The Green New Deal

My concern with the Green New Deal is it mushes together two things which not only don't necessarily go together but which may be incompatible.

I think attacking climate change is an absolute necessity. I think investing in green technology will have not only climate but economic benefits which MAY or MAY NOT alleviate the economic and social justice issues identified in the bill.

People who are currently flipping burgers aren't going to suddenly be designing state of the art green technology. There's nothing about green technology manufacturing that would reverse the trend of automated rather than labor intensive factories; those same people flipping burgers are unlikely to either design the robots or maintain them.

I suspect a green technology revolution would, like all other economic revolutions, benefit some people, hurt other people and make the richest even richer. There's nothing wrong with this as long as the main goal of getting climate change under control is met.

White supremacists committed the largest # of extremist killings in 2017?

A tweet from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez noted that:

White supremacists committed the largest # of extremist killings in 2017.

According to Statista in 2017 there were 8,584 terrorist attacks worldwide resulting in 18,753 deaths and 19,461 injuries. Many were in the Middle east with 1,951 in Iraq, 1,171 in Afghanistan. There were also 860 in India and 574 in Pakistan. I doubt any of these were perpetrated by white supremacists so I’m going to assume Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is referring to the US only.

Her source is probably articles based upon the ADL’s Annual Report on Extremism such as an article in Quartz whose headline read:

The far-right was responsible for the majority of America’s extremist killings in 2017

According to the report, this is true. The ADL report listed 19 incidents. One possible problem with this report is that it includes criminal incidents perpetrated by people with extremist leanings even if the actions had nothing to do with their extremist politics. But let’s not quibble.

Lafayette, Indiana, January 16, 2017 — Self proclaimed white supremacist murdered a man during a home invasion. 1-0

San Antonio, Texas, January 29, 2017 — A member of the Aryan Brotherhood shoots to death a man over a dispute. 2-0

Denver, Colorado, February 1, 2017 — Convert to Islam who had pledged his allegiance to ISIS kills a security guard. 2-1

Leadwood, Missouri, February 9, 2017 — KKK leader murdered by his wife and son. 3-1

North Judson, Indiana, March 3, 2017 — Aryan Circle member shot and killed man who was dating his ex-girlfriend. 4-1

New York City, New York, March 30, 2017 — White supremacist who wanted to stop white women from engaging in interracial relationships stabs and kills homeless man. 5-1

Fresno, California, April 18, 2017 — Black Nationalist kills a security guard and then kills three more people over several days. 5-5

Dallas, Texas, May 1, 2017 — Black Nationalist kills his godfather. 5-6
Broadwater County, Montana, May 16, 2017 — Anti-government extremists kill a sheriff. 6-6
Tampa, Florida, May 19, 2017 — White supremacist kills two of his roommates for making fun of his conversion to Islam (!?). 8-6
Portland, Oregon, May 26, 2017 — White supremacist stabs to death two men who tried to help an African-American girl and a girl wearing a hijab being harassed by the guy. 10-6
Putnam County Georgia, June 13, 2017 — Member of a white supremacist prison gang and another inmate killed two guards while trying to escape. 12-6
Century Correctional Institution, Florida, June 19, 2017 — White supremacist inmate stabs African-American inmate to death. 13-6
Samish Island, Washington, July 14, 2017 — Alt right theorist murders his father in argument over his beliefs. 14-6
Charlottesville, Virginia, August 12, 2017 — White supremacist drives car into crown killing 1 and injuring 19. 15-6
Greeley, Colorado, August 16, 2017 — White supremacist gang member, along with his wife and sister, murdered his uncle. 16-6
New York City, October 31, 2017 — Islamic extremist drives a rental truck down a bike path killing 8. 16-14
Aztec, New Mexico, December 14, 2017 — White supremacist disguises himself and kills two students. 18-14.
Reston, Virginia, December 22, 2017 — An accused white supremacist teenager kills his girlfriend’s parents because they wanted to her to stop seeing him because of his beliefs. 20-14.

So, we have 19 incidents resulting in 34 deaths and white supremacists were responsible for 20 of them. I’m sure these weren’t the only homicides involving extremists because there were 17,284 homicides in the US in 2017. There were 650 homicides in Chicago alone. There were also 135,755 rapes.

But these were the 19 incidents the ADL chose to highlight for whatever reason. The 2018 report was worse with 50 deaths documented. It also updated the 2017 total to 37 but didn’t identify the additional 3 victims.

You'll excuse me if I'm not about to panic over 34 extremist related homicides out of 17,284.

Who Kills Who?

Despite all the gnashing of teeth over police killing young black men and the whole Black Lives Matter thing, blacks apparently kill more blacks every year than whites and police combined.

According to the FBI crime statistics in 2016 blacks killed 2,570 other blacks. Whites killed 243 blacks. It works the other way as well. In 2016 Whites killed 2,854 whites while blacks killed 533 whites.

So it’s far more likely for someone to be killed by someone of the same race than by someone of a different race or by the police.

According to the Washington Post police killed a total of 963 persons in 2016.

So even if all 963 people killed by police were black, and they weren’t, the total number of blacks killed by police and whites combined is less than half the total number killed by other blacks.

Of course crime is not related to race but to economic deprivation and desperation. It’s made worse by easy access to firearms which makes it necessary for police to be armed.

If every two bit hood wasn’t armed to the teeth police might be a lot less trigger happy.

Some Input from Jerusalem

As the Israeli elections come closer, some notes from the Jerusalem Post.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel’s regular allowing of Qatari funds to be transferred into Gaza, saying it is part of a broader strategy to keep Hamas and the Palestinian Authority separate, a source in Monday’s Likud faction meeting said.

Netanyahu explained that, in the past, the PA transferred the millions of dollars to Hamas in Gaza. He argued that it was better for Israel to serve as the pipeline to ensure the funds don’t go to terrorism.

“Now that we are supervising, we know it’s going to humanitarian causes,” the source said, paraphrasing Netanyahu.

The money comes from the Qatar Fund for Development established in 2002 to help the economic development of Arab countries and developing countries. Netanyahu’s response was to opposition by the Blue and White Party who wanted to block the funds altogether calling them mafia style protection payments.

The prime minister also said that, “whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for” transferring the funds to Gaza, because maintaining a separation between the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helps prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The implication being that Blue and White is strongly opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian State at least in the foreseeable future.

The bottom line is that the Israelis don’t trust the Palestinians including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority. It’s hard to have a partnership when there’s no trust.

The Blue and White Party is an alliance looking to topple the Likud party as the party with the most seats in the upcoming elections but have slid lightly in the most recent polls. The last poll showed Blue and White with 33 seats and Likud with 29 out of a total of 120 Knesset seats.

Even if they manage to gain the most seats the government will still be created based upon which party leader the President of Israel (Reuvin Rivlin) believes has the best chance of putting together a majority coalition. So Blue and White could win the most seats but Netanyahu could still form the government.

Blue and White appear to have a strategy aimed at solidifying Israeli occupation in the West bank settlements, Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley. Three of its four senior leaders are former IDF chiefs of staff so I’m not expecting a lot of peace making efforts.

Let’s put it this way, neither “Two-State Solution” nor “Palestinian State” appears in the party’s charter. Here’s a direct quote from the charter.

"We will initiate a regional conference with the Arab countries that seek stability, and deepen the process of separation from the Palestinians while maintaining the uncompromising security interests of the State of Israel and the IDF's freedom of action everywhere.”

This is a very divide and conquer military like approach. I’m also reading a soldier’s mentality regarding Hamas in Gaza.

"Hamas, whose capabilities are minuscule in relation to the IDF, is provocative and is embittering the lives of the residents of the south.”

One last quote form the Blue and White Charter.

"We will heal the wounds created by the current government in relations with world Jewry, especially in the United States."

One more time, Israel doesn’t trust the Palestinians and they feel they’re justified in not trusting them. This is the fundamental problem. To be honest I don’t blame them; I wouldn’t trust them either.

The Emergence of the State of Israel

Given all the flap over anti-Semitic tropes being thrown around by Muslim members of the Hpuse of Representatives and the general ignorance being expressed by lots of folks, I think a bit of history is in order.

The establishment of the state of Israel began with the establishment of the Mandate for Palestine in 1923 by the League of Nations. That document ratified the Balfour Declaration of 1917 but also established safeguards for the non-Jewish population.

Britain was placed in charge of the mandate and allowed to establish the boundaries of Trans-Jordan, today the state of Jordan, and Palestine.

Between 1923 and 1947 there was a bloody three way pissing contest in Palestine between Jews, Arabs and the British. Finally Britain gave up and dumped the whole mess in the lap of the United Nations which had recognized existing international documents including the Mandate for Palestine.

The UN established a special committee to recommend actions related to Palestine. The committee came back with the following:

(1) approved the termination of the British mandate,

(2) a majority proposal for the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state with international control over Jerusalem and an economic union,

(3) a minority proposal for a federal union with Jerusalem as the capital.

The Zionist factions accepted the majority proposal. The Arab factions rejected both proposals.

The Jews were allocated more land than the Arabs (53% to 46%) despite Arabs being in the majority (1,270,000 to 610,000) because large scale Jewish emigration from Europe was anticipated.

On November 29, 1947, the UN adopted Resolution 181 which partitioned Palestine based upon the majority proposal.

The shooting started the next day with the ambush of two buses carrying Jewish settlers.

Jewish settlements were attacked by Arab forces including troops from Jordan, Syria and Egypt. Arab villages were attacked by Jewish forces. The Jewish committee told Jewish settlers to hold their ground while many Arabs either evacuated or were forced out by Jewish forces.

Both sides ignored the boundaries of the partition plan and probably committed atrocities. When the smoke had cleared Israel controlled all of Palestine except for the West Bank, which was controlled by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip which was controlled by Egypt. About 750,000 Palestinian Arabs out of an original 1948 population of 1.2 million had become refugees.

Israel took the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt in the 1967 war. Israel withdrew from Gaza and dismantled Jewish settlements there in 2005.