recent high-profile examples of democracy in decline in the Americas : Peru and the United States .
The political crisis in Peru has resulted in the fourth president in four years — including three within one week .
The electoral process in the United States , meanwhile , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up to and during the latest election .
But little to no attention has been paid to the situation in either Peru or the U.S. by the Organization of American States ( OAS ) which , under the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter , is supposed to ensure that democracy is upheld in the Americas .
The OAS normally calls out things like the erosion of the democratic order .
This is fundamental because currently few autocracies would proudly claim to be staging a coup or to be using military means to achieve their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subtle tactics of the type being seen in recent years in Peru and the U.S .
In Peru , former president Martin Vizcarra had been pushing an anti-corruption agenda in the country .
His proposals caused him to clash with two subsequent congresses .
Both tried to remove him from office using a broad interpretation of the term “ moral incapacity , '' a constitutional provision that allows for a president 's removal .
Moral incapacity , however , was only supposed to be used for issues of mental deterioration , which do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was able to successfully suspend the first Congress and call for parliamentary elections , the second Congress managed to remove him from office due to corruption allegations against him .
More than half the members of the second Congress , meanwhile , were themselves the subjects of open judicial investigations .
After Vizcarra 's removal , the head of Congress at the time , Manuel Merino , was established as the new president of the country .
After just one week of pro-democracy protests , at least two deaths , several wounded civilians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was forced to resign .
He was replaced by Francisco Sagasti .
Sagasti was one of the 19 members of Congress who consistently voted against Vizcarra 's removal .
It 's clear that Peruvian laws were used by different groups within Congress to seize political power against the wishes of the majority of the citizens of the country .
These actions subverted democracy and caused episodes of violence that undermined fundamental rights .
The United States also seems to also have a problematic record of using laws to undermine democracy .
Several investigations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stop racialized people from voting , including the closure of 1,688 polling places from 2012 to 2018 .
Furthermore , partisan gerrymandering — the practice of politicians reshaping or manipulating voting maps to their benefit — is a well-known problem that favours the Republican Party and has an impact on electoral outcomes .
Sadly , the U.S. Supreme Court — most of its judges Republican appointees — ruled that federal courts are powerless to hear challenges to gerrymandering because they presented “ political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts . ''
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Donald Trump 's continuing lies that the election he lost on Nov. 3 was “ rigged '' and overrun with voter fraud , claims that have been consistently dismissed by the courts .
Trump has been relentless in these claims , recently taking to social media to post a 46-minute diatribe of baseless allegations .
Leading up to the vote , Trump also promoted what some have rightfully called voter intimidation .
For now , democracy is still standing in both Peru and the U.S .
But the lack of action by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are other issues to consider beyond the theft of power in the Americas .
It 's ever clearer that the undermining of democracy across the region has been occurring by attempts to use laws solely for political gain , not with tanks and missiles — and in plain sight .
Jorge H. Sanchez-Perez , Ph.D .
Candidate - School of Humanities , Department of Philosophy , Instructor - Philosophy Department and Peace Studies Program , McMaster University and Denisse Rodriguez-Olivari , PhD candidate in Political Science , Humboldt University of Berlin This article @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Creative Commons license .
Read the original article .

by Jorge H. Sanchez-Perez, McMaster University and Denisse Rodriguez-Olivari, Humboldt University of Berlin
A recent report by the group Varieties of Democracy has revealed that currently there are more non-democratic than democratic countries, and a majority of the world's population lives under a non-democratic regime.
It's the first time this has happened since 2001.
Hungary recently became the first European Union country to be considered an authoritarian regime. Latin America has also regressed to worse non-democratic levels than were seen in the early 1990s. The decline of democracy around the globe is evident.
But it's also important to understand that legal actions can also be used to undermine democracy and that the systematic erosion of democratic norms and institutions is as much a problem for western countries as it is for any other region of the world.
There are two recent high-profile examples of democracy in decline in the Americas: Peru and the United States. The political crisis in Peru has resulted in the fourth president in four years — including three within one week. The electoral process in the United States, meanwhile, has been under fire for years leading up to and during the latest election.
But little to no attention has been paid to the situation in either Peru or the U.S. by the Organization of American States (OAS) which, under the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter, is supposed to ensure that democracy is upheld in the Americas.
The OAS normally calls out things like the erosion of the democratic order. This is fundamental because currently few autocracies would proudly claim to be staging a coup or to be using military means to achieve their political goals — they'd use more subtle tactics of the type being seen in recent years in Peru and the U.S.
Vizcarra accused of 'moral incapacity'
In Peru, former president Martin Vizcarra had been pushing an anti-corruption agenda in the country. His proposals caused him to clash with two subsequent congresses.
Both tried to remove him from office using a broad interpretation of the term “moral incapacity," a constitutional provision that allows for a president's removal. Moral incapacity, however, was only supposed to be used for issues of mental deterioration, which do not apply to Vizcarra.
Although Vizcarra was able to successfully suspend the first Congress and call for parliamentary elections, the second Congress managed to remove him from office due to corruption allegations against him. More than half the members of the second Congress, meanwhile, were themselves the subjects of open judicial investigations.
After Vizcarra's removal, the head of Congress at the time, Manuel Merino, was established as the new president of the country. After just one week of pro-democracy protests, at least two deaths, several wounded civilians and even some forced disappearances, Merino was forced to resign.
He was replaced by Francisco Sagasti. Sagasti was one of the 19 members of Congress who consistently voted against Vizcarra's removal.
It's clear that Peruvian laws were used by different groups within Congress to seize political power against the wishes of the majority of the citizens of the country. These actions subverted democracy and caused episodes of violence that undermined fundamental rights.
Using laws to erode democracy
The United States also seems to also have a problematic record of using laws to undermine democracy.
Several investigations show that there are systematic attempts to stop racialized people from voting, including the closure of 1,688 polling places from 2012 to 2018. Furthermore, partisan gerrymandering — the practice of politicians reshaping or manipulating voting maps to their benefit — is a well-known problem that favours the Republican Party and has an impact on electoral outcomes.
Sadly, the U.S. Supreme Court — most of its judges Republican appointees — ruled that federal courts are powerless to hear challenges to gerrymandering because they presented “political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts."
But even this pales in comparison to President Donald Trump's continuing lies that the election he lost on Nov. 3 was “rigged" and overrun with voter fraud, claims that have been consistently dismissed by the courts.
Trump has been relentless in these claims, recently taking to social media to post a 46-minute diatribe of baseless allegations. Leading up to the vote, Trump also promoted what some have rightfully called voter intimidation.
For now, democracy is still standing in both Peru and the U.S. But the lack of action by the OAS on either situation reveals there are other issues to consider beyond the theft of power in the Americas.
It's ever clearer that the undermining of democracy across the region has been occurring by attempts to use laws solely for political gain, not with tanks and missiles — and in plain sight.
Jorge H. Sanchez-Perez, Ph.D. Candidate - School of Humanities, Department of Philosophy, Instructor - Philosophy Department and Peace Studies Program, McMaster University and Denisse Rodriguez-Olivari, PhD candidate in Political Science, Humboldt University of Berlin
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.


alternet--2020-12-08--Here's the evidence COVID-19 cost Trump the 2020 election

Just as the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade was headed before the United States Supreme Court , a new journal of academic philosophy prepared to publish its inaugural issue including an innovative argument from Judith Jarvis Thomson .
That 1971 paper , `` A Defense of Abortion , '' published in Philosophy & Public Affairs , became one of the most influential pieces of contemporary applied ethics , an enduring part of the legacy left behind when she died at 91 on Nov. 20 , 2020 .
`` It has had such an incredible impact on people who have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a professor of philosophy and women 's and gender studies at MIT , where she worked alongside Professor Thomson , told me .
`` Almost anybody who teaches contemporary moral problems or an intro to moral philosophy is likely to teach that paper . ''
The key genius of the paper , one of the sources of its originality and staying power , is that it conceded to the opponents of abortion their strongest premise : that a fetus is a person worthy of full moral concern .
Thomson did n't defend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had serious objections to it — but she wanted to show that even if we believe a fetus has as much a right to live as anyone else , it does n't follow that abortion is impermissible .
To make her case , Thomson spun an elaborate and memorable thought experiment : '' I imagine you would regard this as outrageous , '' she told her readers , counting on the widely shared view that the kidnapped person would not be obligated to give over their body in this way .
The paper @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , along with increasingly fanciful examples that illuminate different features of pregnancy and address potential counterarguments , show something perhaps unexpected about our moral intuitions : A right to life is not always the end of an ethical argument .
We are not morally required to forfeit control over our bodies , even if death of another may be the foreseeable result .
Abortion , therefore , may be permissible , even if pro-life arguments about the moral status of the fetus are correct .
It was an impressive argument , and it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ `` My body , my choice . ''
`` It 's had a huge influence in the field .
No argument about abortion can proceed without taking her arguments really seriously , even if it ends up opposing abortion , '' Kate Manne , a philosophy professor at Cornell University who worked with Thomson while studying at MIT , told me .
Despite its remarkable impact , though , Manne argued the central thesis of `` A Defense of Abortion '' is still underappreciated .
`` I actually think it should have had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she said .
`` We 're still at this annoying dialectical point where the personhood of the fetus is taken establish the impermissibility of abortion in wider culture .
So it 's still a very good thing that Judy 's piece showed that that 's far too quick .
But in a way , I wish it had had more uptake . ''
Thomson 's paper is n't just notable for its influence or the importance of its ideas about morality .
As a piece of philosophy , it 's exceptionally inventive and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The structure of the thought experiment she used did n't need the patient with a kidney ailment be a violinist , as opposed to an unidentified person , but these kinds of details add color and life to what could otherwise be a stark examples .
Her personal humor and charm were reflected in her writing .
`` She 's quite witty about it , '' Manne said of Thomson 's argumentation style .
`` She says if she needed Henry Fonda 's cooling touch upon her fevered brow , it would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in from the West Coast to apply it ' and save her life .
But she is n't owed that by him . ''
Of course , excessively creative thought experiments in an argument have the potential to bog a paper down or complicate an argument unnecessarily , if not deployed right .
But Thomson was a master of the form , using a series of whimsical examples to convince the reader of the plausibility of her view while never abandoning or distracting from the rigor of her argument .
But while it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the paper on abortion did n't define her career .
Within academia , Thomson was n't known solely as a philosopher of applied ethics .
Much of her work focused on foundational issues in philosophy and metaphysics , such as the nature of normativity , moral objectivity , composition , and action .
In its own way , Thomson 's presence in these debates was perhaps as bold and unflinching as her views on abortion .
`` Philosophy is male-dominated , but metaphysics is the most-male dominated , even now , '' @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a period in grad school in the '80s , mainly .
Judy was already producing really stunning work .
And I started my career in analytic metaphysics .
This remains a field where there are not very many women .
And I would look in the bibliographies of the books I was encouraged to read or the articles I was encouraged to read , just looking for any name of a woman .
And there were always only two , pretty much : Ruth Barcan Marcus and Judith Jarvis Thomson . ''
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to debates about the concept of goodness , which she leveraged to make nuanced arguments against one of the most dominant theories in philosophical ethics .
In Thomson 's view , good `` is n't the kind of thing appropriately applied to states of affairs , '' said Haslanger .
Something ca n't merely be good , simpliciter .
It has to be good in some way .
`` So you can have a good toaster , or a good breakfast , or a good person .
But a good state of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have criteria of goodness built into them . ''
This conclusion , she argued , was a big problem for utilitarianism and other consequentialist theories , which hold , more or less , that actions are to be judged by the consequences or states of affairs that they bring about .
For Thomson , this view was n't even really coherent , Haslanger said .
But she could be surprisingly effusive about views she did n't hold .
Once , in a talk of hers I heard addressing another objection to utilitarianism , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the view , arguing that there were many things about the theory to recommend it .
`` Many things , '' she stressed , repeating herself for emphasis .
First and foremost , the best reason to be impressed with utilitarianism was the simplest : `` It 's a theory ! ''
she exclaimed .
Thomson made clear that many of the alternatives to utilitarianism that have been proposed over the years would n't merit this designation .
And for her , utilitarianism 's status as a full-fledged theory was undoubtedly high praise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though , was manifest in another of her philosophical contributions that has reached far beyond the academy and into the popular imagination : Trolley problems .
She actually credited the invention of the problem type to philosopher Philippa Foot , but it was Thomson who clarified and popularized the topic , which has become a sub-field of ethics in its own right known as trolleyology .
In her first paper laying out the problem , she put forward the now-standard formulation : Almost everyone seems to agree that it 's permissible to turn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debate breaks out when you ask whether you are morally required to turn the trolley .
But the structure of the case lends itself to endless variation : What if you 're not the driver , but just a bystander able to pull a lever and divert the trolley ?
What if the trolley loops around , such that the crushing of the one person is n't just an alternative to the deaths of the five , but would actually slow the trolley and thus be the means by which the others are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strike us so differently than a case of a surgeon who kills one unsuspecting healthy person to harvest organs that will save the lives of five patients who would otherwise die ?
On an austere consequentialist or utilitarian approach to moral reasoning , all these problems have simple answers : make the choice that results in the most lives saved , that does the most good .
But Thomson reveled in complexities and qualifications of our moral commitments , and she rejected simplistic solutions .
This was n't mere pedantry for its own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the principles that underlie our intuitions in these cases and what they can tell us about morality .
Her work on the topic eventually led her to change her mind about a key part of the problem , which she explained once in a seminar at MIT in 2013 that I was lucky enough to attend .
She argued that a bystander watching the trolley would not be permitted , despite what she had previously believed and argued , to pull a switch to save the five people and kill the one .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
She imagined a new scenario in which the bystander had the opportunity to flip the switch to direct the trolley away from the five people and toward herself .
Were she so noble , she might be willing to make that choice .
But in Thomson 's view , she was n't obligated to make this choice .
In an argumentative move that echoes the insight from `` A Defense of Abortion , '' she posited that morality does n't require us to sacrifice our lives for the lives of five others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she reasoned , then how can the bystander in the original case make the decision for the one person on the track to sacrifice her life for the other five ?
The bystander ca n't justify that choice , in Thomson 's view .
Despite what most people 's intuition tells them , it 's not permissible to flip the switch to kill one and save five from the oncoming trolley .
Her views were n't unforgiving or completely absolutist , though .
If the cost were high enough , you might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Were the trolley carrying a bomb and on a course to destroy New York City , you ought to kill the one person to save the lives of millions .
`` We must save New York ! ''
she said .
One characteristic about Thomson that came through both in her writing and when she spoke was a firm belief that when discussing these kinds of ethical questions , there is a correct answer , even if it 's hard to discern .
In one seminar I attended at MIT , the group @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' is objective or subjective .
Does it make sense to think of what we `` ought '' to do in a moral dilemma as reflecting the objective conditions , or our subjective perception of those conditions ?
Debating this question , naturally , brings up more clever thought experiments , some of which seem to suggest that `` ought '' must be interpreted objectively , while others suggest a subjective interpretation of `` ought '' is best .
It seemed to me that the solution is to simply stipulate that sometimes `` @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sense , and sometimes it is used in an objective sense .
Thomson disagreed .
She believed `` ought '' is objective — end of story .
The clever counterexamples that suggest otherwise were certainly worth considering for her , but they were n't a reason to back down from the idea that there was a definitive answer to the puzzle .
This conviction stood out , especially because it was matched by fierce wit .
`` There was just no one like her , '' said Haslanger .
`` To have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of it , out-arguing others and making her way .
It was really inspiring to me . ''
Thomson 's confidence , fortitude and toughness were undoubtedly necessary for the career she had .
Without this disposition , she may not have lasted in the world of academic philosophy or had such an impact at the time she entered the field .
`` I found it in the eighties and nineties just awful to try to survive in mainstream analytic metaphysics , '' Haslanger explained .
`` It was just grueling .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ahead of me is just mind-boggling .
And she would comment on that now and then .
She was n't someone to complain or make a fuss about things that happened to her along the way .
But you ca n't survive it unless you 're very strong-minded and very determined , and brilliant .
And she was all those things . ''
But if that toughness helped her survive , she did n't feel a need to abandon it once she had reached the pinnacle of her career .
She was known @ @ @ @ @ @ @ papers .
Getting the mechanics of a philosophical paper right — not just the argument , but the structure and the presentation of the ideas , down to the level of the sentence — was a top priority for her .
Manne remembered how Thomson subjected her work as a grad student to exacting standards .
Those lessons stayed with Manne and influence her writing to this day , though she doubted that Thomson would always be satisfied with the results .
`` She brought me into her office , '' Manne recounted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mine , and very plainly said , in a tone that was genuinely warm : 'This paper is terrible ! '
'' Manne added : `` She was incredibly tough , but I always got the sense that she was tough in the service of making people better philosophers .
She was never just mean . ''
For Haslanger , this side of Thomson was an asset .
Haslanger joined the philosophy department faculty at MIT when Thomson was the only other woman .
`` I 'm known for my strong feminist , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often and loudly .
And I came to MIT , and it was the first time in my career where I could be the feminist 'good cop , ' because Judy had spent so many years already being the feminist 'bad cop . '
So we kind of worked together quite well .
And it was such a relief , '' said Haslanger .
`` We definitely worked well together on encouraging people , and insisting , in fact , that people take women seriously . ''
She added : `` She really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many of us , who gave us hope and gave us courage to carry on . ''
It 's notable , though , that — with the one clear exception — Thomson 's work itself was n't feminist philosophy .
She generally worked on the traditional types of ethical and metaphysical questions handed down in the canon of philosophy , a canon that was historically fashioned by men .
Questions that male philosophers have tended to ignore , such as those about the nature of gender oppression , say , did n't draw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ questions about the relationship between the statue and the clay or personal identity over time did .
The exception , of course , is her defense of abortion — what she 's best known for .
`` The fact that she just did what she did was a powerful feminist intervention .
Her being who she was was a feminist intervention .
I do n't think that her work draws on gendered experience , or shows herself to draw on her feminist commitments to intervene in a debate , except for the abortion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Whether or not she would have avowed it , I do think there 's something feminist about her tough and unapologetic stance on bodily autonomy being something that is important , and that people have a right to , within limits , '' said Manne .
`` It really is about ways in which we 've perhaps been myopic about the fact that women are entitled to bodily control , even if others depend upon them for their lives , which really is a deeply feminist point . ''

by Abel Brodeur, L'Université d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa; Leonardo Baccini, McGill University, and Stephen Weymouth, Georgetown University
Did the COVID-19 pandemic doom Donald Trump's re-election? Our study examining the effect of COVID-19 cases on county-level voting in the United States shows that the pandemic led to Trump's defeat on Nov. 3.
Our analysis suggests that, all things being equal, Trump would likely have won re-election if COVID-19 cases had been between five and 10 per cent lower. In particular, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — which President-elect Joe Biden won by a slim margin — would have remained red if cases had been five per cent lower.
Trump would have also added Michigan to this list if cases had been 10 per cent lower.
This finding is at odds with some initial news analyses that indicated regions with the worst COVID-19 outbreaks voted for Trump.
In fact, national polls and academic studies suggest that Trump's voters are significantly less likely to wear masks and comply with social distancing, which in turn increase the probability of outbreaks. So Trump voters in Trump-friendly jurisdictions, due to their aversion to wearing masks, had more dramatic COVID-19 outbreaks leading up to the election.
The COVID-19 effect
We estimated the effect of COVID-19 cases and deaths on the change in Trump's county-level share of votes between 2016 and 2020.
To account for potential alternative explanations, we included a large number of pandemic-related controls, including measures of social distancing, that captured differences in virus containment measures that might have affected cases and had an impact on Trump support.
In an attempt to measure the causal relationship between COVID-19 cases and votes for Trump, we used the share of workers employed in meat-processing factories associated with COVID-19 outbreaks as a source of external variations in COVID-19 cases. Doing so mitigated the risk of a spurious correlation between the incidence of the pandemic and Trump support.
We found that voters living in counties with a high number of COVID-19 cases were less likely to vote for Trump. This effect appears strongest in urban areas and in swing states. The strong results in cities are likely driven by suburban areas, where Trump performed much better in 2016 than he did in 2020.
These results suggest that some Trump voters may have switched to Biden because of the pandemic. In addition, we found no evidence that counties with a large increase in unemployment compared to the pre-pandemic period were more likely to switch from Trump to Biden. This last result seems to indicate that health concerns trumped — pardon the pun — economic conditions.
Retrospective voting
Now that we have an answer to our initial question, how can we explain these results? There are two possible explanations as to why the pandemic decided the 2020 presidential election.
On the one hand, voters may have electorally sanctioned Trump for how he handled the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, the U.S. economy was performing well, and Trump, while extremely polarizing, enjoyed strong support among Republican voters.
The virus changed the narrative, and Trump's response was widely criticized. He consistently downplayed the risks of the disease, refused to embrace basic health precautions such as masks and repeatedly criticized epidemiologists and scientists, including those advising him.
His response, in contrast to leaders in other developed democracies, was profoundly unsuccessful, as the recent dramatic surge of cases has demonstrated once more.
This explanation is in line with a well-established theory in political science: retrospective voting. In a nutshell, that's when citizens evaluate and vote based on their perceptions of the incumbent's performance. If incumbents are perceived as incompetent, citizens vote them out of office.
While intuitive, this theory has not been always empirically true. However, it does seem to have some value in explaining the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Economic fears, need of social safety net
On the other hand, some voters may have switched to Biden from Trump due to the pandemic-fuelled recession. A severe public health threat and major economic losses may have shifted preferences in favour of an expansion of the social safety net, including health care and unemployment insurance programs.
Since the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate are more likely to champion these policies, Biden reaped the electoral benefits of this switch in voters' preferences.
This explanation is in line with studies that suggest political preferences are shaped by personal experience. The same studies show this switch in political preferences is often long-lasting.
For instance, there is evidence that people growing up in a recession are more likely to favour state intervention and large social welfare programs.
This second explanation would be good news for the Democratic Party even in subsequent elections, when, hopefully, the pandemic will not dictate the narrative of the campaign but may still be fresh in the memories of voters.
Abel Brodeur, Associate professor, health economics, L'Université d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa; Leonardo Baccini, Associate professor, political science, McGill University, and Stephen Weymouth, Associate professor, international business, Georgetown University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.


alternet--2020-12-08--COVID whistleblower blames Ron DeSantis after cops raid her home: 'They pointed guns at my kids'

Former Florida Department of Health ( DOH ) data scientist Rebekah Jones , who was fired by Governor Ron DeSantis 's administration after refusing to manipulate coronavirus information , says `` state police came into my house and took all my hardware and tech .
They were serving a warrant on my computer after DOH filed a complaint .
They pointed a gun in my face .
They pointed guns at my kids . ''
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued a statement confirming the seizure of computer equipment , a report in the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper says .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 2020 after receiving a complaint from the Department of Health regarding unauthorized access to a Department of Health messaging system which is part of an emergency alert system , to be used for emergencies only , '' FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said .
Jones , who set up her own site to continue to report important coronavirus information , posted this tweet , including video : '' They took my phone and the computer I use every day to post the case numbers in Florida , and school cases for the entire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They took evidence of corruption at the state level .
They claimed it was about a security breach .
This was DeSantis .
He sent the gestapo . ''
`` Gestapo '' has been trending as a result .
Take a look at what some are saying :

Former Florida Department of Health (DOH) data scientist Rebekah Jones, who was fired by Governor Ron DeSantis's administration after refusing to manipulate coronavirus information, says "state police came into my house and took all my hardware and tech. They were serving a warrant on my computer after DOH filed a complaint. They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids."
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued a statement confirming the seizure of computer equipment, a report in the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper says.
"FDLE began an investigation November 10, 2020 after receiving a complaint from the Department of Health regarding unauthorized access to a Department of Health messaging system which is part of an emergency alert system, to be used for emergencies only," FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said.
Jones, who set up her own site to continue to report important coronavirus information, posted this tweet, including video:
"They took my phone and the computer I use every day to post the case numbers in Florida, and school cases for the entire country," she tweeted. "They took evidence of corruption at the state level. They claimed it was about a security breach. This was DeSantis. He sent the gestapo."
"Gestapo" has been trending as a result. Take a look at what some are saying:


alternet--2020-12-07--A pernicious legacy: How Trump put the US on a path for cataclysmic war

In the military realm , Donald Trump will most likely be remembered for his insistence on ending America 's involvement in its twenty-first-century `` forever wars '' -- the fruitless , relentless , mind-crushing military campaigns undertaken by Presidents Bush and Obama in Afghanistan , Iraq , Syria , and Somalia .
After all , as a candidate , Trump pledged to bring U.S. troops home from those dreaded war zones and , in his last days in office , he 's been promising to get at least most of the way to that objective .
The president 's fixation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of his own generals and other officials on the subject ) has generated a fair amount of media coverage and endeared him to his isolationist supporters .
Yet , however newsworthy it may be , this focus on Trump 's belated troop withdrawals obscures a far more significant aspect of his military legacy : the conversion of the U.S. military from a global counterterror force into one designed to fight an all-out , cataclysmic , potentially nuclear war with China and/or Russia .
People seldom notice that Trump 's approach to military policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he repeatedly denounced the failure of his predecessors to abandon those endless counterinsurgency wars , he bemoaned their alleged neglect of America 's regular armed forces and promised to spend whatever it took to `` restore '' their fighting strength .
`` In a Trump administration , '' he declared in a September 2016 campaign speech on national security , America 's military priorities would be reversed , with a withdrawal from the `` endless wars we are caught in now '' and the restoration of `` our unquestioned military strength . ''
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ implement that very agenda , instructing his surrogates -- a succession of national security advisers and secretaries of defense -- to commence U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan ( though he agreed for a time to increase troop levels in Afghanistan ) , while submitting ever-mounting defense budgets .
The Pentagon 's annual spending authority climbed every year between 2016 and 2020 , rising from $ 580 billion at the start of his administration to $ 713 at the end , with much of that increment directed to the procurement of advanced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Department of Energy budget for the acquisition of new nuclear weapons and the full-scale `` modernization '' of the country 's nuclear arsenal .
Far more important than that increase in arms spending , however , was the shift in strategy that went with it .
The military posture President Trump inherited from the Obama administration was focused on fighting the Global War on Terror ( GWOT ) , a grueling , never-ending struggle to identify , track , and destroy anti-Western zealots in far-flung areas of Asia , Africa , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's bequeathing to Joe Biden is almost entirely focused on defeating China and Russia in future `` high-end '' conflicts waged directly against those two countries -- fighting that would undoubtedly involve high-tech conventional weapons on a staggering scale and could easily trigger nuclear war .
From the GWOT to the GPC It 's impossible to overstate the significance of the Pentagon 's shift from a strategy aimed at fighting relatively small bands of militants to one aimed at fighting the military forces of China and Russia on the peripheries of Eurasia .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ bands of infantry and Special Operations Forces units backed by patrolling aircraft and missile-armed drones ; the other envisions the commitment of multiple aircraft carriers , fighter squadrons , nuclear-capable bombers , and brigade-strength armored divisions .
Similarly , in the GWOT years , it was generally assumed that U.S. troops would face adversaries largely armed with light infantry weapons and homemade bombs , not , as in any future war with China or Russia , an enemy equipped with advanced tanks , planes , missiles , ships , and a full range @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outlook from counterterrorism to what , in these years , has come to be known in Washington as `` great power competition , '' or GPC , was first officially articulated in the Pentagon 's National Security Strategy of February 2018 .
`` The central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security , '' it insisted , `` is the reemergence of long-term , strategic competition by what the National Security Strategy classifies as revisionist powers , '' a catchphrase for China and Russia .
( It used those rare italics to emphasize just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Department of Defense and the military services , this meant only one thing : from that moment on , so much of what they did would be aimed at preparing to fight and defeat China and/or Russia in high-intensity conflict .
As Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis put it to the Senate Armed Services Committee that April , `` The 2018 National Defense Strategy provides clear strategic direction for America 's military to reclaim an era of strategic purpose ...
Although the Department continues to prosecute the campaign against terrorists , long-term @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now the primary focus of U.S. national security . ''
This being the case , Mattis added , America 's armed forces would have to be completely re-equipped with new weaponry intended for high-intensity combat against well-armed adversaries .
`` Our military remains capable , but our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare , '' he noted .
`` The combination of rapidly changing technology [ and ] the negative impact on military readiness resulting from the longest continuous period of combat in our nation 's history [ has ] @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' In response , we must `` accelerate modernization programs in a sustained effort to solidify our competitive advantage . ''
In that same testimony , Mattis laid out the procurement priorities that have since governed planning as the military seeks to `` solidify '' its competitive advantage .
First comes the `` modernization '' of the nation 's nuclear weapons capabilities , including its nuclear command-control-and-communications systems ; then , the expansion of the Navy through the acquisition of startling numbers of additional surface ships and submarines , along with the modernization @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accelerated procurement of advanced combat planes ; finally , to ensure the country 's military superiority for decades to come , vastly increased investment in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence , robotics , hypersonics , and cyber warfare .
These priorities have by now been hard-wired into the military budget and govern Pentagon planning .
Last February , when submitting its proposed budget for fiscal year ( FY ) 2021 , for example , the Department of Defense asserted , `` The FY 2021 budget supports the irreversible implementation of the National Defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Department 's decision-making in reprioritizing resources and shifting investments to prepare for a potential future , high-end fight . ''
This nightmarish vision , in other words , is the military future President Trump will leave to the Biden administration .
The Navy in the Lead From the very beginning , Donald Trump has emphasized the expansion of the Navy as an overriding objective .
`` When Ronald Reagan left office , our Navy had 592 ships ... Today , the Navy has just 276 ships , '' he lamented in that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first priorities as president , he asserted , would be to restore its strength .
`` We will build a Navy of 350 surface ships and submarines , '' he promised .
Once in office , the `` 350-ship Navy '' ( later increased to 355 ships ) became a mantra .
In emphasizing a big Navy , Trump was influenced to some degree by the sheer spectacle of large modern warships , especially aircraft carriers with their scores of combat planes .
`` Our carriers are the centerpiece of American military might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nearly completed carrier , the USS Gerald R. Ford , in March 2017 .
`` We are standing here today on four-and-a-half acres of combat power and sovereign U.S. territory , the likes of which there is nothing ... there is no competition to this ship . ''
Not surprisingly , top Pentagon officials embraced the president 's big-Navy vision with undisguised enthusiasm .
The reason : they view China as their number one adversary and believe that any future conflict with that country will largely be fought from the Pacific Ocean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only practical way to concentrate U.S. firepower against China 's increasingly built-up coastal defenses .
Then-Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper expressed this outlook well when , in September , he deemed Beijing the Pentagon 's `` top strategic competitor '' and the Indo-Pacific region its `` priority theater '' in planning for future wars .
The waters of that region , he suggested , represent `` the epicenter of great power competition with China '' and so were witnessing increasingly provocative behavior by Chinese air and naval units .
In the face @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States must be ready to deter conflict and , if necessary , fight and win at sea . ''
In that address , Esper made it clear that the U.S. Navy remains vastly superior to its Chinese counterpart .
Nonetheless , he asserted , `` We must stay ahead ; we must retain our overmatch ; and we will keep building modern ships to ensure we remain the world 's greatest Navy . ''
Although Trump fired Esper on November 9th for , among other things , resisting White House demands to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Iraq and Afghanistan , the former defense secretary 's focus on fighting China from the Pacific and adjacent seas remains deeply embedded in Pentagon strategic thinking and will be a legacy of the Trump years .
In support of such a policy , billions of dollars have already been committed to the construction of new surface ships and submarines , ensuring that such a legacy will persist for years , if not decades to come .
Trump said little about what should be done for U.S. ground forces during the 2016 campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them even bigger and better equipped .
What he did do , however , was speak of his admiration for World War II Army generals known for their aggressive battle tactics .
`` I was a fan of Douglas MacArthur .
I was a fan of George Patton , '' he told Maggie Haberman and David Sanger of the New York Times that March .
`` If we had Douglas MacArthur today or if we had George Patton today and if we had a president that would let them do their thing you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' Trump 's reverence for General Patton has proven especially suggestive in a new era of great-power competition , as U.S. and NATO forces again prepare to face well-equipped land armies on the continent of Europe , much as they did during World War II .
Back then , it was the tank corps of Nazi Germany that Patton 's own tanks confronted on the Western Front .
Today , U.S. and NATO forces face Russia 's best-equipped armies in Eastern Europe along a line stretching from the Baltic republics and Poland in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If a war with Russia were to break out , much of the fighting would likely occur along this line , with main-force units from both sides engaged in head-on , high-intensity combat .
Since the Cold War ended in 1991 with the implosion of the Soviet Union , American strategists had devoted little serious thought to high-intensity ground combat against a well-equipped adversary in Europe .
Now , with East-West tensions rising and U.S. forces again facing well-armed potential foes in what increasingly looks like a military-driven version of the Cold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more attention .
This time around , however , U.S. forces face a very different combat environment .
In the Cold War years , Western strategists generally imagined a contest of brute strength in which our tanks and artillery would battle theirs along hundreds of miles of front lines until one side or the other was thoroughly depleted and had no choice but to sue for peace ( or ignite a global nuclear catastrophe ) .
Today 's strategists , however , imagine far more multidimensional ( or `` multi-domain '' ) warfare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rear areas , as well as into space and cyberspace .
In such an environment , they 've come to believe that the victor will have to act swiftly , delivering paralyzing blows to what they call the enemy 's C3I capabilities ( critical command , control , communications , and intelligence ) in a matter of days , or even hours .
Only then would powerful armored units be able to strike deep into enemy territory and , in true Patton fashion , ensure a Russian defeat .
The U.S. military has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' and assumes that the U.S. will indeed dominate space , cyberspace , airspace , and the electromagnetic spectrum .
In a future confrontation with Russian forces in Europe , as the doctrine lays it out , U.S. air power would seek control of the airspace above the battlefield , while using guided missiles to knock out Russian radar systems , missile batteries , and their C3I facilities .
The Army would conduct similar strikes using a new generation of long-range artillery systems and ballistic missiles .
Only when Russia 's defensive capabilities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up with a ground assault , Patton-style .
Be Prepared to Fight with Nukes As imagined by senior Pentagon strategists , any future conflict with China or Russia is likely to entail intense , all-out combat on the ground , at sea , and in the air aimed at destroying an enemy 's critical military infrastructure in the first hours or , at most , days of battle , opening the way for a swift U.S. invasion of enemy territory .
This sounds like a winning strategy -- but only if you possess @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If not , what then ?
This is the quandary faced by Chinese and Russian strategists whose forces do n't quite match up to the power of the American ones .
While their own war planning remains , to date , a mystery , it 's hard not to imagine that the Chinese and Russian equivalents of the Pentagon high command are pondering the possibility of a nuclear response to any all-out American assault on their militaries and territories .
The examination of available Russian military literature has led some Western analysts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increasing their reliance on `` tactical '' nuclear weapons to obliterate superior U.S./NATO forces before an invasion of their country could be mounted ( much as , in the previous century , U.S. forces relied on just such weaponry to avert a possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe ) .
Russian military analysts have indeed published articles exploring just such an option -- sometimes described by the phrase `` escalate to de-escalate '' ( a misnomer if ever there was one ) -- although Russian military officials have never openly discussed such tactics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cited that unofficial literature as evidence of Russian plans to employ tactical nukes in a future East-West confrontation and used it to justify the acquisition of new U.S. weapons of just this sort .
`` Russian strategy and doctrine ... mistakenly assesses that the threat of nuclear escalation or actual first use of nuclear weapons would serve to 'de-escalate ' a conflict on terms favorable to Russia , '' the administration 's Nuclear Posture Review of 2018 asserts .
`` To correct any Russian misperceptions of advantage ... the president must have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] options , including a variety of delivery systems and explosive yields . ''
In furtherance of such a policy , that review called for the introduction of two new types of nuclear munitions : a `` low-yield '' warhead ( meaning it could , say , pulverize Lower Manhattan without destroying all of New York City ) for a Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile and a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile .
As in so many of the developments described above , this Trump initiative will prove difficult to reverse in the Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ W76-2 low-yield warheads have already rolled off the assembly lines , been installed on missiles , and are now deployed on Trident submarines at sea .
These could presumably be removed from service and decommissioned , but this has rarely occurred in recent military history and , to do so , a new president would have to go against his own military high command .
Even more difficult would be to negate the strategic rationale behind their deployment .
During the Trump years , the notion that nuclear arms could be used as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conflicts took deep root in Pentagon thinking and erasing it will prove to be no easy feat .
Amid arguments over the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan , Iraq , Syria , and Somalia , amid the firings and sudden replacements of civilian leaders at the Pentagon , Donald Trump 's most significant legacy -- the one that could lead not to yet more forever wars but to a forever disaster -- has passed almost unnoticed in the media and in political circles in Washington .
Supporters of the new administration and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( though not his actual appointees to national security posts ) have advanced some stirring ideas about transforming American military policy , including reducing the role military force plays in America 's foreign relations and redeploying some military funds to other purposes like fighting Covid-19 .
Such ideas are to be welcomed , but President Biden 's top priority in the military area should be to focus on the true Trump military legacy -- the one that has set us on a war course in relation to China and Russia -- and do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a safer , more prudent direction .
Otherwise , the phrase `` forever war '' could gain a new , far grimmer meaning .
Michael T. Klare , a TomDispatch regular , is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association .
He is the author of 15 books , the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose : The Pentagon 's Perspective on Climate Change .
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , John Feffer 's new dystopian novel ( the second in the Splinterlands series ) Frostlands , Beverly Gologorsky 's novel Every Body Has a Story , and Tom Engelhardt 's A Nation Unmade by War , as well as Alfred McCoy 's In the Shadows of the American Century : The Rise and Decline of U.S .
Global Power and John Dower 's The Violent American Century : War and Terror Since World War II .

In the military realm, Donald Trump will most likely be remembered for his insistence on ending America's involvement in its twenty-first-century "forever wars" -- the fruitless, relentless, mind-crushing military campaigns undertaken by Presidents Bush and Obama in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia. After all, as a candidate, Trump pledged to bring U.S. troops home from those dreaded war zones and, in his last days in office, he's been promising to get at least most of the way to that objective. The president's fixation on this issue (and the opposition of his own generals and other officials on the subject) has generated a fair amount of media coverage and endeared him to his isolationist supporters. Yet, however newsworthy it may be, this focus on Trump's belated troop withdrawals obscures a far more significant aspect of his military legacy: the conversion of the U.S. military from a global counterterror force into one designed to fight an all-out, cataclysmic, potentially nuclear war with China and/or Russia.
People seldom notice that Trump's approach to military policy has always been two-faced. Even as he repeatedly denounced the failure of his predecessors to abandon those endless counterinsurgency wars, he bemoaned their alleged neglect of America's regular armed forces and promised to spend whatever it took to "restore" their fighting strength. "In a Trump administration," he declared in a September 2016 campaign speech on national security, America's military priorities would be reversed, with a withdrawal from the "endless wars we are caught in now" and the restoration of "our unquestioned military strength."
Once in office, he acted to implement that very agenda, instructing his surrogates -- a succession of national security advisers and secretaries of defense -- to commence U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan (though he agreed for a time to increase troop levels in Afghanistan), while submitting ever-mounting defense budgets. The Pentagon's annual spending authority climbed every year between 2016 and 2020, rising from $580 billion at the start of his administration to $713 at the end, with much of that increment directed to the procurement of advanced weaponry. Additional billions were incorporated into the Department of Energy budget for the acquisition of new nuclear weapons and the full-scale "modernization" of the country's nuclear arsenal.
Far more important than that increase in arms spending, however, was the shift in strategy that went with it. The military posture President Trump inherited from the Obama administration was focused on fighting the Global War on Terror (GWOT), a grueling, never-ending struggle to identify, track, and destroy anti-Western zealots in far-flung areas of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The posture he's bequeathing to Joe Biden is almost entirely focused on defeating China and Russia in future "high-end" conflicts waged directly against those two countries -- fighting that would undoubtedly involve high-tech conventional weapons on a staggering scale and could easily trigger nuclear war.
From the GWOT to the GPC
It's impossible to overstate the significance of the Pentagon's shift from a strategy aimed at fighting relatively small bands of militants to one aimed at fighting the military forces of China and Russia on the peripheries of Eurasia. The first entailed the deployment of scattered bands of infantry and Special Operations Forces units backed by patrolling aircraft and missile-armed drones; the other envisions the commitment of multiple aircraft carriers, fighter squadrons, nuclear-capable bombers, and brigade-strength armored divisions. Similarly, in the GWOT years, it was generally assumed that U.S. troops would face adversaries largely armed with light infantry weapons and homemade bombs, not, as in any future war with China or Russia, an enemy equipped with advanced tanks, planes, missiles, ships, and a full range of nuclear munitions.
This shift in outlook from counterterrorism to what, in these years, has come to be known in Washington as "great power competition," or GPC, was first officially articulated in the Pentagon's National Security Strategy of February 2018. "The central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security," it insisted, "is the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition by what the National Security Strategy classifies as revisionist powers," a catchphrase for China and Russia. (It used those rare italics to emphasize just how significant this was.)
For the Department of Defense and the military services, this meant only one thing: from that moment on, so much of what they did would be aimed at preparing to fight and defeat China and/or Russia in high-intensity conflict. As Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis put it to the Senate Armed Services Committee that April, "The 2018 National Defense Strategy provides clear strategic direction for America's military to reclaim an era of strategic purpose... Although the Department continues to prosecute the campaign against terrorists, long-term strategic competition -- not terrorism -- is now the primary focus of U.S. national security."
This being the case, Mattis added, America's armed forces would have to be completely re-equipped with new weaponry intended for high-intensity combat against well-armed adversaries. "Our military remains capable, but our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare," he noted. "The combination of rapidly changing technology [and] the negative impact on military readiness resulting from the longest continuous period of combat in our nation's history [has] created an overstretched and under-resourced military." In response, we must "accelerate modernization programs in a sustained effort to solidify our competitive advantage."
In that same testimony, Mattis laid out the procurement priorities that have since governed planning as the military seeks to "solidify" its competitive advantage. First comes the "modernization" of the nation's nuclear weapons capabilities, including its nuclear command-control-and-communications systems; then, the expansion of the Navy through the acquisition of startling numbers of additional surface ships and submarines, along with the modernization of the Air Force, through the accelerated procurement of advanced combat planes; finally, to ensure the country's military superiority for decades to come, vastly increased investment in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, hypersonics, and cyber warfare.
These priorities have by now been hard-wired into the military budget and govern Pentagon planning. Last February, when submitting its proposed budget for fiscal year (FY) 2021, for example, the Department of Defense asserted, "The FY 2021 budget supports the irreversible implementation of the National Defense Strategy (NDS), which drives the Department's decision-making in reprioritizing resources and shifting investments to prepare for a potential future, high-end fight." This nightmarish vision, in other words, is the military future President Trump will leave to the Biden administration.
The Navy in the Lead
From the very beginning, Donald Trump has emphasized the expansion of the Navy as an overriding objective. "When Ronald Reagan left office, our Navy had 592 ships... Today, the Navy has just 276 ships," he lamented in that 2016 campaign speech. One of his first priorities as president, he asserted, would be to restore its strength. "We will build a Navy of 350 surface ships and submarines," he promised. Once in office, the "350-ship Navy" (later increased to 355 ships) became a mantra.
In emphasizing a big Navy, Trump was influenced to some degree by the sheer spectacle of large modern warships, especially aircraft carriers with their scores of combat planes. "Our carriers are the centerpiece of American military might overseas," he insisted while visiting the nearly completed carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, in March 2017. "We are standing here today on four-and-a-half acres of combat power and sovereign U.S. territory, the likes of which there is nothing... there is no competition to this ship."
Not surprisingly, top Pentagon officials embraced the president's big-Navy vision with undisguised enthusiasm. The reason: they view China as their number one adversary and believe that any future conflict with that country will largely be fought from the Pacific Ocean and nearby seas -- that being the only practical way to concentrate U.S. firepower against China's increasingly built-up coastal defenses.
Then-Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper expressed this outlook well when, in September, he deemed Beijing the Pentagon's "top strategic competitor" and the Indo-Pacific region its "priority theater" in planning for future wars. The waters of that region, he suggested, represent "the epicenter of great power competition with China" and so were witnessing increasingly provocative behavior by Chinese air and naval units. In the face of such destabilizing activity, "the United States must be ready to deter conflict and, if necessary, fight and win at sea."
In that address, Esper made it clear that the U.S. Navy remains vastly superior to its Chinese counterpart. Nonetheless, he asserted, "We must stay ahead; we must retain our overmatch; and we will keep building modern ships to ensure we remain the world's greatest Navy."
Although Trump fired Esper on November 9th for, among other things, resisting White House demands to speed up the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, the former defense secretary's focus on fighting China from the Pacific and adjacent seas remains deeply embedded in Pentagon strategic thinking and will be a legacy of the Trump years. In support of such a policy, billions of dollars have already been committed to the construction of new surface ships and submarines, ensuring that such a legacy will persist for years, if not decades to come.
Do Like Patton: Strike Deep, Strike Hard
Trump said little about what should be done for U.S. ground forces during the 2016 campaign, except to indicate that he wanted them even bigger and better equipped. What he did do, however, was speak of his admiration for World War II Army generals known for their aggressive battle tactics. "I was a fan of Douglas MacArthur. I was a fan of George Patton," he told Maggie Haberman and David Sanger of the New York Times that March. "If we had Douglas MacArthur today or if we had George Patton today and if we had a president that would let them do their thing you wouldn't have ISIS, okay?"
Trump's reverence for General Patton has proven especially suggestive in a new era of great-power competition, as U.S. and NATO forces again prepare to face well-equipped land armies on the continent of Europe, much as they did during World War II. Back then, it was the tank corps of Nazi Germany that Patton's own tanks confronted on the Western Front. Today, U.S. and NATO forces face Russia's best-equipped armies in Eastern Europe along a line stretching from the Baltic republics and Poland in the north to Romania in the south. If a war with Russia were to break out, much of the fighting would likely occur along this line, with main-force units from both sides engaged in head-on, high-intensity combat.
Since the Cold War ended in 1991 with the implosion of the Soviet Union, American strategists had devoted little serious thought to high-intensity ground combat against a well-equipped adversary in Europe. Now, with East-West tensions rising and U.S. forces again facing well-armed potential foes in what increasingly looks like a military-driven version of the Cold War, that problem is receiving far more attention.
This time around, however, U.S. forces face a very different combat environment. In the Cold War years, Western strategists generally imagined a contest of brute strength in which our tanks and artillery would battle theirs along hundreds of miles of front lines until one side or the other was thoroughly depleted and had no choice but to sue for peace (or ignite a global nuclear catastrophe). Today's strategists, however, imagine far more multidimensional (or "multi-domain") warfare extending to the air and well into rear areas, as well as into space and cyberspace. In such an environment, they've come to believe that the victor will have to act swiftly, delivering paralyzing blows to what they call the enemy's C3I capabilities (critical command, control, communications, and intelligence) in a matter of days, or even hours. Only then would powerful armored units be able to strike deep into enemy territory and, in true Patton fashion, ensure a Russian defeat.
The U.S. military has labeled such a strategy "all-domain warfare" and assumes that the U.S. will indeed dominate space, cyberspace, airspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum. In a future confrontation with Russian forces in Europe, as the doctrine lays it out, U.S. air power would seek control of the airspace above the battlefield, while using guided missiles to knock out Russian radar systems, missile batteries, and their C3I facilities. The Army would conduct similar strikes using a new generation of long-range artillery systems and ballistic missiles. Only when Russia's defensive capabilities were thoroughly degraded would that Army follow up with a ground assault, Patton-style.
Be Prepared to Fight with Nukes
As imagined by senior Pentagon strategists, any future conflict with China or Russia is likely to entail intense, all-out combat on the ground, at sea, and in the air aimed at destroying an enemy's critical military infrastructure in the first hours or, at most, days of battle, opening the way for a swift U.S. invasion of enemy territory. This sounds like a winning strategy -- but only if you possess all the advantages in weaponry and technology. If not, what then? This is the quandary faced by Chinese and Russian strategists whose forces don't quite match up to the power of the American ones. While their own war planning remains, to date, a mystery, it's hard not to imagine that the Chinese and Russian equivalents of the Pentagon high command are pondering the possibility of a nuclear response to any all-out American assault on their militaries and territories.
The examination of available Russian military literature has led some Western analysts to conclude that the Russians are indeed increasing their reliance on "tactical" nuclear weapons to obliterate superior U.S./NATO forces before an invasion of their country could be mounted (much as, in the previous century, U.S. forces relied on just such weaponry to avert a possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe). Russian military analysts have indeed published articles exploring just such an option -- sometimes described by the phrase "escalate to de-escalate" (a misnomer if ever there was one) -- although Russian military officials have never openly discussed such tactics. Still, the Trump administration has cited that unofficial literature as evidence of Russian plans to employ tactical nukes in a future East-West confrontation and used it to justify the acquisition of new U.S. weapons of just this sort.
"Russian strategy and doctrine... mistakenly assesses that the threat of nuclear escalation or actual first use of nuclear weapons would serve to 'de-escalate' a conflict on terms favorable to Russia," the administration's Nuclear Posture Review of 2018 asserts. "To correct any Russian misperceptions of advantage... the president must have a range of limited and graduated [nuclear] options, including a variety of delivery systems and explosive yields." In furtherance of such a policy, that review called for the introduction of two new types of nuclear munitions: a "low-yield" warhead (meaning it could, say, pulverize Lower Manhattan without destroying all of New York City) for a Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile and a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile.
As in so many of the developments described above, this Trump initiative will prove difficult to reverse in the Biden years. After all, the first W76-2 low-yield warheads have already rolled off the assembly lines, been installed on missiles, and are now deployed on Trident submarines at sea. These could presumably be removed from service and decommissioned, but this has rarely occurred in recent military history and, to do so, a new president would have to go against his own military high command. Even more difficult would be to negate the strategic rationale behind their deployment. During the Trump years, the notion that nuclear arms could be used as ordinary weapons of war in future great-power conflicts took deep root in Pentagon thinking and erasing it will prove to be no easy feat.
Amid arguments over the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia, amid the firings and sudden replacements of civilian leaders at the Pentagon, Donald Trump's most significant legacy -- the one that could lead not to yet more forever wars but to a forever disaster -- has passed almost unnoticed in the media and in political circles in Washington.
Supporters of the new administration and even members of Biden's immediate circle (though not his actual appointees to national security posts) have advanced some stirring ideas about transforming American military policy, including reducing the role military force plays in America's foreign relations and redeploying some military funds to other purposes like fighting Covid-19. Such ideas are to be welcomed, but President Biden's top priority in the military area should be to focus on the true Trump military legacy -- the one that has set us on a war course in relation to China and Russia -- and do everything in his power to steer us in a safer, more prudent direction. Otherwise, the phrase "forever war" could gain a new, far grimmer meaning.
Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. He is the author of 15 books, the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer's new dystopian novel (the second in the Splinterlands series) Frostlands, Beverly Gologorsky's novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt's A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy's In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower's The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.
Copyright 2020 Michael T. Klare


alternet--2020-12-09--Trump rewards cronies with prestigious government appointments

President Donald Trump is rewarding more than two dozen current and former administration officials and others with prestigious government appointments on his way out of office – including his current Secretary of Transportation , Elaine Chao , his former campaign manager and Senior Counselor , Kellyanne Conway , and campaign surrogate , lobbyist Matt Schlapp .
Also on the list , a billionaire hotelier reportedly linked to `` a possible pay-for-play scheme '' with the RNC .
The nominations , announced Tuesday , appear to mirror reports that say the president is preparing a flood of pardons , even to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , merely because he can .
Trump nominated Kellyanne Conway to the Board of Visitors to the United States Air Force Academy .
The Board acts as a board of governors , and `` inquires into the morale , discipline , curriculum , instruction , physical equipment , fiscal affairs , academic methods and other matters relating to the Academy which the Board decides to consider . ''
Conway , according to the Office of Special Counsel , has broken federal law so frequently she was recommended for `` removal '' from her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agency .
Trump ignored the recommendation .
Trump nominated Secretary Elaine Chao to be a Member of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts .
The appointment carries a six-year term .
Also nominated to the Kennedy Center is Lynn Friess , wife of major Republican donor Foster Friess .
Lobbyist Matt Schlapp , the head of the American Conservative Union , which operates the annual Conservative Political Action Conference ( CPAC ) , was nominated by Trump to be a Member of the Library of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bloomberg the LoC Trust Fund Board `` operates as a federal board governing funds donated to the Library of Congress .
The Board deposits the incoming money with the Secretary of the Treasury and the librarian of the Library of Congress may distribute the money .
LoC Trust Fund Board holds the power to invest , reinvest , and retain investments as well . ''
Schlapp 's wife , Mercedes Schlapp , was a White House communications official who left to work for the Trump campaign .
Chao is married to Senate Majority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's list , billionaire hotelier , real estate developer , GOP donor , and failed ambassador nominee Douglas `` Papa Doug '' Manchester .
Manchester was nominated to the Kennedy Center Board as well .
A scathing January 2020 article detailed his lavish lifestyle and divorces , including from a Russian immigrant .
That article suggested she had `` a profile on a website for seekers of Russian brides . ''
Last year CBS News `` uncovered a possible pay-for-play scheme involving the Republican National Committee and President Trump 's nominee for ambassador @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CBS News show the nominee , San Diego billionaire Doug Manchester , was asked by the RNC to donate half a million dollars as his confirmation in the Senate hung in the balance . ''
There are 26 nominations in total , just today .

President Donald Trump is rewarding more than two dozen current and former administration officials and others with prestigious government appointments on his way out of office – including his current Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, his former campaign manager and Senior Counselor, Kellyanne Conway, and campaign surrogate, lobbyist Matt Schlapp.
Also on the list, a billionaire hotelier reportedly linked to "a possible pay-for-play scheme" with the RNC.
The nominations, announced Tuesday, appear to mirror reports that say the president is preparing a flood of pardons, even to people who have never asked for them, merely because he can.
Trump nominated Kellyanne Conway to the Board of Visitors to the United States Air Force Academy. The Board acts as a board of governors, and "inquires into the morale, discipline, curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, academic methods and other matters relating to the Academy which the Board decides to consider."
Conway, according to the Office of Special Counsel, has broken federal law so frequently she was recommended for "removal" from her White House position by the federal watchdog agency. Trump ignored the recommendation.
Trump nominated Secretary Elaine Chao to be a Member of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The appointment carries a six-year term.
Also nominated to the Kennedy Center is Lynn Friess, wife of major Republican donor Foster Friess.
Lobbyist Matt Schlapp, the head of the American Conservative Union, which operates the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), was nominated by Trump to be a Member of the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board. According to Bloomberg the LoC Trust Fund Board "operates as a federal board governing funds donated to the Library of Congress. The Board deposits the incoming money with the Secretary of the Treasury and the librarian of the Library of Congress may distribute the money. LoC Trust Fund Board holds the power to invest, reinvest, and retain investments as well."
Schlapp's wife, Mercedes Schlapp, was a White House communications official who left to work for the Trump campaign. Chao is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Also on today's list, billionaire hotelier, real estate developer, GOP donor, and failed ambassador nominee Douglas "Papa Doug" Manchester. Manchester was nominated to the Kennedy Center Board as well. A scathing January 2020 article detailed his lavish lifestyle and divorces, including from a Russian immigrant. That article suggested she had "a profile on a website for seekers of Russian brides."
Last year CBS News "uncovered a possible pay-for-play scheme involving the Republican National Committee and President Trump's nominee for ambassador to the Bahamas. Emails obtained by CBS News show the nominee, San Diego billionaire Doug Manchester, was asked by the RNC to donate half a million dollars as his confirmation in the Senate hung in the balance."
There are 26 nominations in total, just today.