thenation--2020-11-30--The Last Few Years Have Spelled a Resounding End to the ‘Jewish Vote’

For many American Jews , the 2020 presidential election marks the end of two pillars of their political identity .
The first is the very idea of a Jewish community .
There is not one ; there are several , and they are growing ever more in conflict with one another .
The second is the death of the two-state solution and , with it , the dream that one can marry one ’ s Zionism to one ’ s liberalism .
First things first : Jews largely remain very liberal .
J Street , a nonprofit advocacy group that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” commissioned exit polling of Jewish voters and found a 77-21 percent preference for Joe Biden over Donald Trump .
But Florida and the odd urban congressional district aside , Jewish votes rarely matter much .
Jews constitute about 2 percent of the US population—not much more than Muslims .
They vote the way most college- and graduate-school-educated urban-ish dwellers do : Democratic .
Also , just 5 percent of Jews chose “ Israel ” as their first or second most important issue—and , being Jews , they disagree on that topic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plays in our politics , however , votes are not the real story .
Jewish campaign cash carries far more weight .
While conservatives never tire of blaming the liberal financier and philanthropist George Soros for the world ’ s ills , the right-wing Sheldon Adelson actually lives up to virtually every anti-Semitic stereotype ever invented .
A gambling magnate with a Trump-like record for business shenanigans , this self-proclaimed “ richest Jew in the world ” devotes hundreds of millions of dollars to buying up politicians and the press and demanding that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
How Do You Cover an Administration That Has Lost Touch With Reality ?
It ’ s no wonder that Republican politicians travel to Las Vegas to kiss Adelson ’ s ring .
According to preliminary Federal Election Commission data , compiled by OpenSecrets , he and his Israeli American wife , Miriam Adelson , ponied up over $ 183 million in the 2020 cycle .
No other contributor comes close—and that includes the $ 100 million Michael Bloomberg committed to Biden ’ s failed campaigns in Florida , Ohio , and Texas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of Sheldon Adelson ’ s political giving .
These contributions should be viewed partly as a thank-you and partly as an investment in the politics that , under Trump , has delivered the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem , the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights , the unashamed encouragement of Israel ’ s massive settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank , and a cutoff of US aid to the Palestinians .
( Trump threw in a Presidential Medal of Freedom for Miriam Adelson as well .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ many of the increasingly conservative 10 percent of American Jews who identify as Orthodox , but the real political payoff is with evangelical Christians .
Saying the quiet part out loud once again , Trump complained at an August campaign rally , “ You know , it ’ s amazing with that—the evangelicals are more excited by [ moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem ] than Jewish people.
” This is consistent with Trump ’ s and his party ’ s embrace of anti-Semitism as an electoral and governing tactic .
And Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As Rabbi Eric Yoffie , a former president of the Union for Reform Judaism , wrote , “ Following President Trump ’ s now infamous ‘ stand back and stand by ’ comment , directed at the far right and anti-Semitic Proud Boys militia , even the Republican side of the aisle offered mild words of rebuke.
” But the Republican Jewish Coalition , the rabbi pointed out , “ had only words of praise for Trump.
” In 2016 , Norm Coleman , now the national chair of the RJC , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Star-Tribune , “ I won ’ t vote for Donald Trump…because of who he is .
A bigot .
A misogynist .
A fraud .
A bully.
” Coleman then added , “ Any man who declines to renounce the affections of the KKK and David Duke should not be trusted to lead America .
Ever.
” Today , however , it ’ s fine for Trump to embrace the Proud Boys , a group the Anti-Defamation League describes as “ violent , nationalistic , Islamophobic , transphobic and misogynistic.
” One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kyle Chapman , recently said , “ We will confront the Zionist criminals who wish to destroy our civilization ” and announced his desire to change the group ’ s name to Proud Goys .
Then there are the Trump advertisements that evoke age-old anti-Semitic tropes .
How else to interpret the figure of the Jewish Bernie Sanders dangling a Biden puppet ?
Or the warm welcome the GOP has given the anti-Semitic QAnon conspiracist and soon-to-be Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia , who tweeted , regarding that state ’ s upcoming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are not up for sale to Soros , Bloomberg , Hollywood , and Stacey Abrams.
” Another group that appears OK with the anti-Semitism-for-pro-Israelism trade-off , alas , is Israeli Jews , among whom Trump ’ s 70-13 percent polling matches his support among evangelicals .
One can confidently predict that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Republicans will resort to demagoguery every time the Biden administration does not defer to the Likud party ’ s racist and reactionary priorities .
Theatrics aside , right-wing Israelis have nothing to worry about .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that could conceivably persuade Israel to reconsider its democratic death march toward permanent apartheid would be the conditioning of US aid on a 180-degree reversal of its current political path .
But Biden rejects this notion out of hand .
In addition , much of the Arab world is focused on the threat from Iran and is now willing to entertain peace with Israel .
This has left the Palestinians with little leverage to achieve any independent political rights , whether via statehood or some other institutional arrangement .
After longtime Palestinian peace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family received condolences from former diplomats and Jewish peace groups .
They might as well have been mourning the prospect of peace itself .

This article appears in the December 14/21, 2020 issue.
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For many American Jews, the 2020 presidential election marks the end of two pillars of their political identity. The first is the very idea of a Jewish community. There is not one; there are several, and they are growing ever more in conflict with one another.
The second is the death of the two-state solution and, with it, the dream that one can marry one’s Zionism to one’s liberalism.
First things first: Jews largely remain very liberal. J Street, a nonprofit advocacy group that describes itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace,” commissioned exit polling of Jewish voters and found a 77-21 percent preference for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. But Florida and the odd urban congressional district aside, Jewish votes rarely matter much. Jews constitute about 2 percent of the US population—not much more than Muslims. They vote the way most college- and graduate-school-educated urban-ish dwellers do: Democratic. Also, just 5 percent of Jews chose “Israel” as their first or second most important issue—and, being Jews, they disagree on that topic, too.
Given the role money plays in our politics, however, votes are not the real story. Jewish campaign cash carries far more weight. While conservatives never tire of blaming the liberal financier and philanthropist George Soros for the world’s ills, the right-wing Sheldon Adelson actually lives up to virtually every anti-Semitic stereotype ever invented. A gambling magnate with a Trump-like record for business shenanigans, this self-proclaimed “richest Jew in the world” devotes hundreds of millions of dollars to buying up politicians and the press and demanding that both adhere to his Likud party line. More From Eric Alterman Conservative Jews Made a Terrible Bargain With Trump and the Right Over Israel December 21, 2022 Todd Gitlin Told His Truth Everywhere He Went February 8, 2022 Why the Media No Longer Cares About Nicaragua September 28, 2021
It’s no wonder that Republican politicians travel to Las Vegas to kiss Adelson’s ring. According to preliminary Federal Election Commission data, compiled by OpenSecrets, he and his Israeli American wife, Miriam Adelson, ponied up over $183 million in the 2020 cycle. No other contributor comes close—and that includes the $100 million Michael Bloomberg committed to Biden’s failed campaigns in Florida, Ohio, and Texas. Moreover, the figure is just part of Sheldon Adelson’s political giving. These contributions should be viewed partly as a thank-you and partly as an investment in the politics that, under Trump, has delivered the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the unashamed encouragement of Israel’s massive settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, and a cutoff of US aid to the Palestinians. (Trump threw in a Presidential Medal of Freedom for Miriam Adelson as well.)
These policies no doubt appeal to many of the increasingly conservative 10 percent of American Jews who identify as Orthodox, but the real political payoff is with evangelical Christians. Saying the quiet part out loud once again, Trump complained at an August campaign rally, “You know, it’s amazing with that—the evangelicals are more excited by [moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem] than Jewish people.” This is consistent with Trump’s and his party’s embrace of anti-Semitism as an electoral and governing tactic. And Republican Jewish groups seem totally cool with this. As Rabbi Eric Yoffie, a former president of the Union for Reform Judaism, wrote, “Following President Trump’s now infamous ‘stand back and stand by’ comment, directed at the far right and anti-Semitic Proud Boys militia, even the Republican side of the aisle offered mild words of rebuke.” But the Republican Jewish Coalition, the rabbi pointed out, “had only words of praise for Trump.” Current Issue View our current issue
In 2016, Norm Coleman, now the national chair of the RJC, wrote in an op-ed for Minnesota’s Star-Tribune, “I won’t vote for Donald Trump…because of who he is. A bigot. A misogynist. A fraud. A bully.” Coleman then added, “Any man who declines to renounce the affections of the KKK and David Duke should not be trusted to lead America. Ever.” Today, however, it’s fine for Trump to embrace the Proud Boys, a group the Anti-Defamation League describes as “violent, nationalistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and misogynistic.” One of the group’s leaders, Kyle Chapman, recently said, “We will confront the Zionist criminals who wish to destroy our civilization” and announced his desire to change the group’s name to Proud Goys. Then there are the Trump advertisements that evoke age-old anti-Semitic tropes. How else to interpret the figure of the Jewish Bernie Sanders dangling a Biden puppet? Or the warm welcome the GOP has given the anti-Semitic QAnon conspiracist and soon-to-be Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who tweeted, regarding that state’s upcoming runoff elections, “Our Senate seats are not up for sale to Soros, Bloomberg, Hollywood, and Stacey Abrams.”
Another group that appears OK with the anti-Semitism-for-pro-Israelism trade-off, alas, is Israeli Jews, among whom Trump’s 70-13 percent polling matches his support among evangelicals. One can confidently predict that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Republicans will resort to demagoguery every time the Biden administration does not defer to the Likud party’s racist and reactionary priorities. Theatrics aside, right-wing Israelis have nothing to worry about. The only weapon in the US arsenal that could conceivably persuade Israel to reconsider its democratic death march toward permanent apartheid would be the conditioning of US aid on a 180-degree reversal of its current political path. But Biden rejects this notion out of hand.
In addition, much of the Arab world is focused on the threat from Iran and is now willing to entertain peace with Israel. This has left the Palestinians with little leverage to achieve any independent political rights, whether via statehood or some other institutional arrangement. After longtime Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat died recently, his family received condolences from former diplomats and Jewish peace groups. They might as well have been mourning the prospect of peace itself.


thenation--2020-11-30--How Monopolies Have Taken Over Our Everyday Lives

In the morning , I shower right after I wake up .
I choose from a number of products to clean myself , yet they are made by just two companies : Unilever and Johnson & Johnson .
I brush my teeth with a toothbrush and toothpaste made by Procter & Gamble but sold under the separate brands Oral-B and Crest .
Before I eat breakfast , because I have Type 1 diabetes , I take insulin , a drug that , because of pharmaceutical consolidation and anticompetitive patent hoarding allowed to run amok , cost about $ 20 for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 275 .
Lunch isn ’ t any better .
The peanut butter for my sandwich almost certainly comes from one of three companies ; same with the jelly .
We all have “ choices , ” but do we really get to choose ?
Monopolized : Life in the Age of Corporate Power Once you put on your “ monopoly decoder ring , ” David Dayen writes in his new book Monopolized : Life in the Age of Corporate Power , you start to see how this power influences every part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ baby formula monopoly : Three companies—Abbott Laboratories ( which makes Similac ) , Reckitt Benckiser ( which makes Enfamil ) , and Nestlé—control about 95 percent of the US market .
It even follows us after our deaths : Service Corporation International keeps buying up funeral homes and now earns more than $ 1 out of every $ 5 in profit from funeral services , and two companies , Hillenbrand and Matthews , make 82 percent of the country ’ s coffins and caskets .
Some monopolies have become so obvious that everyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to fly anywhere in the United States , you basically have four choices , all of which offer increasingly bad service .
If you want cable and Internet , you usually have only one or two high-cost options and no power to fight back when the company tells you a technician will be coming anywhere between 8 am and 8 pm to set it up .
If you want to search for information or buy something on the Internet , there ’ s one choice for each that dominates all the rest : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up in all sorts of unexpected places .
Match Group , the parent company that owns Match.com , also owns OkCupid , Tinder , and Hinge .
Berkshire Hathaway , the holding company empire of billionaire Warren Buffett , owns brands as diverse as Duracell , Dairy Queen , Benjamin Moore , and Fruit of the Loom .
The coffee brands Caribou , Peet ’ s , Intelligentsia , and Stumptown are all owned or partly controlled by the European firm JAB .
Our country is saturated with monopolies , but some might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dayen shows , monopolies make it harder for workers to wield power when there are fewer and fewer employers to choose from .
They make the economy less dynamic and innovative .
They make society less equal , and by amassing so many resources , they are able to amass power to protect those resources .
Monopolies are even a threat to our very democracy , drowning out the voices of the people .
Worries about monopolies date as far back as ad 483 .
At the beginning of his book , Dayen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one may presume to exercise a monopoly of any kind.
” Going as far back as the railroad barons of the 19th century , Americans have worried about the ill effects of economic consolidation .
Theodore Roosevelt famously took them on as a populist trustbuster .
The Granger farmers ’ movement and Progressive era activists fought monopolies .
Dayen mentions much of this history , but his aim is not simply to recount it or engage in the contemporary debates over the ways monopolies warp our economy and our society ; instead , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through real , human stories .
Corporate concentration and antitrust regulation can sound like dry issues .
Dayen seeks to remind us of the very real consequences they have in our everyday lives .
The stories he tells can often be heartbreaking .
There ’ s Travis Bornstein , whose son , Tyler Bornstein , died of a heroin overdose at 23 after getting hooked on opioids that were prescribed for his elbow surgery when he was 18 .
Rather than call an ambulance or take him to a hospital , the friend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dumped him in a vacant lot in Akron , Ohio , and fled .
“ You can ’ t prepare to lose a child , ” Travis Bornstein tells Dayen .
“ I felt like I failed as a father.
” But the Bornsteins were failed by the rampant cartelization and concentration in the pharmaceutical industry : Tyler Bornstein ’ s death is one of over 200,000 related to opioids since OxyContin , manufactured by one of the Big Pharma companies , was introduced in 1996 .
OxyContin , Dayen insists , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in an industry in which , as he puts it , “ monopolies at every stage of the supply chain placed their bottom lines ahead of the health of the recipients of those drugs.
” For example , “ If you have glaucoma , the reason liquid from your eye drops constantly rolls down your cheeks is that companies deliberately make the drop larger than the human eye can hold .
Every milliliter that falls out of your eye represents a tiny profit , and it adds up.
” Dayen also introduces us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ farmer in Iowa whose farm has been so battered by agricultural monopolies that his daughter , who grew up aspiring to join the family business , had to find work at a hotel instead .
After several generations of farmers , “ I ’ m it , ” he tells Dayen .
“ This is the dead end .
You know , it ’ s sad.
” It ’ s hard for Petersen to compete with concentrated animal feeding operations , which shove thousands of hogs into giant feedlots without sunlight and with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cutting has sent hog prices plummeting .
As Dayen notes , four hog firms control two-thirds of today ’ s market .
We also meet Kate Hanni , who , with her husband and two children , was stuck on a grounded American Airlines flight in 2006 for nine hours without food or water , watching mothers use barf bags for diapers and others puke into them as the smell of overflowing bathrooms wafted through the cabin .
The airline refused to let passengers off because doing so would have cost it money @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even tried to flash SOS signs through the window with his cell phone .
One might wonder if this is an isolated incident .
But the entire industry is dominated by just four major airlines , and as Dayen writes , “ as long as passengers have nowhere else to go , there ’ s no incentive to fix a perpetually broken system , ” one in which long flight delays are frequent and the service gets worse and worse .
In Dana Chisholm ’ s quest for an affordable rental house in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ story of how monopolization in real estate is running rampant : Chisholm eventually rented from the private-equity-backed landlord Starwood Waypoint , one of several Wall Street real estate companies that have become huge players in the rental market .
In 2017 , Starwood Waypoint merged with Invitation Homes and is now the nation ’ s largest rental landlord .
More than 240,000 US homes are now in the hands of investors , mostly private equity firms .
Because they own so many properties , these companies can jack up rents and fees while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that meant appliances that didn ’ t work , no running water in the sink , and a building infested with rats and roaches .
When she contacted the management company , she had to wait months for repairs before getting a Zillow alert for her own house : The management company had listed it for rent even though she had just paid up .
While the stories Dayen offers take place all across the country , from rural areas to Los Angeles ’ s urban sprawl , and involve people in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have the same nugget of truth at their heart : When companies are allowed to keep consolidating , people lose .
Without robust regulation that keeps consolidation in check , corporations will keep laying waste to our economy and our lives .
Dayen wrote his book before the current health crisis but in many ways anticipated it .
Concentrated supply chains are brittle and unable to cope with major disruptions , such as a pandemic that spikes demand for toilet paper and nose swabs alike .
Meat-processing giants that squeeze out smaller players @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are now major Covid-19 hot spots , thanks to a focus on the bottom line instead of higher safety standards and humane worker treatment .
“ Amazingly , ” Dayen writes , “ news deserts correlate with the spread of infectious diseases , as epidemiologists rely on local articles to track outbreaks.
” As Dayen convincingly shows , monopolies are so interwoven in our economy and our lives that there is no escape from them .
But his book also highlights some of the challenges faced by a politics that is primarily focused @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everywhere without pausing to clarify what is anticompetitive behavior and what is just plain old greed , you risk having the concept lose its specific meaning .
Dayen points a finger at the tech monopolies Google and Facebook , for example , for ravaging the media industry by bleeding advertising dollars dry through their dominance of the market .
But there are also other forces pummeling the industry : Wall Street ownership , fickle billionaire backers , and smaller publications ’ struggle to find new sources of revenue .
Meanwhile , the media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such as News Corp , which owns The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post and dozens of other properties ; TV conglomerates that control local news ; and dominant talk radio brands .
Later , in a chapter on private equity , we begin to see how the problem with its quest for acquisitions is not only that it shrinks competition but also that it shifts companies ’ focus from the production and distribution of goods to the maximization of money for investors .
Private equity has , for example , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out discarded brands like Sears and Toys “ R ” Us .
This parasitic relationship seems to be less about monopoly power than avarice and a lack of regulation .
Certainly , private equity funds have bought up companies in a number of sectors , leading to consolidation .
But that ’ s not what happened to these retailers : The hedge funds came in , loaded the companies with debt , got fat off the fees , and then let the companies fail .
Dayen says that his book ’ s ambition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elsewhere but to turn those arguments into a movement .
But a call to action has to be clearly defined .
Likewise , as liberal and left politics in the past demonstrated , alongside anti-monopolist politics must be a program of strong social policies .
Breaking up health insurance cartels , for example , will help lower costs , but it won ’ t ensure health care for all .
Anti-monopolism must define its potential and its limits and be married to other policy interventions .
There is a compelling reason to focus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bipartisan support over the years .
In Tennessee , Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have tried to get rid of state limitations on municipal broadband service that were imposed at the behest of telecom giants .
“ We ’ re aligned on this issue , because it ’ s not theoretical , it ’ s practical , ” says Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke , a Democrat .
“ I ’ m a small-c conservative , ” Christopher Mitchell , a researcher at the Institute for Local Self Reliance , tells Dayen .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they lack broadband is devastating.
” Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib stood with Freedom Caucus leaders Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows in demanding that a military contract monopolist return over $ 16 million in excess funds that it was able to squeeze out of the government .
But it is where bipartisan support ends—on matters of redistribution and universal programs—that the lines are drawn between those seeking economic justice for all and those seeking merely a less tilted field .
One reason anti-monopolism is so popular among a certain set is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to find .
In fact , we often don ’ t need anything new .
“ We know how to handle monopolies , ” Dayen points out , citing existing laws that can protect us against antitrust abuses but that have been misinterpreted or watered down .
To him , this should be at the center of any anti-monopolist movement : restoring these laws with their original power and using them to break up monopolies , block mergers that create future ones , and regulate any that remain as public utilities .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ existing law , ” he adds .
The institutions are also in place , and not just in the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission ( which are supposed to police monopolies and bust trusts ) .
The Federal Communications Commission is supposed to ensure universal , high-speed Internet access under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 .
The Civil Aeronautics Board , created in 1938 , used to keep airlines from getting concentrated while ensuring widespread access to travel .
But if this is all a matter of laws and regulatory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , then why aren ’ t they ?
Here Dayen looks to the underlying politics of monopolization .
“ The mechanisms are clear , ” he writes , but “ getting the political class to enforce them is the stumbling block.
” Some have tried to take on this fight .
Over 750 cities and towns now have some form of community broadband , and advocates are trying to undo state restrictions on expanding it .
Some cities , such as Tulsa , Okla. , and Mesquite , Texas , have placed limits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chains .
Other communities have fought back against prison monopolists that have pushed for the elimination of in-person visitation , forcing family members to pony up for video and phone calls .
But as Dayen notes , without national organization , no national anti-monopoly program stands a chance .
So far , the so-called New Brandeisians and other anti-monopolist legal scholars have mostly remained cloistered in academia and think tanks ; only occasionally do they find themselves speaking at congressional hearings or informing presidential candidates ’ platforms .
Revitalizing America ’ s anti-monopoly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ We are living in an antimonopoly moment , ” Dayen writes hopefully .
Now it must “ become an antimonopoly movement .
”

This article appears in the December 14/21, 2020 issue.
In the morning, I shower right after I wake up. I choose from a number of products to clean myself, yet they are made by just two companies: Unilever and Johnson & Johnson. I brush my teeth with a toothbrush and toothpaste made by Procter & Gamble but sold under the separate brands Oral-B and Crest. Before I eat breakfast, because I have Type 1 diabetes, I take insulin, a drug that, because of pharmaceutical consolidation and anticompetitive patent hoarding allowed to run amok, cost about $20 for a vial in 1996 but now costs $275. Lunch isn’t any better. The peanut butter for my sandwich almost certainly comes from one of three companies; same with the jelly. We all have “choices,” but do we really get to choose? Books in Review Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power By David Dayen Buy this book
Once you put on your “monopoly decoder ring,” David Dayen writes in his new book Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power, you start to see how this power influences every part of our lives. There’s a baby formula monopoly: Three companies—Abbott Laboratories (which makes Similac), Reckitt Benckiser (which makes Enfamil), and Nestlé—control about 95 percent of the US market. It even follows us after our deaths: Service Corporation International keeps buying up funeral homes and now earns more than $1 out of every $5 in profit from funeral services, and two companies, Hillenbrand and Matthews, make 82 percent of the country’s coffins and caskets. Looking for last-minute holiday gifts with a conscience? Check out The Nation Shop and help support The Nation’s journalism while you complete your list.
Some monopolies have become so obvious that everyone can spot them. If you want to fly anywhere in the United States, you basically have four choices, all of which offer increasingly bad service. If you want cable and Internet, you usually have only one or two high-cost options and no power to fight back when the company tells you a technician will be coming anywhere between 8 am and 8 pm to set it up. If you want to search for information or buy something on the Internet, there’s one choice for each that dominates all the rest: Google and Amazon.
But monopolies crop up in all sorts of unexpected places. Match Group, the parent company that owns Match.com, also owns OkCupid, Tinder, and Hinge. Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company empire of billionaire Warren Buffett, owns brands as diverse as Duracell, Dairy Queen, Benjamin Moore, and Fruit of the Loom. The coffee brands Caribou, Peet’s, Intelligentsia, and Stumptown are all owned or partly controlled by the European firm JAB.
Our country is saturated with monopolies, but some might ask, does it matter? As Dayen shows, monopolies make it harder for workers to wield power when there are fewer and fewer employers to choose from. They make the economy less dynamic and innovative. They make society less equal, and by amassing so many resources, they are able to amass power to protect those resources. Monopolies are even a threat to our very democracy, drowning out the voices of the people.
Worries about monopolies date as far back as ad 483. At the beginning of his book, Dayen quotes Emperor Zeno decreeing, “No one may presume to exercise a monopoly of any kind.” Going as far back as the railroad barons of the 19th century, Americans have worried about the ill effects of economic consolidation. Theodore Roosevelt famously took them on as a populist trustbuster. The Granger farmers’ movement and Progressive era activists fought monopolies. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
Dayen mentions much of this history, but his aim is not simply to recount it or engage in the contemporary debates over the ways monopolies warp our economy and our society; instead, he wants to spark a modern movement through real, human stories. Corporate concentration and antitrust regulation can sound like dry issues. Dayen seeks to remind us of the very real consequences they have in our everyday lives. Related Article Is Anti-Monopolism Enough? Gabriel Winant
The stories he tells can often be heartbreaking. There’s Travis Bornstein, whose son, Tyler Bornstein, died of a heroin overdose at 23 after getting hooked on opioids that were prescribed for his elbow surgery when he was 18. Rather than call an ambulance or take him to a hospital, the friend Tyler Bornstein was with when he overdosed dumped him in a vacant lot in Akron, Ohio, and fled. “You can’t prepare to lose a child,” Travis Bornstein tells Dayen. “I felt like I failed as a father.” But the Bornsteins were failed by the rampant cartelization and concentration in the pharmaceutical industry: Tyler Bornstein’s death is one of over 200,000 related to opioids since OxyContin, manufactured by one of the Big Pharma companies, was introduced in 1996.
OxyContin, Dayen insists, is just one stark example of the dangers in an industry in which, as he puts it, “monopolies at every stage of the supply chain placed their bottom lines ahead of the health of the recipients of those drugs.” For example, “If you have glaucoma, the reason liquid from your eye drops constantly rolls down your cheeks is that companies deliberately make the drop larger than the human eye can hold. Every milliliter that falls out of your eye represents a tiny profit, and it adds up.”
Dayen also introduces us to Chris Petersen, a third-generation hog farmer in Iowa whose farm has been so battered by agricultural monopolies that his daughter, who grew up aspiring to join the family business, had to find work at a hotel instead. After several generations of farmers, “I’m it,” he tells Dayen. “This is the dead end. You know, it’s sad.” It’s hard for Petersen to compete with concentrated animal feeding operations, which shove thousands of hogs into giant feedlots without sunlight and with scant room to move, whose cost cutting has sent hog prices plummeting. As Dayen notes, four hog firms control two-thirds of today’s market.
We also meet Kate Hanni, who, with her husband and two children, was stuck on a grounded American Airlines flight in 2006 for nine hours without food or water, watching mothers use barf bags for diapers and others puke into them as the smell of overflowing bathrooms wafted through the cabin. The airline refused to let passengers off because doing so would have cost it money through mandated refunds. One claustrophobic traveler even tried to flash SOS signs through the window with his cell phone.
One might wonder if this is an isolated incident. But the entire industry is dominated by just four major airlines, and as Dayen writes, “as long as passengers have nowhere else to go, there’s no incentive to fix a perpetually broken system,” one in which long flight delays are frequent and the service gets worse and worse.
In Dana Chisholm’s quest for an affordable rental house in Southern California, Dayen gives us a story of how monopolization in real estate is running rampant: Chisholm eventually rented from the private-equity-backed landlord Starwood Waypoint, one of several Wall Street real estate companies that have become huge players in the rental market. In 2017, Starwood Waypoint merged with Invitation Homes and is now the nation’s largest rental landlord. More than 240,000 US homes are now in the hands of investors, mostly private equity firms. Because they own so many properties, these companies can jack up rents and fees while slow-walking upkeep and repairs. For Chisholm, that meant appliances that didn’t work, no running water in the sink, and a building infested with rats and roaches. When she contacted the management company, she had to wait months for repairs before getting a Zillow alert for her own house: The management company had listed it for rent even though she had just paid up.
While the stories Dayen offers take place all across the country, from rural areas to Los Angeles’s urban sprawl, and involve people in very different communities and careers, they have the same nugget of truth at their heart: When companies are allowed to keep consolidating, people lose. Without robust regulation that keeps consolidation in check, corporations will keep laying waste to our economy and our lives.
Dayen wrote his book before the current health crisis but in many ways anticipated it. Concentrated supply chains are brittle and unable to cope with major disruptions, such as a pandemic that spikes demand for toilet paper and nose swabs alike. Meat-processing giants that squeeze out smaller players through aggressive line speeds and cost cutting are now major Covid-19 hot spots, thanks to a focus on the bottom line instead of higher safety standards and humane worker treatment. “Amazingly,” Dayen writes, “news deserts correlate with the spread of infectious diseases, as epidemiologists rely on local articles to track outbreaks.”
As Dayen convincingly shows, monopolies are so interwoven in our economy and our lives that there is no escape from them. But his book also highlights some of the challenges faced by a politics that is primarily focused on monopoly. If you see it everywhere without pausing to clarify what is anticompetitive behavior and what is just plain old greed, you risk having the concept lose its specific meaning.
Dayen points a finger at the tech monopolies Google and Facebook, for example, for ravaging the media industry by bleeding advertising dollars dry through their dominance of the market. But there are also other forces pummeling the industry: Wall Street ownership, fickle billionaire backers, and smaller publications’ struggle to find new sources of revenue. Meanwhile, the media industry itself is dotted with monopolies, such as News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post and dozens of other properties; TV conglomerates that control local news; and dominant talk radio brands. Later, in a chapter on private equity, we begin to see how the problem with its quest for acquisitions is not only that it shrinks competition but also that it shifts companies’ focus from the production and distribution of goods to the maximization of money for investors. Private equity has, for example, fed upon the retail sector and spit out discarded brands like Sears and Toys “R” Us. This parasitic relationship seems to be less about monopoly power than avarice and a lack of regulation. Certainly, private equity funds have bought up companies in a number of sectors, leading to consolidation. But that’s not what happened to these retailers: The hedge funds came in, loaded the companies with debt, got fat off the fees, and then let the companies fail.
Dayen says that his book’s ambition is not to rehash economic arguments made elsewhere but to turn those arguments into a movement. But a call to action has to be clearly defined. Likewise, as liberal and left politics in the past demonstrated, alongside anti-monopolist politics must be a program of strong social policies. Breaking up health insurance cartels, for example, will help lower costs, but it won’t ensure health care for all. Anti-monopolism must define its potential and its limits and be married to other policy interventions.
There is a compelling reason to focus on anti-monopolist politics, which has garnered bipartisan support over the years. In Tennessee, Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have tried to get rid of state limitations on municipal broadband service that were imposed at the behest of telecom giants. “We’re aligned on this issue, because it’s not theoretical, it’s practical,” says Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke, a Democrat. “I’m a small-c conservative,” Christopher Mitchell, a researcher at the Institute for Local Self Reliance, tells Dayen. “The idea of a family moving because they lack broadband is devastating.” Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib stood with Freedom Caucus leaders Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows in demanding that a military contract monopolist return over $16 million in excess funds that it was able to squeeze out of the government. But it is where bipartisan support ends—on matters of redistribution and universal programs—that the lines are drawn between those seeking economic justice for all and those seeking merely a less tilted field.
One reason anti-monopolism is so popular among a certain set is that the solutions to monopoly power are easy to find. In fact, we often don’t need anything new. “We know how to handle monopolies,” Dayen points out, citing existing laws that can protect us against antitrust abuses but that have been misinterpreted or watered down. To him, this should be at the center of any anti-monopolist movement: restoring these laws with their original power and using them to break up monopolies, block mergers that create future ones, and regulate any that remain as public utilities. That’s all “entirely possible under existing law,” he adds.
The institutions are also in place, and not just in the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (which are supposed to police monopolies and bust trusts). The Federal Communications Commission is supposed to ensure universal, high-speed Internet access under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Civil Aeronautics Board, created in 1938, used to keep airlines from getting concentrated while ensuring widespread access to travel.
But if this is all a matter of laws and regulatory bodies doing the jobs they were given, then why aren’t they? Here Dayen looks to the underlying politics of monopolization. “The mechanisms are clear,” he writes, but “getting the political class to enforce them is the stumbling block.”
Some have tried to take on this fight. Over 750 cities and towns now have some form of community broadband, and advocates are trying to undo state restrictions on expanding it. Some cities, such as Tulsa, Okla., and Mesquite, Texas, have placed limits on the growth of monopoly dollar store chains. Other communities have fought back against prison monopolists that have pushed for the elimination of in-person visitation, forcing family members to pony up for video and phone calls. But as Dayen notes, without national organization, no national anti-monopoly program stands a chance. So far, the so-called New Brandeisians and other anti-monopolist legal scholars have mostly remained cloistered in academia and think tanks; only occasionally do they find themselves speaking at congressional hearings or informing presidential candidates’ platforms. Revitalizing America’s anti-monopoly tradition requires sparking a broader mobilization. “We are living in an antimonopoly moment,” Dayen writes hopefully. Now it must “become an antimonopoly movement.”


thenation--2020-11-30--The Long Roots of Endless War

The Long Roots of Endless War

Shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic struck the United States , a reporter asked Donald Trump if he now considered himself a wartime president .
“ I do .
I actually do , ” he replied .
Swelling with purpose , he opened a press briefing by talking about it .
“ In a true sense , we ’ re at war , ” he said .
Yet the press and pundits rolled their eyes .
“ Wartime president ?
” scoffed The New York Times .
“ It ’ s far from clear if many voters will accept the idea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ His “ attempt to adopt the military mien raised more than a few eyebrows , ” NPR reported .
What few noted at the time is that Trump , of course , was a wartime president , and not in a metaphorical sense .
He presided—and still does—over two ongoing military missions , Operation Freedom ’ s Sentinel in Afghanistan and Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria .
More quietly , thousands of US troops patrol Africa and in recent years have endured casualties in Chad , Kenya , Mali , Niger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sudan .
US planes and drones , meanwhile , fill the skies and since 2015 have killed more than 5,000 people ( and possibly as many as 12,000 ) in Afghanistan , Pakistan , Somalia , and Yemen .
The United States of War : A Global History of America ’ s Endless Conflicts , From Columbus to the Islamic State Why is it so easy to screen these facts out ?
The relatively low number of US casualties plays an obvious role .
Yet surely what matters more is how relentless the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The United States has been fighting in so many places , for so many vaguely defined reasons , that it ’ s easier for some to forget the combat altogether and ask instead whether a virus made Trump a wartime leader .
In two presidential debates , neither candidate even mentioned the fact that the United States is at war .
But it is , and it ’ s unsettling to reflect on just how long the country has been .
Students who entered college this fall have lived their entire lives during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ successor campaigns .
The decade before that saw American deployments in the Gulf War , the Balkan conflicts , Haiti , Macedonia , and Somalia .
In fact , since 1945 , when Washington cast itself as the global peacekeeper , war has been a way of life .
Classifying military engagements can be tricky , but arguably there have been only two years in the past seven and a half decades—1977 and 1979—when the United States was not invading or fighting in some foreign country .
The question is why .
Is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Legislators in the pocket of the military-industrial complex ?
An out-of-control imperial presidency ?
Surely all have played a part .
A revelatory new book by David Vine , The United States of War , names another crucial factor , one that is too often overlooked : military bases .
Since its earliest years , the United States has operated bases in foreign lands .
These have a way of inviting war , both by stoking resentment toward the United States and by encouraging US leaders to respond with force .
As conflicts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leading to a vicious circle .
Bases make wars , which make bases , and so on .
Today , Washington controls some 750 bases in foreign countries and overseas territories .
China , in a telling contrast , has just one foreign base , in Djibouti .
And its military confrontations since the 1970s have been almost entirely limited to border clashes and skirmishes over small islands .
Though a rising power with a huge military , few qualms about violence , and no shortage of possible enemies , China only recently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any combat troops in action .
For the United States , which was fighting in every year of that period , such peace is inconceivable .
The question is whether , by retracting its bases , it could cure itself of the scourge of constant war .
It ’ s easy not to think about the bases .
Look at a map of the United States , and you ’ ll see only the 50 states ; you won ’ t see the hundreds of other sites over which the US flag flies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ served in the military , those tiny dots are barely noticeable .
And they are truly tiny : Mash together all of the overseas bases that the US government admits to controlling , and you ’ d have an area not much larger than Houston .
Yet even a single speck of land controlled by a foreign military can , like a grit of sand in an oyster , be an immense irritant .
In 2007 , Rafael Correa made this clear when , as president of Ecuador , he faced pressure to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in his country .
He told reporters that he ’ d agree on one condition : that he be allowed to put a base in Miami .
“ If there ’ s no problem having foreign soldiers on a country ’ s soil , ” he said , “ surely they ’ ll let us have an Ecuadoran base in the United States.
” Of course , no US president would agree to such a thing .
A foreign military operating a base in Florida or anywhere else in the United States would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the American Frontier As Vine points out , it was precisely this sort of outrage that fueled the creation of the United States in the first place .
The British crown did not just burden its colonists with taxes ; it viscerally angered them by stationing redcoats in the colonies for a war with France .
In the 1760s and ’ 70s , alarming reports of assaults , harassment , theft , and rape by the soldiers were common .
The authors of the Declaration of Independence denounced the king for “ quartering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and exempting them from local laws .
It is not an accident that the Third Amendment to the Constitution—coming before rights concerning fair trials and freedom from unreasonable searches—is the right not to have soldiers quartered on one ’ s property in a time of peace .
A country born of hostility to military bases nevertheless quickly began building its own .
Vine ’ s book shows just how central they have been to US history .
The national anthem , he notes , recounts the story of an Army base , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by British ships in the War of 1812 .
US coastal defenses kept the British incendiary rockets largely out of range , so that despite a barrage of hundreds of “ bombs bursting in air , ” at the end of the combat , “ our flag was still there.
” The British never took Fort McHenry , but US troops during that war seized bases in Canada and Florida .
Andrew Jackson , whose troops won the war ’ s final battle ( fought , awkwardly , two weeks after the peace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ peace by building yet more outposts in the South , from which he waged destructive campaigns against Native nations .
You can tell a similar story about the Civil War .
It began with a Confederate assault on Fort Sumter , an Army post outside Charleston , S.C. And that wasn ’ t the only Fort Sumter of the war , as it happens .
Just as it did in the War of 1812 , the Army used the Civil War as an occasion to push farther into Indian lands .
Its volunteer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Georgia and Virginia but also in Arizona , Nevada , New Mexico , and Utah .
In March 1864 the Army forced some 8,000 Navajos to march 300 miles to Fort Sumter in New Mexico , where they were incarcerated for four years ; at least a quarter died of starvation .
The years during and after the Civil War , Vine shows , saw a flurry of base building west of the Mississippi .
Fort McHenry , Fort Sumter—these are familiar names , and it ’ s not hard to think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like Fort Knox , Fort Lauderdale , Fort Wayne , and Fort Worth .
“ Why are there so many places named Fort ?
” Vine asks .
The answer is obvious yet unnerving : They were military installations .
Some , like Fort Sumter in South Carolina , were built on the coast and designed for defense .
Yet far more , like Fort Sumter in New Mexico , were placed inland , near Native lands .
They were intended not for defense but offense—for fighting , trading with , and policing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than 400 populated places in the United States whose name contains the word “ fort.
” The presence of forts was not limited to North America .
As the United States took territories overseas , it built still more bases , such as Fort Shafter in Hawaii , Fort McKinley in the Philippines , and a naval base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba .
Yet again , the vicious circle held .
All over the Philippine archipelago , the Army built forts and camps to extend its reach , and those bases then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a group of 500 irate townspeople in Balangiga stormed an Army encampment in 1899 and killed 45 soldiers there .
That attack provoked a bloody campaign of slaughter , with US soldiers under orders to kill any Filipino male over the age of 10 who didn ’ t turn himself over to the government .
Four decades later , the pattern continued .
Japan launched an all-out attack on a series of US bases in the Pacific , most famously Pearl Harbor in Hawaii .
The United States responded by entering World War @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and dropping two atomic bombs .
The war , by its end , had positioned the United States as “ the most powerful nation , perhaps , in all history , ” as President Harry Truman put it in a radio address in 1945 .
Measured in bases , this was certainly true .
The number of outposts the United States built during World War II “ defies the imagination , ” one international relations scholar wrote at the time .
An oft-cited count puts the US overseas base inventory at 30,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the war .
The troops posted to them were so entranced by their sudden access to all corners of the earth that they came up with a graffiti tag , “ Kilroy was here , ” to proudly mark the many improbable places they ’ d been .
Inhabitants of the base-strewn countries had a different slogan : “ Yankee , go home !
” Would the Yankees go home at the end of World War II ?
Perhaps .
The Axis powers had been crushed , leaving little chance of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might plausibly threaten the United States was the Soviet Union .
But the two countries had fought side by side , and if they could continue to tolerate each other , the war-bruised world might finally see peace .
Peace did not come , however , and the reason it didn ’ t is that the two superpowers learned to interpret each other as existential threats .
Histories often emphasize the role of the diplomat George Kennan in firming up US fears .
In early 1946 he sent a highly influential cable arguing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instinctive Russian sense of insecurity ” could never allow for peace .
Moscow was a menace , he argued , and its actions must be systematically opposed .
Less is usually heard about the Soviet side .
After Kennan ’ s long telegram was intercepted , Stalin ordered his ambassador in Washington , Nikolai Novikov , to prepare a parallel assessment , which was ghostwritten by Vyacheslav Molotov , the Soviet minister of foreign affairs .
Molotov believed the United States was bent on “ world domination ” and preparing for a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The evidence ?
He pointed to the hundreds of overseas bases Washington held and the hundreds more it sought to build .
That ’ s the thing about bases , Vine argues .
In the eyes of US leaders , they seem innocuous .
But for those living in their shadow , they are often terrifying .
Khrushchev would make that point , when vacationing on the Black Sea , by handing his guests binoculars and asking them what they saw .
When they replied that they saw nothing , Khrushchev grabbed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ horizon , and said , “ I see U.S. missiles in Turkey , aimed at my dacha.
” He wasn ’ t the only one to fear US aggression .
After the CIA tried and failed to overthrow Fidel Castro ’ s socialist government in Cuba , Castro looked to the Soviet Union for protection .
Khrushchev offered to deploy missiles to Soviet bases in Cuba .
Beyond protecting an ally , Khrushchev saw this as a way to give his adversaries “ a little taste of their own medicine.
” As he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surrounded our country with military bases and threatened us with nuclear weapons , and now they would learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointed at you.
” They did learn , and they were horrified .
John F. Kennedy moaned that it was “ just as if we suddenly began to put a major number of MRBMs [ medium-range ballistic missiles ] in Turkey.
” “ Well , we did , Mr. President , ” his national security adviser reminded him .
In fact , Kennedy was the one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Turkish bases .
After a 13-day standoff— “ the closest the world has come to nuclear Armageddon , ” Vine writes—Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed to disarm their bases .
Historians call this harrowing event the Cuban Missile Crisis , but should they ?
The name puts the focus on Cuba , implicitly blaming the near cataclysm on Castro and Khrushchev .
Kennedy ’ s earlier stationing of missiles in Turkey slips quietly into the background of the story , as part of the natural order of things .
After all , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bases that Kennedy could forget he had even put missiles in Turkey .
Calling the event the Turkish Missile Crisis might better drive home Vine ’ s point : There is nothing natural about a country maintaining an enormous system of military bases in other nations .
Even after the US bases in Turkey almost triggered a nuclear war , military leaders struggled to grasp how politically volatile bases could be .
When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 , the United States moved thousands of troops into Saudi Arabia , including to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s east coast .
The idea was to use Saudi bases to push back Hussein ’ s forces , but as usual , the presence of US troops on foreign soil kicked up considerable resentment .
“ It is unconscionable to let the country become an American colony with American soldiers—their filthy feet roaming everywhere , ” fumed one Saudi , Osama bin Laden .
“ After the danger is over , our forces will go home , ” then–Defense Secretary Dick Cheney promised the Saudi government .
But the troops stayed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and resentment flared .
In 1996 a bomb near Dhahran killed 19 US Air Force personnel .
It ’ s not entirely clear who was responsible , although bin Laden claimed responsibility .
Two years later , on the eighth anniversary of the arrival of US troops at Dhahran , bin Laden ’ s Al Qaeda set off bombs at the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania , killing more than 200 people .
On September 11 , 2001 , Al Qaeda hijackers flew planes into the Pentagon ( “ a military base @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) and the World Trade Center .
“ Why do they hate us ?
” terrorism expert Richard Clarke asked after the attacks .
Bin Laden ’ s reasons were multiple , but bases loomed large in his thought .
“ Your forces occupy our countries ; you spread your military bases throughout them ; you corrupt our lands , and you besiege our sanctuaries , ” he wrote in his “ Letter to America.
” Can the United States free itself from its endlessly recurring wars ?
Deescalating or , as Vine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t be easy .
There is an intricate worldwide system of security pacts built around the US armed forces , there are cadres of civil servants and military strategists who are used to making war , and there are huge defense contractors with lobbying power .
None of those will go away easily .
Yet by identifying the link between bases and war , Vine has found a simple and possibly powerful lever with which to move these large structural forces .
You want peace ?
Close the bases .
Fewer overseas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anger , fewer targets for attacks , and fewer inducements for Washington to solve its problems by using force .
Vine doesn ’ t believe that shrinking the base system would prevent US wars entirely , but his case that doing so would significantly calm the waters is hard to gainsay .
Reducing the US military footprint would help in other ways , too .
In his previous book Base Nation , Vine calculated that overseas bases cost taxpayers more than $ 70 billion annually .
In United States of War , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Because of their propensity to encourage war , cutting back on the number of overseas bases would likely reduce other military costs , putting a further dent in US taxpayers ’ enormous $ 1.25 trillion annual military bill .
The amount the United States has spent on its post-9/11 wars , Vine writes , could have funded health care to adulthood plus two years of Head Start for every one of the 13 million children living in poverty in the United States , as well as public college scholarships for 28 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for 1 million veterans , and 10 years of salaries for 4 million people working in clean energy jobs .
Was that trade-off even remotely worth it ?
By now , a majority of US adults think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting .
A majority of veterans feel that way , too .
And what of such countries as Niger , where Vine counts eight US bases and where four US soldiers died in an ambush in 2017 ?
Given that key senators reported not even knowing there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s hard to imagine a groundswell of popular support for the nebulous mission there .
The public is weary of war and seems to have little fondness for—or even awareness of—the overseas bases that keep the fighting going .
Trump repeatedly threatened to close some of them to fund his wall .
Vine has little sympathy for the president but regards Trump ’ s airing of “ once-heretical views ” as symptomatic of a growing dissatisfaction with the status quo .
The question is whether Joe Biden , a three-time chair of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and respond to that dissatisfaction .
Biden should .
We ’ re long overdue for a new US foreign policy , one that regards war as a terrible exception requiring justification rather than as a taken-for-granted background condition .
Trump was , like all of his predecessors for decades , a wartime president .
Let ’ s hope the coming years bring us something far rarer : a peacetime one .

This article appears in the December 14/21, 2020 issue.
Shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic struck the United States, a reporter asked Donald Trump if he now considered himself a wartime president. “I do. I actually do,” he replied. Swelling with purpose, he opened a press briefing by talking about it. “In a true sense, we’re at war,” he said. Yet the press and pundits rolled their eyes. “Wartime president?” scoffed The New York Times. “It’s far from clear if many voters will accept the idea of him as a wartime leader.” His “attempt to adopt the military mien raised more than a few eyebrows,” NPR reported. What few noted at the time is that Trump, of course, was a wartime president, and not in a metaphorical sense. He presided—and still does—over two ongoing military missions, Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in Afghanistan and Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria. More quietly, thousands of US troops patrol Africa and in recent years have endured casualties in Chad, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan. US planes and drones, meanwhile, fill the skies and since 2015 have killed more than 5,000 people (and possibly as many as 12,000) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Books in Review The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, From Columbus to the Islamic State By David Vine Buy this book
Why is it so easy to screen these facts out? The relatively low number of US casualties plays an obvious role. Yet surely what matters more is how relentless the slow drip of news reporting is. The United States has been fighting in so many places, for so many vaguely defined reasons, that it’s easier for some to forget the combat altogether and ask instead whether a virus made Trump a wartime leader. In two presidential debates, neither candidate even mentioned the fact that the United States is at war.
But it is, and it’s unsettling to reflect on just how long the country has been. Students who entered college this fall have lived their entire lives during the Global War on Terrorism and its successor campaigns. The decade before that saw American deployments in the Gulf War, the Balkan conflicts, Haiti, Macedonia, and Somalia. In fact, since 1945, when Washington cast itself as the global peacekeeper, war has been a way of life. Classifying military engagements can be tricky, but arguably there have been only two years in the past seven and a half decades—1977 and 1979—when the United States was not invading or fighting in some foreign country.
The question is why. Is it something deep-seated in the culture? Legislators in the pocket of the military-industrial complex? An out-of-control imperial presidency? Surely all have played a part. A revelatory new book by David Vine, The United States of War, names another crucial factor, one that is too often overlooked: military bases. Since its earliest years, the United States has operated bases in foreign lands. These have a way of inviting war, both by stoking resentment toward the United States and by encouraging US leaders to respond with force. As conflicts mount, the military builds more, leading to a vicious circle. Bases make wars, which make bases, and so on. Today, Washington controls some 750 bases in foreign countries and overseas territories.
China, in a telling contrast, has just one foreign base, in Djibouti. And its military confrontations since the 1970s have been almost entirely limited to border clashes and skirmishes over small islands. Though a rising power with a huge military, few qualms about violence, and no shortage of possible enemies, China only recently broke its decades-long streak of not losing any combat troops in action. For the United States, which was fighting in every year of that period, such peace is inconceivable. The question is whether, by retracting its bases, it could cure itself of the scourge of constant war. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
It’s easy not to think about the bases. Look at a map of the United States, and you’ll see only the 50 states; you won’t see the hundreds of other sites over which the US flag flies. For those who haven’t served in the military, those tiny dots are barely noticeable. And they are truly tiny: Mash together all of the overseas bases that the US government admits to controlling, and you’d have an area not much larger than Houston.
Yet even a single speck of land controlled by a foreign military can, like a grit of sand in an oyster, be an immense irritant. In 2007, Rafael Correa made this clear when, as president of Ecuador, he faced pressure to renew the lease on a US base in his country. He told reporters that he’d agree on one condition: that he be allowed to put a base in Miami. “If there’s no problem having foreign soldiers on a country’s soil,” he said, “surely they’ll let us have an Ecuadoran base in the United States.” Of course, no US president would agree to such a thing. A foreign military operating a base in Florida or anywhere else in the United States would be an outrage. Related Article The Myth of the American Frontier Jedediah Britton-Purdy
As Vine points out, it was precisely this sort of outrage that fueled the creation of the United States in the first place. The British crown did not just burden its colonists with taxes; it viscerally angered them by stationing redcoats in the colonies for a war with France. In the 1760s and ’70s, alarming reports of assaults, harassment, theft, and rape by the soldiers were common. The authors of the Declaration of Independence denounced the king for “quartering large bodies of armed troops among us” and exempting them from local laws. It is not an accident that the Third Amendment to the Constitution—coming before rights concerning fair trials and freedom from unreasonable searches—is the right not to have soldiers quartered on one’s property in a time of peace.
A country born of hostility to military bases nevertheless quickly began building its own. Vine’s book shows just how central they have been to US history. The national anthem, he notes, recounts the story of an Army base, Fort McHenry outside Baltimore, under siege by British ships in the War of 1812. US coastal defenses kept the British incendiary rockets largely out of range, so that despite a barrage of hundreds of “bombs bursting in air,” at the end of the combat, “our flag was still there.”
The British never took Fort McHenry, but US troops during that war seized bases in Canada and Florida. Andrew Jackson, whose troops won the war’s final battle (fought, awkwardly, two weeks after the peace treaty was signed), followed the peace by building yet more outposts in the South, from which he waged destructive campaigns against Native nations.
You can tell a similar story about the Civil War. It began with a Confederate assault on Fort Sumter, an Army post outside Charleston, S.C. And just as it did in the War of 1812, the Army used the Civil War as an occasion to push farther into Indian lands. Its volunteer units and other militias fought not only in Georgia and Virginia but also in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. In March 1864 the Army forced some 8,000 Navajos to march 300 miles to Fort Sumner in New Mexico, where they were incarcerated for four years; at least a quarter died of starvation. The years during and after the Civil War, Vine shows, saw a flurry of base building west of the Mississippi. Related Article Is Populism What’s Really Threatening Democracy? Steven Hahn
Fort McHenry, Fort Sumter—these are familiar names, and it’s not hard to think of others throughout the United States, like Fort Knox, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Wayne, and Fort Worth. “Why are there so many places named Fort?” Vine asks.
The answer is obvious yet unnerving: They were military installations. Some, like Fort Sumter in South Carolina, were built on the coast and designed for defense. Yet far more, like Fort Sumner in New Mexico, were placed inland, near Native lands. They were intended not for defense but offense—for fighting, trading with, and policing Indian polities. Today there are more than 400 populated places in the United States whose name contains the word “fort.”
The presence of forts was not limited to North America. As the United States took territories overseas, it built still more bases, such as Fort Shafter in Hawaii, Fort McKinley in the Philippines, and a naval base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Yet again, the vicious circle held. All over the Philippine archipelago, the Army built forts and camps to extend its reach, and those bases then became tempting targets, such as when a group of 500 irate townspeople in Balangiga stormed an Army encampment in 1899 and killed 45 soldiers there. That attack provoked a bloody campaign of slaughter, with US soldiers under orders to kill any Filipino male over the age of 10 who didn’t turn himself over to the government.
Four decades later, the pattern continued. Japan launched an all-out attack on a series of US bases in the Pacific, most famously Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The United States responded by entering World War II, napalming dozens of Japanese cities, and dropping two atomic bombs.
The war, by its end, had positioned the United States as “the most powerful nation, perhaps, in all history,” as President Harry Truman put it in a radio address in 1945. Measured in bases, this was certainly true. The number of outposts the United States built during World War II “defies the imagination,” one international relations scholar wrote at the time. An oft-cited count puts the US overseas base inventory at 30,000 installations on 2,000 sites by the end of the war. The troops posted to them were so entranced by their sudden access to all corners of the earth that they came up with a graffiti tag, “Kilroy was here,” to proudly mark the many improbable places they’d been. Inhabitants of the base-strewn countries had a different slogan: “Yankee, go home!”
Would the Yankees go home at the end of World War II? Perhaps. The Axis powers had been crushed, leaving little chance of a renewed attack. The only power that might plausibly threaten the United States was the Soviet Union. But the two countries had fought side by side, and if they could continue to tolerate each other, the war-bruised world might finally see peace.
Peace did not come, however, and the reason it didn’t is that the two superpowers learned to interpret each other as existential threats. Histories often emphasize the role of the diplomat George Kennan in firming up US fears. In early 1946 he sent a highly influential cable arguing at length that the “traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity” could never allow for peace. Moscow was a menace, he argued, and its actions must be systematically opposed.
Less is usually heard about the Soviet side. After Kennan’s long telegram was intercepted, Stalin ordered his ambassador in Washington, Nikolai Novikov, to prepare a parallel assessment, which was ghostwritten by Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet minister of foreign affairs. Molotov believed the United States was bent on “world domination” and preparing for a “future war” with the Soviet Union. The evidence? He pointed to the hundreds of overseas bases Washington held and the hundreds more it sought to build.
That’s the thing about bases, Vine argues. In the eyes of US leaders, they seem innocuous. But for those living in their shadow, they are often terrifying. Khrushchev would make that point, when vacationing on the Black Sea, by handing his guests binoculars and asking them what they saw. When they replied that they saw nothing, Khrushchev grabbed the binoculars back, peered at the horizon, and said, “I see U.S. missiles in Turkey, aimed at my dacha.”
He wasn’t the only one to fear US aggression. After the CIA tried and failed to overthrow Fidel Castro’s socialist government in Cuba, Castro looked to the Soviet Union for protection. Khrushchev offered to deploy missiles to Soviet bases in Cuba. Beyond protecting an ally, Khrushchev saw this as a way to give his adversaries “a little taste of their own medicine.” As he later explained, “the Americans had surrounded our country with military bases and threatened us with nuclear weapons, and now they would learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointed at you.”
They did learn, and they were horrified. John F. Kennedy moaned that it was “just as if we suddenly began to put a major number of MRBMs [medium-range ballistic missiles] in Turkey.” “Well, we did, Mr. President,” his national security adviser reminded him. In fact, Kennedy was the one who had sent Jupiter missiles to America’s Turkish bases. After a 13-day standoff—“the closest the world has come to nuclear Armageddon,” Vine writes—Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed to disarm their bases.
Historians call this harrowing event the Cuban Missile Crisis, but should they? The name puts the focus on Cuba, implicitly blaming the near cataclysm on Castro and Khrushchev. Kennedy’s earlier stationing of missiles in Turkey slips quietly into the background of the story, as part of the natural order of things. After all, the United States controlled so many armed bases that Kennedy could forget he had even put missiles in Turkey. Calling the event the Turkish Missile Crisis might better drive home Vine’s point: There is nothing natural about a country maintaining an enormous system of military bases in other nations.
Even after the US bases in Turkey almost triggered a nuclear war, military leaders struggled to grasp how politically volatile bases could be. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the United States moved thousands of troops into Saudi Arabia, including to the large Dhahran base on the country’s east coast. The idea was to use Saudi bases to push back Hussein’s forces, but as usual, the presence of US troops on foreign soil kicked up considerable resentment. “It is unconscionable to let the country become an American colony with American soldiers—their filthy feet roaming everywhere,” fumed one Saudi, Osama bin Laden.
“After the danger is over, our forces will go home,” then–Defense Secretary Dick Cheney promised the Saudi government. But the troops stayed on after Hussein’s defeat, and resentment flared. In 1996 a bomb near Dhahran killed 19 US Air Force personnel. It’s not entirely clear who was responsible, although bin Laden claimed responsibility. Two years later, on the eighth anniversary of the arrival of US troops at Dhahran, bin Laden’s Al Qaeda set off bombs at the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than 200 people. On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda hijackers flew planes into the Pentagon (“a military base,” as bin Laden described it) and the World Trade Center.
“Why do they hate us?” terrorism expert Richard Clarke asked after the attacks. Bin Laden’s reasons were multiple, but bases loomed large in his thought. “Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; you corrupt our lands, and you besiege our sanctuaries,” he wrote in his “Letter to America.”
Can the United States free itself from its endlessly recurring wars? Deescalating or, as Vine puts it, “deimperializing” won’t be easy. There is an intricate worldwide system of security pacts built around the US armed forces, there are cadres of civil servants and military strategists who are used to making war, and there are huge defense contractors with lobbying power. None of those will go away easily.
Yet by identifying the link between bases and war, Vine has found a simple and possibly powerful lever with which to move these large structural forces. You want peace? Close the bases. Fewer overseas outposts would mean fewer provocations for foreign anger, fewer targets for attacks, and fewer inducements for Washington to solve its problems by using force. Vine doesn’t believe that shrinking the base system would prevent US wars entirely, but his case that doing so would significantly calm the waters is hard to gainsay.
Reducing the US military footprint would help in other ways, too. In his previous book Base Nation, Vine calculated that overseas bases cost taxpayers more than $70 billion annually. In United States of War, he argues that this figure underestimates their toll. Because of their propensity to encourage war, cutting back on the number of overseas bases would likely reduce other military costs, putting a further dent in US taxpayers’ enormous $1.25 trillion annual military bill. The amount the United States has spent on its post-9/11 wars, Vine writes, could have funded health care to adulthood plus two years of Head Start for every one of the 13 million children living in poverty in the United States, as well as public college scholarships for 28 million students, two decades of health care for 1 million veterans, and 10 years of salaries for 4 million people working in clean energy jobs.
Was that trade-off even remotely worth it? By now, a majority of US adults think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting. A majority of veterans feel that way, too. And what of such countries as Niger, where Vine counts eight US bases and where four US soldiers died in an ambush in 2017? Given that key senators reported not even knowing there were troops in Niger, it’s hard to imagine a groundswell of popular support for the nebulous mission there.
The public is weary of war and seems to have little fondness for—or even awareness of—the overseas bases that keep the fighting going. Trump repeatedly threatened to close some of them to fund his wall. Vine has little sympathy for the president but regards Trump’s airing of “once-heretical views” as symptomatic of a growing dissatisfaction with the status quo. The question is whether Joe Biden, a three-time chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will recognize and respond to that dissatisfaction.
Biden should. We’re long overdue for a new US foreign policy, one that regards war as a terrible exception requiring justification rather than as a taken-for-granted background condition. Trump was, like all of his predecessors for decades, a wartime president. Let’s hope the coming years bring us something far rarer: a peacetime one.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the name of a New Mexico military fort where thousands of Navajos were forcibly moved to in 1864. It is Fort Sumner, not Fort Sumter.


thenation--2020-11-30--The Politics of Maradona’s Iconic ‘Hand of God’ Goal

The death of soccer god and social rebel Diego Maradona has provoked an outpouring of remembrances .
Last week , I wrote about his various political stances , and how he always stood in solidarity with the Global South and against Yanqui imperialism .
Yet there is another part of Maradona ’ s political history that demands examination .
That is the way his politics were reflected in his play .
This is not uncommon in international soccer , where the political language of nationalism runs through the game , but in the annals of the history of the sport @ @ @ @ @ @ @ World Cup , when a 25-year-old Maradona put the country of Argentina on his back to defeat England in the quarterfinals .
Maradona was the star of this World Cup , from which Argentina emerged as victor .
He scored five goals and created five more for teammates .
It was at that quarterfinal match against England on June 22 , 1986 , that Maradona etched his legend in stone .
Argentina won 2-1 in front of 114,000 people in Mexico City , with Maradona scoring both goals .
The first , scored @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infamous “ hand of God ” goal , where the ball caromed off Maradona ’ s left hand , going into the net .
The blatant infraction was missed by the referee .
Maradona said afterward , “ I was waiting for my teammates to embrace me , and no one came.… I told them , ‘ Come hug me , or the referee isn ’ t going to allow it.
’ ” After the match , Maradona told the press that the goal was achieved “ un poco con la cabeza de @ @ @ @ @ @ @ de Dios ” ( “ a little with Maradona ’ s head and a little with the hand of God ” ) .
Thus the goal became stamped throughout the ages as “ the hand of God.
” England still hasn ’ t forgiven either the referee or even Maradona himself , who , even in the aftermath of his recent death , was lambasted on social media by English fans .
Then , a mere four minutes after the hand of God , Maradona scored what has been both called and widely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Century.
” This was an unfathomable 60-yard , 10-second jaunt that started inside his own half , required him to elude four of England ’ s players , and ended leaving England ’ s goaltender Peter Shilton on his ass and Maradona with a goal for the ages .
This triumph of both talent and trickery came at a time when the Argentine military junta was still reeling from its defeat in the Falkland Islands—known in Argentina as Las Islas Malvinas—at the hands of Great Britain .
The battle—never officially proclaimed a war—came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the island , which they believed to be their territory .
Margaret Thatcher ’ s Great Britain , which had been overseeing the islands as part of its own imperial portfolio , sent its navy to take them back .
The resulting battle killed 900 people , most of them Argentinian .
This recent memory supercharged the contest .
( It must be noted that Maradona had no love for the military junta , but still felt the pain of Argentina ’ s defeat . )
As Maradona commented in his 2000 biography @ @ @ @ @ @ @ God goal to the Falklands defeat , saying , We , as Argentinians , didn ’ t know what the military was up to .
They told us that we were winning the war .
But in reality , England was winning 20–0 .
It was tough .
The hype [ for the soccer game ] made it seem like we were going to play out another war .
I knew it was my hand .
It wasn ’ t my plan but the action happened so fast that the linesman didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The referee looked at me and he said : “ Goal.
” It was a nice feeling like some sort of symbolic revenge against the English .
Maradona pointed to the memory of the Falklands to explain why he would never apologize to England for the hand of God goal .
The feeling that it was a slap against Thatcher and the Falklands War continues to this day .
French President Emmanuel Macron was roasted in the British press for praising Maradona upon his death for his defeat of “ Thatcher ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ most geopolitical match in football history.
” Maradona ’ s iconic match against England should remind us that , while there are always efforts to “ keep politics out of sports , ” it is just a stubborn fact that sports is life and life is political .
Maradona was a political icon not only because he stood with the voiceless of the Global South .
He was political because in 1986 he put a nation on his back and , with that devilish left hand , wrote his own chapter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beyond the world of sports .

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The death of soccer god and social rebel Diego Maradona has provoked an outpouring of remembrances. Last week, I wrote about his various political stances, and how he always stood in solidarity with the Global South and against Yanqui imperialism. Yet there is another part of Maradona’s political history that demands examination. That is the way his politics were reflected in his play. This is not uncommon in international soccer, where the political language of nationalism runs through the game, but in the annals of the history of the sport there are few rivals to the 1986 World Cup, when a 25-year-old Maradona put the country of Argentina on his back to defeat England in the quarterfinals.
Maradona was the star of this World Cup, from which Argentina emerged as victor. He scored five goals and created five more for teammates. It was at that quarterfinal match against England on June 22, 1986, that Maradona etched his legend in stone. Argentina won 2-1 in front of 114,000 people in Mexico City, with Maradona scoring both goals. The first, scored in the 51st minute, was the infamous “hand of God” goal, where the ball caromed off Maradona’s left hand, going into the net. The blatant infraction was missed by the referee. Maradona said afterward, “I was waiting for my teammates to embrace me, and no one came.… I told them, ‘Come hug me, or the referee isn’t going to allow it.’”
After the match, Maradona told the press that the goal was achieved “un poco con la cabeza de Maradona y otro poco con la mano de Dios” (“a little with Maradona’s head and a little with the hand of God”). Thus the goal became stamped throughout the ages as “the hand of God.” England still hasn’t forgiven either the referee or even Maradona himself, who, even in the aftermath of his recent death, was lambasted on social media by English fans.
Then, a mere four minutes after the hand of God, Maradona scored what has been both called and widely acknowledged as “the Goal of the Century.” This was an unfathomable 60-yard, 10-second jaunt that started inside his own half, required him to elude four of England’s players, and ended leaving England’s goaltender Peter Shilton on his ass and Maradona with a goal for the ages.
This triumph of both talent and trickery came at a time when Argentina was still reeling from its defeat in the Falkland Islands—known in Argentina as Las Islas Malvinas—at the hands of Great Britain. The battle—never officially proclaimed a war—came when the Argentine armed forces, invaded the island, which they believed to be their territory. Margaret Thatcher’s Great Britain, which had been overseeing the islands as part of its own imperial portfolio, sent its navy to take them back. The resulting battle killed 900 people, most of them Argentinian. This recent memory supercharged the contest. (It must be noted that Maradona had no love for the military junta, but still felt the pain of Argentina’s defeat.) As Maradona commented in his 2000 biography,
Although we had said before the game that football had nothing to do with the Malvinas war, we knew they had killed a lot of Argentine boys there, killed them like little birds. And this was revenge. It was something bigger than us: We were defending our flag.
Maradona also linked his hand of God goal to the Falklands defeat, saying, Current Issue View our current issue
We, as Argentinians, didn’t know what the military was up to. They told us that we were winning the war. But in reality, England was winning 20–0. It was tough. The hype [for the soccer game] made it seem like we were going to play out another war. I knew it was my hand. It wasn’t my plan but the action happened so fast that the linesman didn’t see me putting my hand in. The referee looked at me and he said: “Goal.” It was a nice feeling like some sort of symbolic revenge against the English.
Maradona pointed to the memory of the Falklands to explain why he would never apologize to England for the hand of God goal. The feeling that it was a slap against Thatcher and the Falklands War continues to this day. French President Emmanuel Macron was roasted in the British press for praising Maradona upon his death for his defeat of “Thatcher’s England” in what Macron called the “most geopolitical match in football history.”
Maradona’s iconic match against England should remind us that, while there are always efforts to “keep politics out of sports,” it is just a stubborn fact that sports is life and life is political. Maradona was a political icon not only because he stood with the voiceless of the Global South. He was political because in 1986 he put a nation on his back and, with that devilish left hand, wrote his own chapter in a history with a reach well beyond the world of sports.