What Trump Will Bring

In the pending Trump presidency, there will be no support for Ukraine or Palestinians, and it will be the desperate people of those countries who suffer. That suffering will spill over, from Ukraine into more of Europe, from Palestinian lands into Lebanon and the broader Middle East. Trump’s buddy Vladimir Putin is thrilled. The wealth of Ukraine in natural resources and rich cropland will strengthen the weaknesses of Russia and move Putin closer to seeing his lifelong dream realized, the re-creation of the Soviet empire.

If Trump et al succeed in tearing down the U.S. Constitution and all we stand for, pretty soon the war will be on our land, in our towns and farmland. Communist nations like Russia, Iran, and China will simply walk in through the doors Trump is leaving open.

There will be no acknowledgement of climate change or its inevitable, already-apparent crises as insurance rates skyrocket in a futile effort to mitigate losses from flooding, storms, and other weather extremes. If we’re troubled by immigration now, wait a few more years of uncontrolled climate change when entire nations are unable to house or feed their populations due to floods or lack of agriculture. Do we shoot them at the border? Let them starve?

What would Jesus do?

Most telling will be the nosedive of our economy, not just in the four years of Trump’s legal term of office, but thereafter as his exploitation of U.S. oil reserves undermines our future energy independence. Trump’s ‘drill baby drill’ cries ignore the wisdom of alternative energy. He is simply too stupid to understand why we should use anything but oil even though all known reserves will run out by 2070. Theoretically, we may never run out of oil because, given the depth of the Earth’s core, there will be new wells to discover. That said, it’s highly unlikely that the practice of mining such depths will become economically viable.

Trump’s second presidency will expand on his previous dismissal of health crises preparation which left us vulnerable to the COVID outbreak after he liquidated the pandemic preparedness established by previous presidents. What will happen with the next pandemic? Researchers say there’s as much as a 50 percent chance that we’ll see something like this again in the next twenty-five years. Trump’s lack of intellect leaves the entire nation unprepared.

Even more concerning is his ignorance of history, which allows him to pursue his fantasy of shifting civil service jobs to political appointments in direct violation of the United States Constitution. Traditionally, the civil service has been a sector of government that operates under a merit-based system to ensure that government jobs are filled by the most qualified individuals. This system protects civil servants from political influence and allows them to make independent decisions without fear of reprisal. The civil service is a key part of the constitutional framework because it helps to uphold the rule of law and ensure that the government is run by merit, not political affiliation. Trump’s affection for the idea of government work force composed of loyalists completely overturns this tradition.

Trump doesn’t care what happens in the future as long as he stays out of prison for his multitude of felonies. He doesn’t care about the lives of anyone besides himself. He’s eager to turn over the economy to people like Elon Musk, who acknowledges he is autistic, a condition marked by impaired social interactions, verbal and nonverbal communication deficits, and restricted, repetitive behavior patterns and associated with poor emotional control. To place the future of the U.S. economy in the hands of such a person means loss of critical social support for the weakest and neediest among us. Such suffering would not be a concern to Musk. Or Trump, who, when confronted with the disability of his nephew’s son, famously told his nephew ““Those people…” Donald said, trailing off. “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”

Similarly, Trump has nominated Robert Kennedy Jr. to head the U. S. departments in charge of public health including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Disease Control, and the Food and Drug Administration. But Kennedy has no science or medical background, other than claiming to have had worms in his brain. He also reported that at one point, mercury poisoning in his body reached ten times safe levels. Studies show that high exposure to mercury induces changes in the central nervous system, potentially resulting in irritability, fatigue, behavioral changes, tremors, headaches, hearing and cognitive loss, and dysarthria (a speech disorder that makes it difficult to speak due to issues with the muscles, nerves, or brain that control speech). Kennedy’s negative attitude about vaccines no doubt attracted voters who were petulantly annoyed by public health measures enforced during COVID like wearing masks and being vaccinated to prevent spread of the virus.

Perhaps the most immediately dangerous is Pete Hegseth, a FOX News commentator and host of “Fox & Friends” now nominated to be Secretary of Defense. An Army veteran of eight years, he plans a “frontal assault” to reform the Department of Defense from the top down, including by purging “woke” generals, limiting women from some combat roles, eliminating diversity goals and utilizing the ‘real threat of violence’ to reassert the United States as a global power.” (ABC News) He has called the United Nations a ‘farce’ and “giant joke’ and believes military action is the best plan to solve world problems. Aside from his warmongering ideas, he has advocated for the pardon of war criminals. He holds no sympathy for Palestinians and embraces Israelis as “God’s chosen people” with “Zionism and Americanism at the front lines of Western civilization.” (Wikipedia) His concept of “civilization” apparently follows the same moral codes as Trump. “Hegseth and his first wife, Meredith Schwarz, divorced in 2009. He married his second wife, Samantha Deering, in 2010; they have three children. In August 2017, while still married to Deering, Hegseth had a daughter with Fox executive producer Jennifer Rauchet, with whom he was having an extramarital relationship. He and Deering divorced in August 2017. Hegseth and Rauchet, who has three young children from her first marriage, married in August 2019.” (Wiki)

Even if the new Republican majority in the Senate rejects one or more of these nominations, there’s little likelihood that Trump’s subsequent appointments would be any less unsuitable for government positions. He has already put extremist Stephen Miller in a position that will control immigration, our very own Joseph Goebbels, a German Nazi politician who was the chief propagandist for the Nazi Party and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945. He was one of Adolf Hitler’s closest and most devoted followers, known for his deeply virulent antisemitism which was evident in his publicly voiced views. He advocated progressively harsher discrimination, including the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust.

Finally, there is the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as the head of our national intelligence agencies. As noted by news media, Gabbard’s record “reflects an alarming pattern of siding with Russia and other authoritarian regimes, raising questions about whether she should serve as America’s top-ranking intelligence official. Her selection has alarmed lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, though most Republicans have refrained from public criticism. …[She] lacks deep intelligence experience and is seen as soft on Russia and Syria. …Among the risks, say current and former intelligence officials and independent experts, are that top advisers could feed the incoming Republican president a distorted view of global threats based on what they believe will please him and that foreign allies may be reluctant to share vital information.” (Reuters)

But Trump’s voters don’t care about such details. He was elected because he made promises to enact policies which reflect old prejudices and enshrine ignorance under an authoritarian ruler. Old habits don’t vanish simply because new opportunities are presented, not when those habits have been ingrained for tens of thousands of years. The brain wiring isn’t there. The ‘conservative’ clings to the past because it is familiar.

Not better.

Coming soon: What the Democrats Did Wrong

In the United States today, apparently…

https://carolbodensteiner.com/2014/01/13/what-did-rural-life-look-like-1910/

Progress came too fast for the evolutionary capabilities of humans. Suddenly, within one hundred years, men were expected to accept women as equals after millennia of their submission. Men were expected to adjust to working with their minds instead of their hands, their bodies eager and waiting for the first throw of the spear, the first clubbing of an enemy. The majority of men needed those physical triumphs to feel like man, and they still do.

A significant percentage of women still believe men are their superiors, the representative of their male god who tells them how to live in submission. It’s too much to expect that suddenly after only 100 years of having the right to vote and the right to contraception, women would universally embrace the responsibility of citizenship, of bodily autonomy.

Sadly, an official return to policies constructed of old fears and prejudices destroys people, most of whom have worked for decades—lifetimes—to ensure that Americans are able to pursue our personal needs and dreams, to become who we want and need to be despite centuries of repression and exploitation. Progress means making the world a better place where people don’t suffer from old hatreds and fears. Now women are losing the right to control what happens to their own bodies. Men and women risk losing their right to live and love as they are—gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and more. Anyone who isn’t white need not exist.

While attempting to fling us backwards to a time without electricity, running water, or air conditioning, not to mention television, cell phones, and antibiotics, conservatives seem to think society could obtain all those things WITHOUT concurrent changes in social norms. That’s not how it works. Advances in technologies and sciences go hand in hand with social change. In a democratic society, education sufficient to produce people who invent cell phones also produces realization of our innate value as individuals—no matter what gender, skin color, or ethnic background.

Back in the ‘good ole days’ women made the cloth. “Heagerty family members demonstrating the steps needed to spin cotton, Cave Springs (Benton County), about 1900. From right: removing the seeds, carding the fibers, spinning the thread, and winding it on a reel.” Jerry Ritter Collection (S-2004-20-6)

Irony is when people vote for policies that are oppositional to their personal needs. Irony occurs when those voters cherish their cell phones while remaining ignorant of the high levels of education required for their invention or the vast technological network that serves them. Irony occurs when those voters flock to doctors to deal with cancer and other life-threatening conditions whose increasingly successful treatments come about at the hands of highly educated scientists who understand the cellular function of DNA and RNA, terms about which those voters are utterly ignorant. Undoubtedly, key figures in those fields are women and/or LBGTQ+.

It’s called shooting yourself in the foot.

Next: What Trump Will Bring

Next Step

On Thursday, May 9, 2024, Senators Katie Britt (R-AL), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) introduced the More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (MOMS) act. Britt … said the measure would provide a federal database of resources for pregnant women and women parenting young children, but that information excludes anything that touches on abortion. The measure is clear that it enlists the government in opposition to abortion, but more than that, it establishes that the government will create a database of the names and contact information of pregnant women, which the government can then use “to follow up with users on additional resources that would be helpful for the users to review.” Heather Cox Richardson, May 13, 2024 (Monday)

Then,

Create a database of all females of child bearing age.
Require monthly reports of pregnancy tests from all females in the database, on penalty of felony prosecution.
Once pregnancy is reported, the female will be confined in a gestation facility.
Any employment or domestic duties of that female will be suspended until she gives birth.
If complications occur in the pregnancy, the embryo/fetus will be the priority consideration.
Upon birthing, the female and newborn will be returned to her former place in the community.

Pity the True Believers

What will happen to them, these lovers of Trump, the men and women who act as if he is the next risen Christ, or at least the best man possible to lead the United States of America? What will happen when the inexorable turn of the wheels of justice finally finally grind him into the ground?

Will they weep? Yes. Will their anger grow exponentially to the point of ignition? Yes.

When the inevitable happens, and yes, I believe in the Constitution and our system of laws that have steered this nation through war and despair for over 200 years. I believe that Trump will finally be held accountable for all his lies and frauds and empty promises that continue to spill from his deteriorating mind, mouthed in nonsensical phrases and welcomed with open arms into the aisles of churches and the homes of the True Believers. I believe that the witnesses and the attorneys and the juries and judges will do their duty, that he will be convicted of his crimes against the people and the nation, that he will at some point have to face the truth about himself.

Nothing could be more terrifying for a man like Trump than to face the truth about himself, that his life was wasted in harming his fellow man, that he was a thief and an adulterer and a rapist, that he could produce nothing of value in this world. That he had every material advantage given to him by emotionally-vacant parents, and he squandered that gift in his ignorance, in his greed and desperation for his life to hold some meaning but never did.

What will these people do who hold him up before themselves and now will find him cast down into the filth of human failure, deceit, corruption? When the revelation of his amoral guilt opens their eyes with blinding light, will they refuse to believe the truth? Will they take up arms and storm the courthouses and prison, crying out for his release, demanding a new day still grasping for that promise, that fable of his greatness?

They believed. They tied their lifeboats to his ship, that great phantasm of belief that he was the strong man, the savior of our times, that their lives could be made meaningful and fruitful under his leadership. As the seas heave and roll, tossing his ship into wreckage, will their boats also capsize, splinter into driftwood to drift back to the littered beaches over the coming weeks and months?

Somewhere deep inside, most of the True Believers sense the truth, that Trump is a fool, an emperor without clothes. They know in that secret room of themselves that they have followed a lie. But for many of them, the truth is too painful, too terrifying, and their solution is to speak of war, that they will take up arms to defend their savior, that they will emerge triumphant in a new America led by God Almighty with Trump seated on His right hand.

These are the fantasies of those who have never seen war, who know nothing of the price we paid in the last civil war when 620,000 men died fighting their neighbors and even their kinsmen over a belief that had long since lost any claim to righteousness. In their glorious imaginings of redeeming the nation, the radical right imagine the fight as taking down the Bidens and the Clintons and Nancy Pelosi and other figureheads of ‘liberal’ democracy without realizing that the fatalities they wish to bestow will instead be their neighbors and their kinsmen.

“Confederate dead Miller Farm, Antietam Battlefield, September 19, 1862,” House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/32956.

Will justice for Trump open the door to insight, even epiphany, for his True Believers? Will they be able to accept the truth of his malfeasance or the rectitude of the courts’ judgement? Some will. Some already have. But some will not, and for them we probably should feel compassion for their loss of a dream, of a self-made parody of a god, a feeble man who misled them, made promises he couldn’t keep, presented himself in a fictional persona simply to aggrandize himself no matter the price to be paid.

The private, personal cost will be great for those True Believers unable to let go of the fantasy, that they alone stood by a true hero. They will not be treated kindly by history.

The Continuing Israeli-Palestinian Agony

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/01/16/after-over-100-days-of-war-palestinians-fight-hard-hit-areas-of-gaza-and-fire-rockets-israel.html

Many Israelis and Jewish people worldwide recognize the futility of Netanyahu’s relentless attack on Gaza under the excuse of protecting Israel from Hamas. The United States is caught up in a tangle of its historical sympathy and generosity toward Israel and the current reality of Israel’s genocidal violence against Palestinians. The truth is, the more Palestinian deaths, the more certainty that Hamas will never die. Every bomb dropped recruits more support for Hamas.

The U. S. and President Biden’s situation is a classic Catch 22. Should we take a hard line with Netanyahu and his rightwing government, setting down an unequivocal rule that no more financial or military support will be forthcoming if Israel does not step back and reorient its Palestinian policies? The logical (and fair) solution would be the formation of a Palestinian state and returning the Israel/Palestine borders to the 1967 boundaries.

[My personal view is that the attempt to create a state of Israel was a mistake from the start. The fond dream of Zionists, this effort to reestablish a Jewish state after 2,000-plus years, was absurd and unnecessary. No other religion has its own ‘state.’ Religion is a personal choice, not appropriate justification for the establishment of a nation. Imagine if we forced a partition of England as a homeland for Methodists!]

Back to the Catch 22. If Biden takes such a step, he risks losing political support from American Jews and evangelicals. This comes at a critical time in American politics as the extreme right wing hopes to bring Trump into a second term as president, which in itself could spell the end of our democracy.

For Biden, evangelicals won’t be much of a loss, since most are already lined up for Trump in the deluded belief he is a “flawed vessel” for the hand of God. This is a form of religious schizophrenia. Historically, Christians hate Jews because they killed Jesus. BUT THAT WAS GOD’S PLAN, right? Creating then sacrificing his “son” in order to provide forgiveness for humans? So logically, Christians should LOVE Jews for the crucifixion as a manifestation of God’s plan.

In reality, Christian ‘love’ of Israel is a self-serving strategy. “American evangelicals are among Israel’s most ardent advocates, compelled in part by their interpretation of scripture that says God’s ancient promise to the Jewish people designating the region as their homeland is unbreakable.”[1] American evangelical support for Israel has exacerbated conflict along Israel’s boundaries in encouraging settler expansion.[2]

“For many “Christians Zionists,” and particularly for popular evangelists with significant clout within the Republican Party, their support for Israel is rooted in its role in the supposed end times: Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at Armageddon, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory.”[3]
BUT: “When it comes to anti-Semitism the Religious Right falls under two great clouds of suspicion. First, contemporary anti-Semitism originated in and was nourished for millennia by Christian condemnation of Jews for the crucifixion of Christ and for their continued rejection of Christ as the Messiah. Second, political anti-Semitism has most frequently and disastrously arisen from right-wing governments and ideologies from the Czarist pogroms to Hitler’s Final Solution. …Historically, the strong and traditional religious beliefs of evangelicals and fundamentalists have both engendered religious particularism that makes them critical of followers of other faiths … and encourages antipathy toward Jews for rejecting Christ now and in the past.[4]

https://worshipleader.com/leadership/awakening-prayer/

The right also loves to use the phrase “Judeo-Christian values” to promote a conservative Christian agenda that conveniently erases the several thousand years during which “Christian values” included beating, forced conversion and murder of Jewish people. …Christian philosemitism, especially on the political right, is often linked to support for Israel. Evangelical conservatives have long embraced Israel in part because many believe it’s important for fulfilling end times prophecies (in which Jews convert or go to hell). Evangelicals also have a strong connection with Israel and the holy sites located there. Israel’s oppression of Palestinian people and its conflicts with its Muslim neighbors also feed into right-wing ideology, specifically Islamophobia.[5]
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Protestant Christian denomination in the U.S., has explicitly rejected suggestions that it should back away from seeking to convert Jews, a position which critics have called anti-Semitic, but a position which Baptists believe is consistent with their view that salvation is solely found through faith in Christ. In 1996 the SBC approved a resolution calling for efforts to seek the conversion of Jews “as well as the salvation of ‘every kindred and tongue and people and nation.'” …Most Evangelicals agree with the SBC’s position, and some of them also support efforts which specifically seek the Jews’ conversion. Additionally, these Evangelical groups are among the most pro-Israel groups. (For more information, see Christian Zionism.) One controversial group which has received a considerable amount of support from some Evangelical churches is Jews for Jesus, which claims that Jews can “complete” their Jewish faith by accepting Jesus as the Messiah.^[6]

Without doubt, for Joe Biden facing the November 2024 election, he must temper his choices of policies toward Israel in consideration of the American Jewish vote, which has traditionally aligned with Democrats.

For most of the 20th century since 1936, the vast majority of Jews in the United States have been aligned with the Democratic Party. During the 20th and 21st centuries, the Republican Party has launched initiatives to persuade American Jews to support their political policies, with relatively little success.[7]

Are enough American Jews outraged by the Palestinian death toll and allied threat to Israel’s future to vote for Biden even if he places firm conditions on the continuance of U.S. financial and military aid? As reported January 8, 2024 in the Jerusalem Post, “Gallup’s tracking of Americans’ views on Netanyahu since 1997 indicates a recent negative shift, with a 47% unfavorable rating against a 33% favorable rating. Notably, Republicans maintain a more positive view of Netanyahu, with 55% favorability, in contrast to 14% among Democrats and 30% among independents.”[8]

Whether this shift in opinion would hold if the U.S. no longer supplied Israel with 2000-pound bombs and other weapons in its relentless attack on Gaza remains an open question. But world opinion increasingly demands a change of U.S. policy toward Israel, and the U. S. is the only entity with sufficient leverage—the threat of withholding all U.S. aid—to force Israel to make changes that Netanyahu and his cohort adamantly oppose.

The so-called two-state solution is unquestionably an important first step, with boundaries between the Palestinian state and the Israeli state established along the fraught 1967 lines (with updated adjustments). Additional terms would include U.N. peacekeeping troops in place to enforce demilitarization on both sides as well as U.N. and mandatory Israeli funding in restoration of Gazan infrastructure.

Solutions rely on the Arab world’s acceptance of Israel’s existence in their midst and on Israel’s acceptance of its new boundaries without any expansion. If ARab states expect to hold a respected position in world affairs, it’s past time for the Arab world to embrace modern social norms—no more cutting off fingers, heads or other body parts, no more burning people alive or other bloody jihad. The savagery of Arab attacks on its ‘enemies’ is contrary to their own best interests, just as is Israel’s genocide against Gazans.

It’s time for Israel to live up to its religion with its idea that Jews are “God’s chosen people” not in order to believe themselves above any laws or superior in some way, but in order to fulfill the mission of proclaiming his truth among all the nations of the world.[9] Contrary to the “buy my ticket to heaven” ideas of the evangelical Christians in its support for Israel as a nation, it seems the message preserved in the 2,000 to 2,500 year-old-writings of Jews is that anyone embracing the Jewish faith must serve as a messenger “to make God known to the world.”

https://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2014/07/joint-jewish-muslim-fast-against-violence.html

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/15/us/american-evangelicals-israel-hamas.html

[2] See https://theconversation.com/us-giving-to-israeli-nonprofits-how-much-jews-and-christians-donate-and-where-the-money-goes-201920

[3] https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/truth-many-evangelical-christians-support-israel-rcna121481

[4] Smith, Tom W. “The Religious Right and Anti-Semitism.” Review of Religious Research 40, no. 3 (1999): 244–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/3512370.

[5] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/christian-led-caucus-protecting-jewish-values-no-thanks-ncna1287802

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Christianity

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews_in_politics

[8] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-781227

[9] See, for example, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-quot-chosen-people-quot

Israel & Palestine — My Two Cents

The utter absurdity of the current situation in Israel/Palestine could have been predicted for the last 75 years. Did anyone really believe that you could move into a man’s house and “give” him the hall closet to live in and he would accept it?

Yes, I understand that the Jews had suffered horribly under Hitler’s attempt to eradicate them. And long before that, the history of their horrific treatment deserves understanding and condemnation. But why did anyone think that what existed in Palestine could be rearranged like chess pieces and no one would care?

Jews, Arabs, and yes Christians all lived side by side before 1948. What was wrong with that? If Jews needed a safer place to live than mingled through other countries—which, by the way, is how ALL OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS exist—they had the freedom to relocate to Palestine without anyone declaring it a Jewish state.

Even then, after 1948, after Israel had been recreated as the homeland of “God’s Chosen People,” it still wasn’t enough. A settler movement to expand grew in this new nation. How many times have I watched news reports showing Israeli bulldozers pushing over the homes and ancient orchards of Palestinians? How many times have I worried that sooner or later there would be hell to pay for Israelis for their lack of respect, their utter disregard for the dignity and rights of Palestinians?

Recently, since the October attack occurred, I’ve learned that certain groups of American “Christians” have been funneling money to the West Bank to support the continuing spread of Jewish takeover of Palestinian lands.

But evangelicals’ support isn’t simply driven by a theology that compels them to love the Holy Land, detached from its convulsive domestic and global political implications. For many “Christians Zionists,” and particularly for popular evangelists with significant clout within the Republican Party, their support for Israel is rooted in its role in the supposed end times: Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at Armageddon, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory.[1]

Allow me to just say here that if God exists, if this is the message of divinity, HE/SHE/IT does not need evangelicals or Republicans to facilitate the “end times.”

When you pull back the curtains in search of real answers to the conflict—or, frankly, just about any conflict—you need look no further than the nearest gathering of religionists. Israelis don’t respect Palestinians because they’re not Jews. In fact, just about any review of Israeli/Jewish attitudes about their position in the world, historically, will reveal a people convinced they are God’s Chosen People and their suffering is part of their destiny until God sends their Messiah to rescue them.

Also, I have a bridge to sell you.

Not that their perpetual victimhood doesn’t have legitimate legs to stand on. Ever since the establishment of the Christian religion back in 400 something AD, Jews have been the whipping boy. Read up. I won’t clog my narrative here with that history. Suffice it to say that they have been horribly abused, discriminated against, and otherwise mistreated.

And that is largely because CHRISTIANS blame the Jews for not becoming Christians, not accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and on top of all that, for being the instrument by which Jesus was crucified. Never mind that it apparently was God’s plan all along that Jesus would be crucified. Why not blame God?

But onward with my rant. This entire episode currently underway is a ridiculous, outrageous crime against humanity. I’m not talking about the despicable attack by Hamas on people, the beheadings, the mutilations, the kidnapping. I’ll get to that in a minute. I’m talking about the ongoing Israeli attack on civilians in Gaza. It is war crimes. It is genocide. It is the worst possible course of action that Netanyahu and his cohort could possible choose.

Why? Yes, of course Israel has the right to protect itself. But that’s just about the flimsiest excuse for the last 45 days of hate-fueled violence one could imagine. Yes, of course Hamas hides in tunnels, shelters behind civilians. Israel has one of the most advanced military forces in the world, thanks again to the Western powers. Without Hamas, there would be no ability by Palestinians to try to regain their pride, their homes, their independence. The United States, Britain and other Western powers that set this nightmare in motion back in 1948 have PROMISED to protect Israel, which is why the region bristles with our jets, helicopters, drones, aircraft carriers strike groups, nuclear powered submarines, and more men in addition to the troops already over there. According to the Pentagon,

The firepower from these warships is a deterrent, but it is also to help protect the 45,000 U.S. service members and contractors that are stationed in the Middle East. Most are in Kuwait, but thousands are in Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Pentagon has also deployed 1,200 troops to the Middle East, though not to Israel, since the war began. On Oct. 26, the Defense Department announced it was sending 900 troops, primarily for air defense, to the region. Another 300 troops, mostly ordnance disposal, communications and other support, were announced Oct. 31.[2]

Surely we all recognize that the U.S. and others see Israel as our surrogate in the Middle East. We could have cared less about the Middle East until oil came into the equation.

Meanwhile, Arab nations in the region are understandably “concerned” about the situation. They’ve never been pleased with the arrogance of Western European powers thinking they had the right to insert themselves in the middle of their lands, brush aside Palestinians, and install a Jewish state where none had previously existed for 2,000 years. Gee, imagine our outrage here in the U.S. if world powers decided to restore Native Americans to their original lands!

But onward to my primary point here—and yes, I have one. Or two.

Israelis are not uniformly in support of Netanyahu. For months reports have been broadcast of massive protests, not about the exact issue now burning up the airwaves, but about the heavy handed arrogance of Netanyahu and his right wing fanatics in not only their abuse of Palestinians and their lands, but also within Israel itself in the attempts to dilute the power of the judiciary in the march toward a more totalitarian regime. Sadly, too many Israelis are apparently willing to allow the right wing to control the country.

That march, by the way, is full steam ahead right now as Netanyahu envisions a complete takeover of the remaining shreds of Palestinians land, most assuredly Gaza “for an indefinite time,” but hinting at also taking over the West Bank. The purported goal is to eliminate Hamas for once and for all.

This is stupidity at its most absurd. Where the hell do they think Hamas came from in the first place? It came from Israeli disrespect and abuse. If they think Hamas is bad now, wait until the next generation of Palestinians rise up in memory of the current genocide. Because killing every single man who has identified with Hamas and taken up arms will not end Hamas. Even murdering every Palestinian, man, woman, and child, will not end Hamas. Hamas is an idea, an assertion of the right of a people to exist, and if Palestinians are wiped off the face of the earth, other Arabs will rise up in their place to continue to assert their right to exist.

On the other hand, Hamas has done themselves no favors with their barbaric methods of protest. The entire Arab jihad against the West is a disgrace to the history of Arab culture and accomplishment. Beheadings, burning people alive, torture, and other despicable methods of violence accomplish nothing except to convince the world that they are savages.

Since the late 20th century, the word jihad has gained remarkable currency: used by resistance, liberation, and terrorist movements alike to legitimate their cause and motivate their followers. The Afghan Mujahiddin, the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, have waged a jihad in Afghanistan against foreign powers and among themselves; Muslims in Kashmir, Chechnya, Daghestan and the southern Philippines, Bosnia and Kosovo have fashioned their struggles as jihads; Hizbollah, HAMAS, and Islamic Jihad Palestine have characterized war with Israel as a jihad; Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group has engaged in a jihad of terror against the government there and Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda have waged a global jihad against Muslim governments and the West. The importance of jihad is rooted in the Quran’s command to “struggle or exert” (the literal meaning of the word jihad) oneself in the path of God. The Quranic teachings have been of essential significance to Muslim self-understanding, piety, mobilization, expansion and defense. Jihad as struggle pertains to the difficulty and complexity of living a good life: struggling against the evil in oneself – to be virtuous and moral, making a serious effort to do good works and help to reform society. Depending on the circumstances in which one lives, it also can mean fighting injustice and oppression, spreading and defending Islam and creating a just society through preaching, teaching and, if necessary, armed struggle or holy war.[3]

So of course, like the Jewish extremists who waste hours bending and babbling at a wall, Islamist extremists waste hours bowing and babbling toward Mecca, all of them ready and eager to pick up the nearest weapon and hurt anyone who doesn’t believe what they believe.

Which brings me to my main point in all this. Basing 21^st century actions on the fabled mythology of ANY religion is ridiculous, sickening, stupid, and otherwise despicable. Just as evangelicals support Israel in its takeover of Palestinian lands, so do Muslims support brutal treatment of ‘infidels.’ In my opinion, any ‘gods’ who advocated and/or condoned brutal treatment of any kind FOR ANY REASON have long since lost their right to be worshipped. These Abrahamic religions are long past due for elimination from human society.

Evangelicals around the world are to be condemned for their acceptance, even the embrace, of violence. Violence for revenge, for gaining some fulfilment of words written 2,000 years ago, is NOT what either Muhammed or Jesus Christ talked about. LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR, they said.

Muhammed: “Never aspire for confronting your enemies (in a fight). Pray to God to be among those who seek living peacefully with others. But if ever you confront them (in a fight) be patient and know that Heaven is as close to you as the shades of the swords.”
Jesus: For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Ephesians 2:14-18

Obviously extremist Muslims and Christians don’t read their own literature; their ape brains have yet to evolve to higher forms of humanity. I take faint hope in the slow but steady deterioration of religious belief making progress, finally, toward a world without war. Without religion. It remains to be seen if the current conflict flashes over into the Armageddon so desired by evangelicals, or if sanity will prevail.

[1] https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/truth-many-evangelical-christians-support-israel-rcna121481

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-military-assets-in-middle-east/

[3] https://www.unaoc.org/repository/Esposito_Jihad_Holy_Unholy.pdf

The Gifts of Evangelicals

Religion got us here, all this chaos surrounding our government and the unmitigated shitshow of Donald Trump.

Religion, where believers must suspend disbelief in order to believe—perfect practice for falling for snake oil salesmen and political bullshit.

Knowing this, since at least the 1960s, the back rooms of the Republican Party have carried out a bold plan to enlist evangelical Christians in their pursuit of power. Hot button issues became hotter under their rhetoric—abortion isn’t just about women making medical choices about their bodies and lives, it’s killing babies. Even newborns!

It seems not to matter how absurd the argument when twisted to fit this agenda. True Believers fall for it every time. They surge out their doors on Election Day, ready and eager to vote. Otherwise, God won’t love them.

Well meaning, intelligent, even well-educated evangelical Christians can’t help themselves in the face of God’s wrath. And yes, there are such things, although the majority seems less than intelligent or educated. Do they love the country more than God? Do they love the Constitution more than God? No, they can’t. There’s a lake of fire and brimstone waiting just below their feet if they don’t love God the most.

Whatever God actually said, if anything, doesn’t matter. It’s what the puppet masters behind the Church and the Republican Party say that matters, their interpretation, spin, whatever you want to call it. Ever more outrageous, the lies keep coming.

Poor Donald, never did anything but exercise his free speech. He just wanted to make sure the vote count was accurate. He now suffers the slings and arrows of an ungrateful nation and misguided justice system because he stood up for ‘his’ people.

I wonder if Donald ever knew he was a token, a pawn used to stir up the perfect demographic to push him into office. Will he ever know?

It’s doubtful. The aspect of Donald that made/makes him a perfect pawn is his utter and complete hubris which allows him to believe he became president on his own merits. Yes, he submitted to being prayed over, signing Bibles left and right, giving the peasants the bread and circus they craved with his court appointments, his mouthing of the correct words. He probably saw/sees this evangelical fawning as yet more evidence of his personal greatness.

Yes, there were other factors. There was and remains a dedicated faction of racists among us, so fearfully enraged by darker skin that they would tear down the walls of government for the chance to (kill) take away all rights from anyone not lily white.

There was and is a dedicated faction of anarchists who salivate over the dream of no government, no laws, no rules, just each man for himself and the guy with the most guns wins.

Wasn’t it ever thus? A few malcontents and nihilists among the mobs of true believers eager to please whatever god(s) reigned supreme in that time and place? True believers, hands clasped in reverence, bow down to that man who stands before them claiming his special gift, to speak for the god, to lead the people to the god’s promises? The anointed one, showing the path to god’s love, god’s promised way of life, no matter the sacrifice. (Cue trumpets and drums, the rattling of swords against shields)

We have seen it and know it. This is the time when humanity must evolve beyond the tired hatred of religious fervor, the idea that god loves you but not me, that promise that god will send your soul to eternal torment if you don’t do what he says, what his pawn says he says.

It is time to strip away the false promises of religion, division of race or belief, and embrace each other. We are one world of one people.

When the wise men of this nation’s early years enacted policies that ensured education for all children, they had a specific rationale. Thomas Jefferson said “Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.”

Through much of the 1800s, the central role of public schools was to preserve the American democracy and inculcate democratic values. After all, an ignorant man can be persuaded by all kinds of rhetoric to vote one way or the other. Only the educated man has the ability to consider a multitude of facts and reason his way to a vote for the honorable candidate best qualified to lead the nation (town, county, state).

“Education” which teaches religion cares not for reason. In fact, reason is the enemy to religion. Among the many objectives of the nascent fascist force in the Republican arsenal is this awareness, thus their denigration of public education, their determination to replace it with religious ‘education’ so that they can recruit armies of dedicated zombies utterly devoid of logical reasoning.

Ironically, if the evangelicals and behind-the-scenes thugs of the Republican Party succeed in gutting the promise of our democracy, they will be heralding their own demise. Fundamentally, it is our very system of government, free from religious directives, which guarantees the right of each person to pursue his particular religious beliefs. But understanding this truth requires reasoning, and zombies don’t reason.

Some Painful Truths

Above, supporters of former President Donald Trump are seen protesting his indictment in Manhattan, New York, on Monday, April 3, 2023. KATHERINE FUNG / Newsweek 4.3.23

Others have said how, once a person has been duped, it is almost impossible to convince them they have been duped. They’ve bought in, hook, line and sinker. Never has this been more true than in the present day. Despite all our education and media and news report, our ‘advanced’ culture, nearly 40% of the U. S. population still holds a favorable view of Donald Trump.

Who are these people?

While they tasted the bait, times were glorious! They owned the world, vindicated in their every idea, belief, and prejudice. Racism wasn’t really racism while they tasted the bait, but rather the righteous validation of their belief in whiteness.

Thus it was for the role of women, made from Adam’s rib to be his helper. Subordinate. The weaker vessel, made to suffer the agony of childbirth to give man his offspring, a punishment for Eve’s original sin. Not to speak in the church of God Almighty—white male, of course.

It goes without saying that the homosexuals and transwhatever were scum of the earth. Hardly worth mentioning, not worthy of recognition much less any right to exist, work, marry, or enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Equally unworthy of mention were the heathen believers in Allah and other blasphemies, seeking to secretly infiltrate America with their insidious brown-skinned conspiracies to destroy the great God-given white nation we call America.

And so it continued for four glorious years as time after time Trump’s words and acts magnified and validated the prejudices. Never mind that God sent a plague, that over a million people died, under Trump’s watch. Never mind that he oversaw, indeed, implemented, a continuous scroll of misdeeds and treachery that threatened the very foundations of the U. S. Constitution. None of that mattered while the bait was ingested, while all the validations of hate surged through the hearts and minds of the true believers—the duped.

Now, with the efforts of honorable leaders eager to restore the nation to its solid foundations, its core philosophy that all of us were created equal, the duped refuse to accept the evidence. Refuse to read the indictments. Refuse to think that some, all, of the allegations might actually be true. No doubt even a trial and conviction will be denied by these folks.

Is this a matter of willful ignorance? Yes, but that’s not all.

In academic studies, subjects asked to distinguish truth from lies answer correctly, on average, only fifty-four per cent of the time. This is a result of several mitigating factors, not least of which is a sense of allegiance to the people and information sources we have already trusted. For example, in a Stanford University study,

A third type of bias comes from our existing political alignment, in the form of partisanship. When it comes to news and information generally, one’s identification as a Democrat or Republican, or one’s self-image of being liberal vs. conservative, has a big impact on what we readily believe or reject in the news, regardless of its truthfulness. As uncomfortable as this may be to accept, abundant research shows that people frequently reject news that’s inconsistent with their political ideology, and are prone to accept news that’s consonant with their political orientation. Like it or not, research demonstrated quite clearly that most politically-oriented fake news during the 2016 US election campaigns was consumed by conservatives, with Donald Trump supporters being especially likely to encounter and visit fake news sites. …Hillary Clinton supporters were more likely to visit fact-checking websites and less likely to visit fake news websites. Trump supporters were less likely to visit fact-checking websites and more likely to visit fake news websites.[1]

Similar conclusions have been confirmed in multiple studies. Lee McIntyre, research fellow at Boston University, has published several books on the conundrum of duped people.

One of the deepest roots of post-truth has been with us the longest, for it has been wired into our brains over the history of human evolution: cognitive bias. Psychologists for decades have been performing experiments that show that we are not quite as rational as we think. Some of this work bears directly on how we react in the face of unexpected or uncomfortable truths. A central concept of human psychology is that we strive to avoid psychic discomfort. It is not a pleasant thing to think badly of oneself. Some psychologists call this “ego defense” (after Freudian theory), but whether we frame it within this paradigm or not, the concept is clear. It just feels better for us to think that we are smart, well-informed, capable people than that we are not. What happens when we are confronted with information that suggests that something we believe is untrue? It creates psychological tension. How could I be an intelligent person yet believe a falsehood? Only the strongest egos can stand up very long under a withering assault of self-criticism: “What a fool I was! The answer was right there in front of me the whole time, but I never bothered to look. I must be an idiot.”[2]

Trump supporters are not the first group to suffer this terrible cognitive dysphoria. The Civil War is not over for many who cannot accept that what their ancestors fought and died for might have been wrong. In their multitude of righteous excuses for the Confederate cause, the war was not about slavery. Rather, the Lost Cause was based on six tenets:

Credit: Cook Collection, The Valentine
Original Author: Unknown
Created: ca. 1907
Medium: Photographic print
Publisher: Valentine Richmond History Center

1. Secession, not slavery, caused the Civil War.

2. African Americans were “faithful slaves,” loyal to their masters and the Confederate cause and unprepared for the responsibilities of freedom.

3. The Confederacy was defeated militarily only because of the Union’s overwhelming advantages in men and resources.

4. Confederate soldiers were heroic and saintly.

5. The most heroic and saintly of all Confederates, perhaps of all Americans, was Robert E. Lee.

6. Southern women were loyal to the Confederate cause and sanctified by the sacrifice of their loved ones.[3]

The fundamental truth is that the war was about the South’s determination to continue its use of enslaved people to generate the bulk of its wealth. Tens of thousands of people of Southern heritage have bought into the falsehood of the Lost Cause, continuing to display the Confederate flag and nurse their invisible wounds.

Likewise, millions of people today are standing firm in their belief that Trump can do no wrong, that he was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, and other similar dross. Don’t bother them with facts. Their minds are made up and their egos depend on it. One can only hope that enough of them will overcome the cognitive dissonance to accept that Trump was not sent by God Almighty to bestow an all-white conservative dispensation on the United States of America, but rather that he was and is a corrupt man clever enough to dupe 61,943,670 voters (2016 election).

Whether Twain actually said this remains an unproven irony.

[1] https://www.cits.ucsb.edu/fake-news/why-we-fall

[2] https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/how-cognitive-bias-can-explain-post-truth/

[3] https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lost-cause-the/

Connecting the Population-Climate Change Dots

Starving children in Budapest. But let’s have more!

Why would anyone want to force a woman to give birth to a child she doesn’t want? Don’t we have enough problems? It’s not like we’re running out of people. The U. S. population currently stands at 331.9 million and is expected to reach nearly 370 million in the next thirty years. Tired of traffic? Crowded city streets and sidewalks? Having to wait in line for what you need?

There is a direct correlation between population and pollution: more people, more trash, more car exhaust, more use of chemicals to produce food. There’s also the increase in taxes required to support social programs that keep people from starving. Homelessness isn’t a result only of mental illness or addiction, but also the need for affordable housing in a competitive culture where there aren’t enough houses for all the people. More population, more homelessness.

But wait! There’s more!

The global population growth rate is around .8% per year. That might not sound like much, but it translates in real numbers to an additional 67 million people PER YEAR, increasing by nearly 2 billion persons in the next 30 years, from the current 8 billion to 9.7 billion in 2050. And while we might feel briefly smug that this mostly isn’t happening in the United States, the fact is that it IS happening on our southern border.

It is only logical to acknowledge that an increase in the world’s population will cause additional strains on resources. More people means an increased demand for food, water, housing, energy, healthcare, transportation, and more. And all that consumption contributes to ecological degradation, increased conflicts, and a higher risk of large-scale disasters like pandemics.

Throw into that mix the effects of climate change.

Climate change is one of humanity’s most critical challenges. The warming of the planet threatens food security, freshwater supply, and human health. The effects of climate change, including sea level rise, droughts, floods, and extreme weather, will be more severe if actions are not taken to dramatically reduce emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. While the link between human action and the planet’s recent warming remains an almost unanimous scientific consensus, the links between population growth and climate change deserve further exploration.

With 2 billion people to be added to our human ranks by 2050 and an additional 1 billion more by 2100, demographic trends and variables play an important role in understanding and confronting the world’s climate crisis. Population growth, along with increasing consumption, tends to increase emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases. Rapid population growth worsens the impacts of climate change by straining resources and exposing more people to climate-related risks—especially in low-resource regions.

Including population dynamics in climate change-related education and advocacy can help clarify why access to reproductive health care, family planning options, girls’ education, and gender equity should be included in climate interventions. Increased investment in health and education, along with improvements in infrastructure and land use, would strengthen climate resilience and build adaptive capacity for people around the world.[1]

These facts are ignored in the evangelical push behind rightwing politics that have terminated U.S. efforts to promote birth control in Third World nations and continue to attempt to enact similarly restrictive laws in the U.S. After steadily declining for a decade, world hunger is on the rise, affecting nearly 10% of people globally. From 2019 to 2022, the number of undernourished people grew by as many as 150 million, a crisis driven largely by conflict, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, the scale of the current global hunger and malnutrition crisis is enormous, with more than 345 million people facing high levels of food insecurity in 2023 – more than double the number in 2020.

And, the policy change backfired.

In countries that depend heavily on U.S. support for family planning and reproductive health programs, contraceptive use decreased 14 percent, pregnancies rose 12 percent, and abortions climbed 40 percent when the policy was in effect relative to countries less reliant on U.S. support. The evidence suggests that the policy leads to a reduction in contraceptive use and increased pregnancies and abortions.[2]

Wake up time! Despite FOX News propaganda, the crisis at our border is not created by drug cartels pushing fentanyl. It is about the same issues that have driven people to leave their homelands since prehistory: the need for opportunity to obtain food and safety. If economic conditions are unfavorable and appear to be deteriorating further, an increasing number of people will migrate to countries with a better outlook.

As noted in this 2022 report from the National Academy of Sciences:

Although family planning services are crucial for global health and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, their funding remains controversial. We document the health consequences of the “Mexico City Policy” (MCP), which restricts US funding for abortion-related activities worldwide. Since its enactment in 1985, the MCP has been enforced only under Republican administrations and quickly rescinded when a Democrat wins the presidency. Our analysis shows that the MCP makes it harder for women to get information on and support for reproductive health and is associated with higher maternal and child mortality rates and HIV rates worldwide. We estimate that reinstating the MCP between 2017 and 2021 resulted in approximately 108,000 maternal and child deaths and 360,000 new HIV infections.

Genius.

We have yet to hear a definitive solution from conservatives who seem to prefer an unlimited number of births even if such population growth exacerbates climate change and its many effects on humanity. What do they propose to do about people starving? Nothing? Just let them starve? What about people driven from their homes by rising sea levels? That is already a big problem in low-lying areas which are home to over 900 million people. What do we do about all those fetuses and babies, not to mention half-grown children, women and men?

The United Nations warns:

Between 250 and 400 million people will likely need new homes in new locations in fewer than 80 years, [the UN President] also warned of devastating impacts for the world’s “breadbaskets,” especially fertile deltas along the Nile, Mekong and other rivers.

Apparently this won’t be a real problem until people can’t live in U.S. coastal cities. Oh, wait…

Flooding in Florida 2023 Photograph: Orit Ben-Ezzer/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

[1] https://populationconnection.org/resources/population-and-climate/

[2] https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/how-us-government-restrictions-foreign-aid-abortion-services-backfired

Climate Wars

https://jasoninstitute.com/the-first-climate-war-insight-into-the-war-in-darfur/

War still edges out climate change as the current greatest cause of starvation. It’s an ouroboros (snake eating itself, i.e. vicious cycle) wherein the more devastated a landscape becomes and the less food it can produce, the more people fight over it. Which leads to more conflict, etc. It is important to note that climate change alone has not been proven to increase the likelihood of discord; however, climate change compounded with challenging economic, political, or social conditions can heighten the risk of conflict.

Evidence links rise in temperature to a rise in civil war. Researchers at Princeton University and UC Berkeley found that a rise in average annual temperature by even 1° Celsius (1.8° Fahrenheit) leads to a 4.5% increase in civil war that year. There has been a global increase in the incidence of civil war following World War II, with civil wars even having a greater number of casualties than international wars. Civil wars are dangerous, and climate change is making them more common.[1]

In 2022, the five regions with the highest number of hungry people as a proportion of population included:

Middle Africa: 31.8%
East Africa: 28.1%
Western Africa: 18.7%
Caribbean: 16.1%
Southern Asia: 15.8%

The Sahel, located between Sudan and the Sahara (West Africa) and regarded as the most vulnerable area to climate change, is a semi-arid region comprising some of the world’s poorest and most fragile states (e.g. Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mauritania).[2]

Darfur, a region in the Western part of Sudan, has been in a state of emergency since 2003. “…The general notion is that the decline in rainfall and land degradation increased and intensified already existing violent struggles over pastures, water and farmland, proportionally resulting in a large scale civil war.”[3]

Population growth, along with increasing consumption, tends to increase emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases. Rapid population growth worsens the impacts of climate change by straining resources and exposing more people to climate-related risks—especially in low-resource regions. There has been a reluctance to integrate discussions of population into climate education and advocacy. Yet climate change is tightly linked to population growth.

https://populationconnection.org/resources/population-and-climate/

Top 10 Countries with the Highest Fertility Rates (by births per woman) – World Bank 2021 (2019 data). If these country names look familiar, check the list above of nations with the greatest rates of starvation.

Niger – 6.8 (West Africa)

Somalia – 6.0 (East Africa)

Congo (Dem. Rep.) – 5.8 (tie) (Middle Africa)

Mali – 5.8 (tie) (West Africa)

Chad – 5.6 (Middle Africa)

Angola – 5.4 (West Africa)

Burundi – 5.3 (tie) (East Africa)

Nigeria – 5.3 (tie) (West Africa)

Gambia – 5.2 (West Africa)

Burkina Faso – 5.1 (West Africa)

As the U.K.-based charity Population Matters summarizes: “Every additional person increases carbon emissions—the rich far more than the poor—and increases the number of climate change victims—the poor far more than the rich.” At the national level, there is a clear relationship between income and per capita CO₂ emissions, with average emissions for people living in industrialized countries and key oil producing nations topping the charts. High-consuming lifestyles and production practices in the highest income countries result in much higher emissions rates than in middle and low-income countries, where the majority of the world’s population lives.[4]

Sadly, the people suffering the most from climate change are those least responsible for the problem. For example, the United States represents just over 4% of the global population but accounts for 17% of the world’s energy use. Per person carbon emissions are among the highest in the world. People living in the United States, Australia, and Canada, have carbon footprints close to 200 times larger than people in some of the poorest and fastest-growing countries in sub-Saharan Africa—such as Chad, Niger, and the Central African Republic. In the middle of the spectrum are the middle-income economies, home to 75% of the world’s population. In these places, industrialization will increase standards of living and consumption patterns over the coming decades. Without changes to how economies tend to grow, carbon emissions will rise.[5]

As there is no panacea for combating climate change, a wide variety of options needs to be exercised. An integrated approach includes educating girls and empowering women to make their own decisions about reproduction.

While the United States is best equipped to address the issue of reproduction, Republican lawmakers have systematically gutted programs which offered reproductive health care to these places. President Ronald Reagan first enacted the global gag rule—also known as the Mexico City Policy—in 1984. Every president since Reagan has decided whether to enact or revoke the policy, making NGO funding vulnerable to political changes happening in the United States. The rule forces organizations to choose whether to provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care and education without U.S. funding, or comply with the policy in order to continue accepting U.S. funds.

Used by U.S. presidents since 1984 to signal their stance on abortion rights, the rule has been backed by Republicans – including Bush from 2001 to 2008 – and revoked by Democrats.

When the policy was in place in the Bush era, modern contraception use declined by 14% and pregnancy rates rose 12% in Sub-Saharan countries most reliant on U.S. family planning aid, a study found. When the policy was rescinded by Democratic President Barack Obama, the pattern reversed, with higher contraceptive use and fewer abortions.

Former President Donald Trump reinstated the rule in 2017. The evangelical-backed ban on funding for reproductive care extends beyond reproduction. Nearly 50 percent of global HIV and AIDS funding comes from the U.S. government. Under President Trump’s expanded global gag rule, the quality and availability of HIV services, including treatment, testing, and prevention, began suffering dramatically—more than previous iterations of the rule. The policy under Trump undid decades of work to integrate sexual and reproductive health services with HIV services. Vulnerable populations, and men who have sex with men in particular, began experiencing significant health service disruptions as a result of the global gag rule. Clearly, the evangelical-condoned ban isn’t about brotherly love.

Meanwhile, multiple studies have shown that the global gag rule has not decreased rates of abortions but instead has increased the number of unsafe abortions.

U.S. funding for family planning/reproductive health care is governed by several other legislative and policy requirements, including a legal ban on the direct use of U.S. funding overseas for abortion as a method of family planning (the Helms Amendment, which has been in place since 1973) and, when in effect, the Mexico City Policy (reinstated and expanded by President Trump as the “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance” policy but rescinded by President Biden upon taking office).[6]

In the situation where Republicans routinely disrupt the best efforts of U.S. progressives to reduce human suffering around the world, we can expect more war, more starvation (especially for mothers and children) and much greater human suffering all around.