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Booklaunch: Socialism or extinction - the meaning of revolution in a time of ecological crisis - Socialist Worker

Not since October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, has the world come so close to nuclear war as today.

It is not necessary to glorify the Stalinist leader Nikita Khrushchev, let alone the imperialist president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, to recognize that there is a glaring difference between the reaction to that crisis and the one gripping the world today.

In a recently published book on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Nuclear Folly, historian Serhii Plokhy writes that, despite enormous miscalculations and misjudgments on both sides, The crisis did not develop into a shooting war because Kennedy and Khrushchev both feared nuclear weapons and dreaded the very idea of their use.

Plokhy adds that Kennedy and Khrushchev did not step into the traps so masterfully created by themselves because they did not believe they could win a nuclear war, nor were they prepared to pay a price for such a victory. It is hard to imagine what the outcome of the Cuban crisis might have been if the two leaders had a more cavalier attitude toward the use of nuclear arms.

In the midst of a new global nuclear crisis, the United States/NATO and Russia seem to be proceeding in a manner aimed at demonstrating what this unimaginable outcome would actually be. There is a staggering indifference to the consequences of nuclear war.

Having launched the invasion of Ukraine with the nave and desperate assumption that he could compel his Western partners to negotiate, Russian President Vladimir Putin confronts the staggering failure of his bankrupt and reactionary strategy in Ukraine. The Russian military has suffered a series of defeats in recent weeks, including the debacle in Kharkiv followed by further advances of the Ukrainian military into territory that Russia now claims as its own.

Russia was goaded by the United States into a war for which it was entirely unprepared, underestimating the agenda of the United States and NATO. In the wake of humiliating defeats and facing internal crisis and recriminations within the Russian oligarchy, the Putin regime is responding with unmistakable threats to use nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, the United States and NATO, determined to press their advantage in pursuit of their global geopolitical objectives, are making statements that they will not be deterred by the threat of nuclear war.

In American newspapers and on television programs, there is open discussion about the possibility of nuclear war. The New York Times wrote on Sunday: Officials in Washington are gaming out scenarios should President Vladimir V. Putin decide to use a tactical nuclear weapon to make up for the failings of Russian troops in Ukraine A range of officials suggested that if Russia detonated a tactical nuclear weapon on Ukrainian soil, the options included some kind of military response.

Asked by ABCs Face the Nation what the United States would do if Russia used a nuclear weapon, former CIA Director David Petraeus replied, We would respond by leading a NATO, a collective effort, that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea.

General Petraeus, who led US forces in genocidal rampages in Iraq and Afghanistan, seems to believe that the United States and NATO can wipe out Russian military forces, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, without retaliation. One must be borderline insane not to understand that such an attack by NATO on the Russian military forces would provoke a thermonuclear response by the Kremlin that would result in the utter destruction, with a horrific loss of life, of every major capital in Western Europe and North America.

The level of recklessness was summed up by an unnamed European official quoted in the Washington Post in an article headlined, Russias annexation puts world two or three steps away from nuclear war: No one knows what Putin will decide to do. But hes totally in a corner, hes crazy and for him there is no way out. The only way out for him is total victory or total defeat and we are working on the latter one. We need Ukraine to win and so we are working to prevent worst case scenarios by helping Ukraine win.

Have the Dr. Strangeloves who are making these statements even thought through the implications of their own policies? They are insisting that, whatever the consequences, the US and NATO powers must pursue a course that leads to the total defeat of Russia. Far from preventing the worst case scenario, their words and actions are fueling the fire that is leading to a worst case outcome.On the edge of the abyss, the position of the imperialist powers is: Forward until complete victory.

As always, the imperialist warmongers who are denouncing Putins threats to use nuclear weapons as an unprecedented breach of Great Power morality exhibit an astonishing forgetfulness about their own past actions. But it is a matter of historical fact that the United States has not only used nuclear weapons (against the defenseless populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), but it and other imperialist powers came close to using nuclear weapons when threatened with military defeat.

In 1950, General Douglas MacArthur sought authorization to use as many as 30 atomic bombs against Chinese troops crossing the border into Korea. In 1954, France pleaded with US President Eisenhower to use nuclear bombs to save its encircled troops at Dien Bien Phu. In 1962, Kennedy himself threatened to use nuclear weapons during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1973, Israel, facing defeat during the initial days of the Yom Kippur War, came close to using nuclear weapons against Egypt.

Desperation and recklessness may describe the moods gripping Washington and Moscow, but not their source. A political explanation must be found for this behavior.

The desperation of the Putin regime arises from the fact that it is confronted with the consequences of the dissolution of the USSR, a historic betrayal that set into motion all the subsequent socioeconomic andpolitical disasters. In dissolving the Soviet Union, the Stalinist bureaucracy deluded itself into believing that Lenins analysis of imperialism was nothing more than a Marxian myth. But this myth has proven to be true. Thirty years after the collapse of the USSR, Russia is confronted with a war by the imperialist powers aimed at dismembering it.

Despite the disasters created by the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, the American ruling class believes that through war it can somehow stave off the growth of working-class opposition that haunts them.

Amidst all of this, there is no frank statement of the implications of the likely consequences of nuclear war. Politicians, high-ranking military personnel, and the media are talking nonchalantly about an event that could lead to the annihilation of hundreds of millions, even billions, of people.

What accounts for the difference between the response to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the situation today? Ultimately, the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis did not lead to nuclear war can be attributed to the character of the political period. In the 1960s American imperialism was passing through the era of the postwar capitalist boom. The Soviet Union, encompassing one-sixth of the worlds land mass, was in an immeasurably stronger position than the desperate and encircled Russian state.

Putins national chauvinism and xenophobia offer no alternative to the crisis created by US imperialism. Putin, speaking for a parasitic Russian oligarchy, fears the Russian working class even more than he does the US and the West. His response to the disaster created by the dissolution of the USSR blends the medieval obscurantism of Tsarist Russia with the counterrevolutionary nationalist politics of Stalinism.

No faith can be placed on the reasonableness of the American or Russian oligarchies. The pandemic has already revealed the utter indifference to human life, both of the Kremlin regime, which has accepted the death of 400,000people in Russia, and the imperialist ruling class in the US and Europe, whose herd immunity policies have led to millions of deaths worldwide.

The reckless actions of governments that are leading the world to disaster must be countered by a global mass anti-war movement of the working class and youth.

The working class must demand the immediate end to this reactionary war. It is necessary to unify the struggle by workers in defense of their social and democratic rights with the struggle against war.

The building of a new anti-war movement must be based on the perspective of international socialism, rejecting all forms of nationalism and xenophobia and fighting for the unity of workers in every country.

The World Socialist Web Site is the voice of the working class and the leadership of the international socialist movement. We rely entirely on the support of our readers. Please donate today!

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Stop the war in Ukraine! - WSWS

TheEconomistposted a list this month entitled "What to read to understand Donald Trump," a list of five "handy books" from the overflowing library of volumes about the man who, as the editors put it, "remains at the center of American politics." These include the first major book about the Trump White House, Michael Wolff's 2018 "Fire and Fury," and several other classics of this mini-genre: "Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America"by John Sides, Michel Tesler and Lynn Vavreck; John Bolton's White House memoir, "The Room Where It Happened" and two accounts of the end of Trump's presidency, "Frankly, We Did Win This Election," by Michael C. Bender, and most recently "Thank You for Your Servitude:Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission"by Mark Leibovich.

Taken together, those five books about Trump World capture a great deal of the the political intrigue, scandalous gossip and incoherent policy-making of Trump's two presidential campaigns and his chaotic administration. But I would argue they explain far more about the boss' enablers and his MAGA supporters than they do about Trump himself, his 75 years of life or personal history.

If you want to understand Donald Trump's personality and his interrelated behavior in business, politics, and crime, I would recommend this alternative list: five other books that provide meaningful and serious examinations of Trump's social-psychological makeup and his family, emotional and social development:

From the perspective of criminology, which is my field, what is particularly interesting about these 10 Trump books is that with the exception of those by Bolton, Johnston and Cohen, there are no substantive discussions of Trump's evident corruption, or more than cursory examinations of his criminal career in business, politics and government.

Without an appreciation or a less-than-superficial understanding of the nature of the crimes of the powerful, their habitual patterns of lawlessness and the normalization of these crimes not to mention the systemic resistance to holding powerful perpetrators accountable there is palpable jeopardy that people will not understand that, like other criminals, they are created in relation to their personal social status and their social identification experiences. And furthermore, that the types of crimes committed by the most powerful offenders also result from their personal biographies, and particularly their experiences with crime control and law enforcement (if any).

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Without this level of understanding of the etiological voyage of Donald Trump's criminality and impunity, especially in relation to how he became for four years the most powerful person on earth, most people view him through a lens of cognitive dissonance. They are likely to think of Trump as mentally ill or deeply irrational an innately evil individual or some kind of "born criminal." In that view, whatever else Trump may be, he cannot possibly be a "rational" actor.

I would forcefully argue that's not true. More important, this discourse focused on Trump's perceived insanity, ignorance or immorality works to mitigate, both socially and legally, against more accurate perceptions of his rationality, intentionality and level of culpability.

Consider Lloyd Green's book review for the Guardian of Michael Wolff's third Trump book, "Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency." Thisis Wolff's best and "most alarming" book, Green writes, and "that is saying plenty," especially since "Fire and Fury" had both "infuriated a president" and "fueled a publishing boom."

Most people view Trump through a lens of cognitive dissonance: His behavior doesn't make sense, so he's mentally ill or deeply irrational or innately evil. None of that is true.

Wolff's new bookdescribes Trump's "wrath-filled final days in power" exemplified by an interview that Wolff held in the lobby of Mar-a-Lago. Wolff simply allows Trump to rant through a classic "exercise in Trumpian score-settling," without even trying to push back against the cascade of lies. As Wolff admits, he was reluctant to interrupt or ask serious questions because he knew that the interview would have come to an abrupt end had he done so. So Trump simply babbles on nonsensically, to no obvious purpose for either man.

As I have written elsewhere about Wolff's conclusions, he "argues non-persuasively that the Donald was too crazy" to be genuinely guilty of plotting a coup or other criminal behavior. Wolff sees Trump as experiencing "swings of irrationality and mania," and as "someone who has completely departed reality. Trump was incapable of forming specific intent, he argues, based "on the calculated and 'coordinated' misuse of power."

Wolff is not alone. Indeed, the slew of books documenting Trump's final days in office tend to agree on this analysis, along with most cable TV talking heads, with the obvious exception of those on Fox News. The consensus, more or less, is that Trump's loss to "Sleepy" Joe Biden broke him, and that his fantasies, as captured in the title of "Frankly, We Did Win this Election,"are evidence that he was seriously deluded, and not just acting deluded.

Here's a similar take fromDaily Kos on Trump books and election delusions:

Losing the election untethered him from whatever scraps of reality his advisers had still managed to tie him to, and up he went like a lost balloon with anger management issues. By the end he was (is) wallowing in delusion, ordering staff to do impossible and/or illegal things, absolutely convinced that everything was a conspiracy and that anyone who didn't tell him what he wanted to hear was in on it.

Let me disagree firmly, and speak from the clinical evidence. Trump has never been tethered to reality but that does not necessarily mean he believes his own delusions. Similarly, while some of his presidential advisers may have resisted to varying degrees or pushed back against his more unhinged desires, they never had him tied up or taken away in a straitjacket. Some of his own appointed Cabinet members saw his behavior as crazy or unstable from the beginning, and reportedly talked about invoking the 25th Amendment at various times but never did so.

For many years, perhaps for his whole life, Trump has been bipolar, irrational, paranoid, narcissistic and sociopathic. Those qualities do not necessarily mean that he is delusional or legally insane, or that he lacks criminal intent. Trump knows as well as anybody does, and probably better than most, the differences between "fake news" and legitimate information.

But here's what's most important: Trump knows he is guilty of all the crimes he has been accused of. He also knows he has no genuine defenses for any of those likely or potential charges, which is why he so persistently seeks to lie, to obfuscate and to delay. He also understands that his best defense, at least in the court of public opinion, is a forceful offense: Always a master of projection, he charges his legal accusers with sinister and conspiratorial motivations.

Trump feels no empathy whatsoever for any of the Jan. 6 rioters and could not care less about their legal travails, adjudications or punishments. Whether we're talking about insurrectionists or FBI agents, Trump simply uses them instrumentally, as he uses everybody else, to satisfy his bottomless narcissism and egotistical needs. It's the modus operandi of a sociopath without the psychological ability to identify with either of those two groups, or literally any other, including the "base voters" of the Trump cult.

Trump is deceitful, but not deluded or delusional. He's a con man, performance artist and demagogue who understands the value of never publicly abandoning his most absurd narratives.

To state this differently, Trump is deceitful, but not deluded or delusional. Unlike Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Trump does not really believe that he won the 2020 election or that it was rigged against him. While he may post on his social media platform that he "loves" the Jan. 6 rioters, he does not really believe they are "nice" people. Nor does he believe for one second that "evil" FBI agents planted classified documents at his office in Mar-a-Lago, or that GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell a "DEATH WISH," political or otherwise.

He is a con man, performance artist and demagogue who understands the value of never publicly abandoning his narratives, no matter how absurd or blatantly false they are. He was able to suck in Michael Wolff, along with a whole lot of other people, to believe he was so deranged as to be incapable of forming the intent to stage a coup, let alone organizing one.

Really? This was the man who conducted cursory presidential business every day while watching the tube, eating fast food and tweeting 24/7, except when he was playing at least 27 holes of golf a week, or was out on the campaign trail delivering "greatest hits" monologues of unadulterated nonsense to the loyal followers he viewed with obvious contempt.

In the immortal words attributed to P.T. Barnum (among others), "There's a sucker born every minute." And the former president who was impeached twice and got away scot-free knows how to spot them.

Read more

on the current predicament of Donald Trump

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Donald Trump's life of crime: Most books are clueless these five explain him best - Salon

Trump's slippage was stark. In 2014, Trumps RevPAR of $296.39 ranked first among the eight hotels, according to STR data. The hotel ranked second in 2015. But by 2018, it ranked sixth, with a RevPAR of $258.38.

The Trump Chicago, which opened in 2008, may also have lost business to new luxury competitors that opened before and during his presidential campaign, according to Detlefsen. Seven upper-end hotels opened between 2013 and 2016, including the Langham Chicago a block away, the Loews in Streeterville and the Virgin and London House in the Loop.

Thats quite a bit of new supply over a short period of time in the upper upscale and luxury chain scales, Detlefsen wrote in his email. However, (Trumps peer group) ekes out a tiny RevPAR gain in 2016 when Trump RevPAR plummets.

The pandemic pummeled all downtown Chicago hotels, with Trumps losing $9 million in 2020 on an EBITDA basis. RevPAR at Trump fell 68% in 2020, versus a 77% decline for its competitors, according to STR data provided to the assessor.

The documents did not include complete data for 2021 or 2022, so it's difficult to determine whether the recent criminal investigations of the former president have hurt the hotel's results further. Through the first eight months of 2021, RevPAR at the Trump Chicago rose 55% over the same period in 2020, versus a 77% gain for its competitors, according to STR data. The downtown hotel market has rebounded further since then, lifted by a pickup in leisure travel.

Trump has not been charged with criminal wrongdoing and has denied allegations that he committed crimes during and after his presidency. He has said the multiple probes are part of a broader effort by his political enemies to bring him down.

Trump owns a majority of the rooms in the Chicago hotel, part of the Trump International Hotel & Tower at 401 N. Wabash Ave. When he developed the 92-story skyscraper, he had planned to sell off all the rooms as condominiums, but sales stalled as the market plunged during the financial crisis, and he retained ownership of 175.

The Trump Chicago has turned out to be a poor investment for many people who did buy hotel rooms in the building. Investors can buy and sell the rooms as they would with residential condos, and many who have sold have taken big losses. In March 2021, a 21st-floor hotel unit sold for $115,000, down from $248,000 in a prior sale in 2016. At the end of September, a bigger unit on the same floor sold for $415,000, down from the $874,000 that the seller paid Trump for the unit back in 2008.

Setting aside Trump's political controversies, a bigger problem for the Trump brand now may be that it represents something different than it did before he embarked on a political career, said branding consultant Allen Adamson. Trump has extremely passionate followers, but they're not the target demographic for his high-end hotels.

"As his political brand has overwhelmed his business brand, his core target is not luxury buyers," said Adamson, co-founder and managing partner of Metaforce, a New York-based brand consulting firm. "He may be better at selling pillows and beer than high-end luxury."

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As Donald Trump took over the White House, his Chicago hotel suffered - Crain's Chicago Business

Newly released sound offers more evidence, as if it were needed, that former President Donald Trump takes credit forRon DeSantisbeing Florida Governor.

New York Times reporterMaggie Haberman released audio from a September 2021 Trump interview for her new book, sound that rehashed Trumps familiar take that DeSantis would have been stuck at just 3% in the polls if he hadnt successfully wheedled an endorsement from the former President in 2018.

He was at 3%, Trump told Haberman. But the people of Florida didnt associate him with the word Governor.'

They saw him defending me on Russia, Russia, Russia,' Trump added. But you know, often times you see that, but you dont say, Oh, hes going to be Governor of Florida.'

He came to me, he said, Id love your endorsement, Trump repeated. I said, Ron, youre at 3%. You cant win. He said, If you endorse me, I can.

Trump resisted: Ron, youre at 3%, you cant win. DeSantis continued to press for the endorsement.

Well, look, you never know, but its not going to be easy, Trump reportedly told DeSantis, before referring to his chief Primary opponent,Adam Putnam. This guys got $28 million. Hes been running for eight years.

Haberman has reported that Trump called DeSantis fat, phony and whiny, offering a unique context for Trumps reiteration of the claim that he made DeSantis, one that he has made before with similar language and narrative details.

Last year, he said he wasnt too thrilled about endorsing DeSantis because people didnt really know who he was.

So when Ron asked me for help, for an endorsement, Trump added, He was at 3(%), and 3(%) means you dont have a chance. He went up like a rocket ship.

Trump noted Putnamtold him the endorsement was like a nuclear weapon went off.

We gave up, we didnt spend our money, it was over, Trump quoted Putnam as saying.

I dont want to brag about it, but man do I have a good record of endorsements, Trump said at aWest Virginia rally in 2018. In Florida, we have a great candidate, his name is Ron DeSantis, and he called me and asked whether or not I could endorse him.

I said, Let me check it out, Trump said he told DeSantis. This was a few months ago. He was at three, and I gave him a nice shot and a nice little tweet bing bing and he went from three to like 20-something.

Trump and DeSantis have maintained a united front publicly, but suggestions have mounted for months that the dynamic could have frayed, especially since Trump lost the presidency.

Trump f***ing hates DeSantis. He just resents his popularity, one unidentified Trump confidant told Vanity FairsGabriel Sherman.

Among the purported grievances: DeSantis prematurely committed Trump to speak at the Florida GOPStatesmans Dinner in 2019, he didnt close beaches in 2020 despite Trumps wishes, and the Governor skipped a Trump rally while appearing instead with PresidentJoe Bidenin Surfside after the Champlain Tower South collapse.

Trumps comments on DeSantis are especially noteworthy in light of the former President continuing to work with adviser Susie Wiles, who famously was exiled from DeSantis orbit after his election.

Wiles, a veteran political consultant who was key to Trump winning Florida in 2016, also is widely credited with being the architect of DeSantis defeat of Democrat Andrew Gillum.

The former President has said DeSantis would not be a challenge.

If I faced him, Id beat him like I would beat everyone else, Trump toldYahoo! Finance, noting that DeSantis likely would stand down.

However, its clear that DeSantis continues to stay on Trumps mind.

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Donald Trump again takes credit for lifting Ron DeSantis from '3%' to the Governor's Mansion - Florida Politics