Afghanistan choice emerging as dying - or living

 

Bill Knight column for Aug. 17, 18 or 19. 2020

 Remembering progressive broadcaster Mike Malloy’s description of Afghanistan – “where empires go to die” – it should come as no surprise that the Trump administration has been outmaneuvered in the long-promised end to the nation’s longest war.

Negotiations are expected to resume in Doha, Qatar, this week after Afghan lawmakers on Aug. 9 released 400 Taiban prisoners, the last holdup delaying talks between the Afghan and U.S. governments and the Taliban.

Previous bargaining resulted in an agreement to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners, but Afghanistan hesitated in releasing the last few hundred, who’d been accused of serious offenses.

Afghans are led by President Ashraf Ghani – reelected over Abdullah Abdullah after disputed September voting, and finally seated in February. That was the month when U.S. diplomats brokered a peace deal with Taliban forces and the Afghan government, and also when U.S. intelligence reportedly briefed the White House that a Russian spy agency had been offering bounties for killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Widespread fighting and targeted killings also stalled the peace process.

The war started in 2001, when the Taliban was considered an armed nuisance that harbored Al Qaeda leaders responsible for the 9/11 attacks, a weak annoyance that could be overwhelmed with military might. However, year after year, casualties increased, and “liberation” of territories was often temporary. Eventually, Taliban support grew with everyday Afghans’ resentment and outrage about the U.S. and allies.

Now, the Pentagon is planning for a withdrawal before the November election – one of a few “October Surprises,” one suspects – but withdrawal means more than loading troops onto aircraft and flying them home. It would take weeks, if not months, to ship weapons and equipment, give some material to Afghan forces and just leave other items not worth keeping or transferring.

An autumn withdrawal would follow moving thousands of personnel since the Trump administration approved the deal. However, after Trump was inaugurated – campaigning on ending the country’s “endless wars” – the administration lifted restrictions on air strikes, and the U.S. military’s air war increased there, resulting in more civilian casualties, according to the independent Bureau of Investigative Journalism. In the first half of 2019, U.S. and Afghan militaries together were responsible for more civilian deaths than the Taliban. Last year, American forces dropped more bombs in Afghanistan than in any year in the last decade, resulting in more than 1,000 civilian casualties, the United Nations reports – a number that’s increased in each of the last five years.

“We are no better off than when we started counterterrorism operations after 9/11,” researcher Larry Lewis of the Center for Naval Analyses told Rolling Stone magazine, “and arguably in a worse position.”

While all this was happening, U.S. intelligence reported Russians’ secret bounty program paying the Taliban or other insurgents for killing U.S. servicepeople. About 20 of them were killed last year, but Trump – who constantly complains about innumerable topics, many ridiculous – hasn’t criticized Russians’ apparent scheme, or even accepted his own administration’s findings, which he reportedly received in a daily briefing Feb. 27.

Meanwhile, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs – which has jurisdiction over bills and investigations related to the nation’s foreign affairs – will get new leadership after the primary defeat of committee chair Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) by progressive Jamaal Bowman.

Engel, who backed the Iraq War, also was one of a handful of Democrats who opposed the Iran deal and who helped defeat an attempt to stop selling cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia.

Progressives are lobbying House leadership to name a chair who will push for change in Afghanistan and throughout foreign-affairs issues.

The committee – whose members include Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger and progressive Democrats Joaquin Castro of Texas, Ted Lieu of California and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota – needs someone who “advances the bold, progressive foreign policy that this country deserves,” said progressive groups in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They seek a chair independent from special interests who opposes militarization and surveillance at home and sanctions that hurt civilians abroad, and who supports a diplomacy-first approach to national security and a global economy that prioritizes people and the planet, not corporate profit.

Perhaps for the United States, leaving Afghanistan won’t signal the death of an “empire,” but the birth of sensible policies.

Typical CEO gets 264 times median worker pay

 Bill Knight column for 8-13, 14 or 15, 2020

 It’s not surprising, but it’s still shocking that CEOs of S&P 500 companies last year received, on average, 264 times the median (or midpoint) pay their workers received, according to the new “Executive Paywatch” report from the AFL-CIO.

The CEOs got an average of $14.8 million in total compensation, an increase of about $300,000 from 2018.

Although the disparity isn’t unfamiliar, it signals that income inequality will dramatically worsen this year because of the pandemic, which led to about 30 million workers losing jobs this year so far.

AFL-CIO researchers used data from public companies’ corporate proxy statements from 498 of the benchmark S&P 500 index. The employee pay is the median, or mid-point, of labor forces’ earnings.

The ratio is wildly different than decades ago, such as the post-World War II 1950s, when 34.8% of workers were in labor unions. Then, “the salaries of CEOs were, on average, just 20 times that of their mid-management employees,” says author Wade Davis from the University of British Columbia.

Writing in Rolling Stone’s story “The Unraveling of America,” Davis continues, “The elite 1% of Americans control $30 trillion of assets, while the bottom half have more debt than assets. The vast majority of Americans – white, black, and brown – are two paychecks removed from bankruptcy.

“Though living in a nation that celebrates itself as the wealthiest in history,” he adds, “most Americans live on a high wire, with no safety net.”

Indeed, too many working Americans struggle to afford the basics, much less save for college or retirement.

The labor federation says, “The ratio of CEO-to-worker pay is important. A higher pay ratio could be a sign that companies suffer from a winner-take-all philosophy where executives reap the lion’s share of compensation. A lower pay ratio could indicate the companies that are dedicated to creating high-wage jobs and investing in their employees for the company’s long-term health.”

In Illinois, dozens of companies headquartered here show the chasm between the executive suites and rank and file employees. Ten recognizable corporations and their ratios are: Caterpillar (530:1); Abbott Laboratories (329:1); Baxter Int’l (323:1); Allstate Corp. (317:1); Conagra Brands (316:1); Archer-Daniels-Midland (285:1); Deere & Co. (270:1); Navistar Int’l (265:1); Motorola Solutions (252:1); and United Airlines (169:1).

During this pandemic year, a particularly greedy trend was when 20 CEOs furloughed most of their workforces due to COVID-19 while having made more than 1,000 times their median employee compensation in 2019. Many of these “1,000-to-1 Club” CEOs head retail companies where worker wages are low and part-time jobs are common. The top 5 “offenders” in this group, the AFL-CIO reports (along with their CEO compensation and their pay ratios) are: Burlington Stores ($35,094,754; 3,030:1), TJX Companies ($19,083,676; 1,590:1); Guess Inc. ($17,383,574; 1,586:1); G-III Apparel Group ($16,597,492; 1,532:1); and Norwegian Cruise ($17,808,364; 1,052:1).

Some CEOs publicly took voluntary salary cuts when furloughing workers due to the virus. For example, when Abercrombie & Fitch on April 6 announced workforce reductions related to the pandemic, it said it cut senior executives’ salaries between 10% and 33%. However, salaries made up less than 8% of the average S&P 500 company CEO’s total compensation last year. Many also received additional compensation from stock options and other sources. Two weeks before the announcing the furloughs and executive salary cuts, Abercrombie & Fitch’s CEO received 240,701 shares of restricted stock – almost three times the amount granted the year before. (Also, these equity awards were granted early this year, when stock prices were low, creating windfalls as the stock market improved.)

The total compensation breakdown is – salary: 7.89%, bonus: 1.70%, stock awards: 53.75%, option awards: 11.19%, non-equity incentive plans:16.58%, pension and deferred compensation: 6.19% all other: 2.70%.

“The disparity is horrific, and it represents a fundamental imbalance in our economy,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler said. "It exposes massive inequality.

“We saw these exact same CEO pay shenanigans after the 2008 Wall Street financial crisis,” she continued. “This is very familiar territory.”

The new Executive Paywatch can be downloaded at https://aflcio.org/paywatch

Americans must fight for our right to vote

 

Bill Knight column for Aug. 10, 11 or 12. 2020

 In the summer of 1965, I was listening to the Rolling Stones’ single “Time is on My Side,” working on a farm, and thinking about girls, baseball and getting my driver’s license that fall. My mind was elsewhere when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act 55 years ago last week.

The VRA prohibited Southern states from preventing Blacks from voting. It outlawed discrimination against any racial or language minority, identified states with a history of bias, and required U.S. Justice Department approval of election-law changes.

Now – this month – the nation must get ready for November’s election, when the pandemic could wreck it or cause ballooning voting-by-mail.

“I think we have two weeks to make the critical decisions that are necessary to pull off this election,” said Stanford Law School elections expert Nathaniel Persily, who estimates that adequate preparations will need more than $3 billion.

That’s troubling when Congress hasn’t renewed aid to people affected by the collapsing economy, and GOP extremists are increasing voter suppression schemes – actions that imply making it easier for Republicans, Democrats, Greens and Libertarians to participate in our republic is unfair.

The country’s still dealing with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in “Shelby v. Holder,” which weakened the VRA. Chief Justice John Roberts said the law was “out of date” though bipartisan support in Congress had recently renewed it. That decision’s been followed by more moves making it harder to vote, barriers keeping “significant numbers of eligible voters from the polls, hitting all Americans, but placing special burdens on racial minorities, poor people, and young and old voters,” reported the Brennan Center for Justice (BCJ).

Such barriers include re-districting letting lawmakers pick voters instead of voters electing lawmakers, purging voters, blocking vote by mail, requiring restrictive IDs, moving/closing polling places, and reviving intimidation efforts (like the GOP marshalling 50,000 volunteers in 15 key states to challenge ballots).

“In 2016, no fewer than 5,872,857 ballots were cast and never counted,” documents Greg Palast in the new book “How Trump Stole 2020” (highly recommended, along with Carol Anderson’s “One Person, No Vote”). “And, no fewer than 1,982,071 legal voters were denied the right to vote. That's at least 7,854,928 legitimate votes and voters tossed out of the count.”

Required IDs now range from special state identifications to passports and driver’s licenses – all of which affect seniors, students, low-income citizens and urban residents: folks who don’t travel outside the country or use public transportation instead of driving.

Suppression also includes undermining the Postal Service, which would handle mailed-in ballots, 33 million of which were cast in the 2016 election. It has some GOP support; Republican officials in Iowa and Ohio have made mail-in voting easier, and despite months of exaggerations and lies about voter fraud, 58% of Americans favor permitting vote-by-mail, according to a poll last week by Politico/Morning Consult.

Quelling the vote isn’t new, of course. There have been literacy tests, poll taxes, etc., but it’s worse today.

“Nineteen states have passed new measures to suppress votes since 2017,” said Bob Moser, author of “Blue Dixie: Awakening the South’s Democratic Majority.”

“And with so much at stake in 2020 – not just the presidency and Congress, but state legislatures that get to draw new district lines for a new decade after the U.S. census – they’re not done yet.”

Some 150 advocacy groups are fighting back. Led by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, they range from the NAACP and Common Cause to the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Public Citizen. And U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois is discussing a constitutional amendment guaranteeing Americans’ right to vote.

Illinois is relatively voter friendly after January’s signing of a measure making Election Day a state holiday, providing mail-in voting, expanding early-voting, and giving students who are registered voters two hours to vote.

 

But voting’s never been a gift. It’s a right that we all must fight for, as countless others have fought for and been hurt by and sometimes killed for.

In the short term, Americans should register to vote (or update their information) and plan to cast ballots and get out the vote in their communities. Eventually, Congress should make Election Day a national holiday, extend early voting, have efficient and widespread vote by mail, and restore the Voting Rights Act.

The late, great Congressman and civil-right activist John Lewis (D-Ga.) in January said voting is “the most powerful, nonviolent tool we have in a democratic society.”

Time is no longer on our side. NOW is the time.

 

Are you registered? To determine your voter-registration status, check with your state’s Secretary of State office or go online to groups such as vote.org or headcount.org.

Back to school… for a while

Bill Knight column for 8-6, 7 or 8, 2020

Uncertainty marks back-to-school time as parents of 56.6 million American kids this month dread exposing their children to illness or sacrificing their education.

Those are terrible choices in current circumstances.

Epidemiologists’ COVKID Project this week reported 317,711 cases of the virus in U.S. children, with 805 ICU hospitalizations and 77 deaths. The nation’s daily coronavirus death toll tops 1,000; more than 150,000 Americans have died from it. July’s infections doubled June’s. U.S. hospitalizations related to COVID-19 went from 36,158 July 1 to 52,767 July 31, the Washington Post reported.

President Trump suggested postponing November’s election but insisted schools re-open.

Illinois averaged 1,091 new cases a day in July, school football and volleyball are postponed, and Gov. Pritzker warns that a return to normal is unlikely this year.

Meanwhile, last week, more than 150 medical experts and others urged leaders to “shut it down now and start over,” and Johns Hopkins University issued a report recommending “changes in the U.S. approach to COVID-19 [by] re-setting our response.”

Polls show 71% of parents think there’s a large/moderate risk in sending their kids back to school this fall (Axios-Ipsos, July 14), but 65% of them are worried about their kids falling behind academically (Associated Press-NORC, July 23).

The pandemic's still here. The problem isn’t a “second wave,” experts say. It’s that too many people ignoring

Schools are “high contact” zones, health officials caution, and some clusters of infection have been traced to youth activities. And in the first week back to school in Indiana, a junior high school in Greenfield and two schools in Clark County reported students testing positive, forcing everyone who’d had contact with them to self-quarantine.

Young people are less likely to have a severe outcome from COVID-19, but they transmit the virus, including to those with elevated risks and especially within their homes. Also, according to Kaiser Family Foundation, 3.3 million U.S. households with school-age kids have someone older than 65 (and therefore at-risk) living there, too, and 24% of all educators are particularly susceptible due to underlying health conditions.

Schools provide learning, of course, plus social interaction, meals and stability. But will it be stable?

The Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Education Association together last week issued a call to start the year online saying, “Absent a practical safety plan, we call for the 2020-21 school year to begin with remote learning.”

If not, the union leaders say, “No avenue or action is off the table, including health and safety strikes.

Objections aren’t just from classroom personnel. The American Federation of School Administrators, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and the National School Boards Association all point to the federal government’s failure to fund schools’ new expenses, which they say will be $158 billion to $244 billion nationally.

Finally, teachers shouldn’t be expected to fill in for inadequate intervention by the federal government or Federal Reserve by propping up a crashing economy by providing child-care while risking their health or their classes’ well-being.

“We are working to provide the best possible education we can with the limited resources provided,” a Regional Superintendent told me. “Educators are having the burden of the economy and families needing to go back to work put on our shoulders. We are also having the burden of keeping everyone safe and healthy laid at our feet.  Our core mandate is to educate.  This is what we are good at and what we are trained for.”

Schools using various efforts will mostly reopen. But until the pandemic recedes – until government and individuals take the deadly threat seriously – don’t count on re-opened schools staying open.