Trump’s Transgender Military Ban Doesn’t Go Far Enough: Everyone Should Be Banned

(ANTIMEDIA Op-Ed)  Social media outrage erupted Wednesday after President Trump announced his decision to reinstate a ban on transgender individuals in the military. But as many condemned the move as discriminatory, another widely overlooked sentiment is far more pressing: the ban didn’t go far enough. Everyone should be banned from the military.

Though military service is often regarded as the highest form of patriotism and the institution and its veterans are considered by many Americans to be immune from criticism — and owed unquestioning respect — the facts on the ground paint a very different picture.

Over the decades, the United States military has killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocent civilians. This isn’t an honorable opportunity that should be extended to all variations of Americans. It should be extended to none.

This doesn’t mean it isn’t noble to advocate tolerance and equality for transgender individuals. Societal discrimination and phobia of transgender individuals are real, and as trans individuals struggle to gain recognition as human beings, it is a valiant effort to recognize their plight and their humanity.

But to argue that doing so requires equal access to military service is to deny the humanity of other human beings. In the Trump era, over 2,000 civilians have already been killed in U.S. military operations. His secretary of defense, General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, has made it clear he is unconcerned with civilian casualties, and a recent report found as many as 40,000 civilians were killed in the recent months-long battle for Mosul – one ultimately deemed a “liberation” by the military and its media lapdogs (though not all the deaths were caused by the U.S. military, ISIS’ domination of Iraq in the first place is a direct consequence of U.S. military operations).

This type of carnage was commonplace under Barack Obama, who received glowing praise for his “tolerant” policy toward transgender individuals in the military as he blew up wedding parties and funerals in Yemen and directly caused the deaths of children in multiple countries while escalating the war in Afghanistan. He drew the U.S. military into even more countries than George W. Bush with the drone program, exponentially expanding robotic warfare.

But it isn’t just presidents who have made the military a moral dumpster fire.

The ruling establishment in the U.S. military has punished soldiers who objected to their Afghan allies raping children. It has been responsible for the loss of weapons that ended up in the hands of ISIS. It strategically desired the proliferation of that terror group for the purpose of gaining geopolitical dominance in the region. The military’s soldiers have killed journalists — as exposed by transgender former soldier Chelsea Manning. Soldiers have tortured individuals never charged with a crime. They have terrorized and murdered innocent women and children.

Further, the military’s top ally in the Middle East brutally oppresses trans individuals domestically.

This is not a concern for the U.S. military, which has military officials in the command room of the Saudi military’s operations in Yemen, where thousands of civilians have been slaughtered or forced to the brink of starvation because of the Saudis’ unrelenting assaults on infrastructure and agriculture. Their war there is largely intended to strengthen the monarchy’s power in the region — the same monarchy that “has carried out arrests for cross-dressing and ordered the imprisonment and flogging of men accused of behaving like women, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch,” Newsweek has noted.

All of this serves not only to preserve American hegemony and control of resources, but to keep profits flowing for massive military-industrial conglomerations like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon, who currently have officials making calls in the Pentagon (American defense companies are also selling the Saudis weapons they use in their assault on Yemen).

The American crusade is not a humane one and has no place for individuals fighting for their own humanity or the betterment of mankind — and it hasn’t been for decades.

Rather than begging a violent institution to validate trans individuals, Americans — regardless of sexual identity — should ban themselves from joining a military that has become a force for corporate hegemony, resource grabs, and war crimes around the world, rather than a force for freedom. Doing so would do far more to promote the cause of universal acceptance than indulging in jingoistic nationalism behind the barrels of guns and joysticks of remote-controlled bombers and calling it progress.

Those who want to serve their country should exercise their rights to oppose the inhumane actions of the military rather than seek to partake in them. After all, it matters little to innocent victims of American violence whether the person dropping bombs on them identifies as straight, gay, transgender, or anything else.

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U.S. No Longer Considered a ‘Full Democracy’ — and It’s Not Trump’s Fault

January 25, 2017   |   Carey Wedler

(ANTIMEDIA) The United States is no longer a full democracy, according to an annual report recently released by The Economist. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s ninth annual Democracy Index details the decline of democracy not just in the U.S., but also around the world.

The rankings cover 165 countries and are determined by a variety of factors. The report (which is downloadable upon registration explains:

“The Democracy Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Based on their scores on a range of indicators within these categories, each country is then itself classified as one of four types of regime: ‘full democracy’; ‘flawed democracy’; ‘hybrid regime’; and ‘authoritarian regime.’”

The number of countries ranked as “full democracies” fell from 20 to 19 in 2016, and the U.S. came in at 21 — earning the designation of a “flawed democracy.” The report explains that the U.S.’ quality of democracy has declined “ as popular confidence in the functioning of public institutions has declined.” The U.S. now ranks behind Japan, which was the highest ranked flawed democracy.

Following the chaos of the 2016 election, it is unsurprising that many Americans are losing faith in democracy. But as the report notes, Donald Trump is not entirely to blame.

“Popular trust in government, elected representatives and political parties has fallen to extremely low levels in the US… This has been a long-term trend and one that preceded the election of Mr Trump as US president in November 2016.”

In fact, it appears Trump simply capitalized on existing sentiments:

“By tapping a deep strain of political disaffection with the functioning of democracy, Mr Trump became a beneficiary of the low esteem in which US voters hold their government, elected representatives and political parties, but he was not responsible for a problem that has had a long gestation.”

The U.S. government’s attacks on civil liberties and many failed policies have become hallmarks of American policy. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. has slipped in both press and economic freedom in recent years.

But the U.S. is far from alone in its decline as “[p]opular confidence in political institutions and parties continues to decline in many other developed countries, too.”

“Some 72 countries experienced a decline in their total score compared with 2015, almost twice as many as the countries which recorded an improvement (38),” the analysis explains.

Fifty-seven countries stagnated. Eastern Europe suffered the worst losses, with 19 countries slipping in the democracy index. Countries that were deemed to be “full democracies” included Norway at number one, followed by Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, Denmark, Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, and several other European countries. Uruguay ranked 20th, outpacing other Latin American countries.

The number of authoritarian governments totaled 51. “Around 2.6bn people, more than one-third of the world’s population, live under authoritarian rule, with a large share being, of course, in China,” the report notes, adding that “‘[h]ybrid’ and ‘authoritarian’ regimes are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa (36), the Middle East and North Africa (18 out of 20 countries), and to a lesser extent in eastern Europe (15) and Asia (13).”

Though according to the index, democracy appears to be working for some nations, others are struggling to uphold the system’s purported ideals. “Since 2006 The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has recorded a decline in the average aggregate global democracy score, from 5.62 to 5.52 in 2016,” the report notes, adding that Western Europe, North America, and Eastern Europe experienced the most declines – even as many Western European nations retained their categorization as full democracies.

These losses parallel global opinions, which increasingly reflect a loss of faith in democracy. As the report asserts, even those countries that often boast of their democratic history are crumbling:

“The crisis of democracy is expressed in the failing traditional political party system; the growing gap between elites and electorates; and the rise of populist parties. The contemporary problems of democracy are clearly not just ‘over there’—in Russia, China, the Middle East or Africa. Democracy is in trouble in the West, in the mature democracies of western Europe and the US, which are no longer obvious beacons for those striving for democracy in the nondemocratic world.”

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This article (U.S. No Longer Considered a ‘Full Democracy’ — and It’s Not Trump’s Fault) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Carey Wedler and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. Image credit: acampadapraga. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

How 8 Men Have Become Richer Than Half of the Entire World’s Population

January 18, 2017   |   Shaun Bradley

(ANTIMEDIA) Research and advocacy group Oxfam International released a new report on Monday that outlines the latest developments in global economic inequality. Unfortunately, the results validate previous concerns that these massive imbalances would only accelerate. The number of people who control more wealth than the poorest 50% went from 62 to 8 in just one year. With half the world’s net worth now in such few hands, it should be easier than ever to bring awareness to this ongoing trend — but finding a solution is far more complicated.

Oxfam used Forbes’ list of billionaires and new information from Credit Suisse to reach their conclusion. The eight individuals named are Bill Gates; Amancio Ortega, founder of fashion house Inditex; Warren Buffett; Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim Helu; Jeff Bezos; Mark Zuckerberg; Oracle’s Larry Ellison; and Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York.

Although many people with resources like these have made tremendous contributions to society, the question of how obligated they are to contribute to the common good still remains. After all, their fortunes have the potential to completely reshape the world for the better, but the problem arises when government dictates how much should be taxed and where that money will go. The public sector’s track record of wasting and mismanaging funds is unmatched and can only be rationalized by the economically illiterate. In an ideal world, bureaucrats would be fiscally responsible and impervious to corruption, but reality is never so utopian.

The rapid consolidation of wealth by so few showcases who the current government policies have benefited most. Artificially low interest rates and money printing, which have sent stock markets soaring for nearly eight years, have only helped solidify the elite’s hold on the financial world. They can borrow money for next to nothing and buy up huge stakes in companies, all while enjoying profits courtesy of the Federal Reserve’s stimulus programs.

Government regulations may stem from good intentions, but they can easily create a dragnet that ends up targeting those they were intended to help. While normal people are losing their jobs, seeing rent skyrocket and health care costs explode, the State has been propping up those it really serves.

In the report, Oxfam vaguely lays the blame at the feet of corporations:

“Businesses are the lifeblood of a market economy, and when they work to the benefit of everyone they are vital to building fair and prosperous societies. But when corporations increasingly work for the rich, the benefits of economic growth are denied to those who need them most. In pursuit of delivering high returns to those at the top, corporations are driven to squeeze their workers and producers ever harder – and to avoid paying taxes which would benefit everyone, and the poorest people in particular.”

Since the financial crisis began, the 1% has been scapegoated continuously, but complaining about an abstract hierarchy won’t help the millions of people living on less than $2 a day. If substantial changes are going to be made, the focus needs to be on finding hard evidence of tax evasion and unethical business practices on an individual level rather than demonizing anyone with substantial wealth. Verifiable information is what sways public opinion, just like the Panama Papers did by taking the first step in exposing some of the world’s richest people for utilizing tax havens and loopholes to avoid being held responsible. Instead of indiscriminately blaming all those who have achieved success, reports like this could act as a blueprint to help put names and faces to those anonymous adversaries who have avoided accountability.

In this age of information, the opportunity to seek individual justice lays with every journalist and activist. When people group others into left-right, rich-poor, or privileged-oppressed, for example, the uniqueness of each individual experience is lost. The inequality seen across the planet is heartbreaking, and any person with a shred of empathy should want to help. Unfortunately, the solution is rarely State intervention. The tool used to remedy this situation must come from grassroots origins. As government’s management of resources demonstrates, there is no other viable alternative. By inspiring others to take action voluntarily, we can build a foundation that doesn’t rely on the threat of violence and use of force for progress.

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This article (How 8 Men Have Become Richer Than Half of the Entire World’s Population) by Shaun Bradley is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Shaun Bradley and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

BREAKING: Whistleblower Chelsea Manning to Be Freed from Prison

January 17, 2017   |   admintam

President Barack Obama has commuted noted whistleblower Chelsea Manning’s prison sentence, and Manning will be released on May 17 of this year.

While Manning was reportedly on Obama’s short list for commutations, many were shocked that the president—notorious for dealing harshly with whistleblowers—followed through.

Human rights advocates, government watchdogs, and LGBTQ defenders have long been pushing Obama to commute Manning’s 35-year sentence, particularly as Manning, who is transgender and is being denied appropriate healthcare in military prison, has attempted suicide twice in the past six months.

“I’m relieved and thankful that the president is doing the right thing and commuting Chelsea Manning’s sentence,” said Chase Strangio, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT Project representing Manning, in a statement.

“Since she was first taken into custody, Chelsea has been subjected to long stretches of solitary confinement—including for attempting suicide—and has been denied access to medically necessary health care,” Strangio added. “This move could quite literally save Chelsea’s life, and we are all better off knowing that Chelsea Manning will walk out of prison a free woman, dedicated to making the world a better place and fighting for justice for so many.”

Progressive commentators, journalists, rights advocates, and others celebrated the news on Twitter:

Chelsea Manning is probably the most empathetic person I’ve ever met. So thrilled!! Can’t wait to see what she does. My clemency letter: pic.twitter.com/j9CQhRmxhm

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 17, 2017

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This article (BREAKING: Whistleblower Chelsea Manning to Be Freed from Prison) by Nadia Prupis, originally appeared on CommonDreams.org and is licensed Creative Commons 3.0. The Anti-Media radio show airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org