Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
May 23, 2017
Hello All – As Memorial Day approaches, it prompts us to think about how to honor those who died in war without, at the same time, sanctifying war itself. Originally called Decoration Day, a day when the graves of fallen soldiers were decorated, Memorial Day has evolved into a solemn commemoration that inevitably blends a spirit of militarism with a remembrance of those who died in wars. And so it will be this weekend, in Hastings and elsewhere. The problem for opponents of war is an old one: can we hate the war while honoring the warrior?
This question arose in concrete form last week, when the Hastings Board of Trustees presented a Resolution that would make Hastings a Purple Heart Village, becoming one of many such cities and towns across the country. As it customary, the Resolution supporting soldiers who had been given a Purple Heart – being wounded or killed in combat – was wrapped in words claiming that the soldiers had been killed or wounded "while defending the United States of America"; that "they had placed themselves in harm's way for the good and protection of all Americans"; and that they "valiantly served to protect the freedoms enjoyed by all Americans." Undoubtedly, similar words will be uttered at Memorial Day parades this weekend. And on the Fourth of July; and on Veterans Day; and on similar occasions honoring those who served in war.
Can we ask questions about these patriotic phrases without being anti-veteran or anti-soldier? Can we respect the veteran and also say that the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia – to name just our current wars – have nothing to do with defending our country? That they only expand a malignant Empire? Similarly, do these wars "protect our freedoms"? Is it not the case that, since 9/11, we have had a huge assault on our civil liberties? If we think of the Patriot Act, the return of torture, the Guantanamo prison, cutbacks on the right to asylum, and the wall-to-wall surveillance of our private communications, it is hard to say that war – today – is "protecting our freedoms."
Our county is so saturated with militarism that we have come to think it is normal to have five or six wars going on, with no visible dissent from our political and media elite. On this Memorial Day weekend, let us not only honor those who died in war, but pledge ourselves to work as hard as we can to end war.
News Notes
The Rev. William J. Barber, who created "Moral Mondays" in North Carolina, is launching a new Poor People's Campaign. "The future of our democracy," he writes, "depends on us completing the work of a Third Reconstruction." Learn more about the new Poor People's Campaign here.
Chelsea Manning was released from prison last week. Her 35-year, maximum-security sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama before he left office in January. Here is a useful review of her contribution to peace and justice in leaking 700,000 documents to Wikileaks, and her tribulations in prison.
The new Sane Energy Project newsletter is out. You can read this interesting/useful newsletter here.
Gas Free Seneca has won a tremendous victory, blocking the construction of a giant methane storage tank under Seneca Lake. Hundreds were arrested and great numbers participated in nonviolent direct action to bring the project to a halt. You can read about this great victory here.
So the huge, high-pressure Spectra pipeline is now carrying natural gas through northern Westchester, at one point passing 105 feet from the Indian Point nuclear plant facilities. Should we be worried? They're worried in Pennsylvania, where schools on a similar pipeline route are holding emergency drills in case of a pipeline explosion. But no drills, no worry in Westchester. Read more here.
Coming Attractions
Ongoing – It's sign-up time for the Hastings Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). This project is managed by CFOW stalwart Elisa Zazzera. From June to November you can pick up a weekly bundle of in-season and just-picked fruits and vegetables. For more info, go here, or email Elisa at zazzera.elisa@gmail.com.
Saturday, May 27th – CFOW's Memorial Day antiwar/pro-peace vigil will focus on Memorial Day as a day of remembrance and peace, not a day to celebrate militarism. We meet in Hastings at the VFW Plaza, Warburton Ave. and Spring St., from 12 noon to 1 p.m.
Tuesday, May 30th – CFOW is a co-sponsor, with NYCD16 Indivisible, of a forum on the New York Single Payer Healthcare Bill. Speaking will be Dr. Oliver Fein, former President of the Physicians for a National Health Program. The NY Single Payer legislation was passed overwhelmingly by the Assembly and is now in the Senate (S4840). The program will take place at the Senator Flynn Room, Will Public Library, 1500 Central Park Avenue in Yonkers, from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, June 3rd – CFOW will once again lead off the River Arts Music Tour. As those with working memories will recall, for the last two years we kicked off the Music Tour in Hastings with some peace and justice songs, starting at 12 and going to 1 pm, under the leadership/direction of Jenny Murphy. So we're signed up for this again. Please start vocalizing and get ready to join our Stalwart Chorus.
Contributions to CFOW
If you are able to contribute to CFOW work, we would appreciate it very much. Please send your check to Concerned Families of Westchester, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards
Stalwart readers deserve a reward to help them through this lengthy newsletter. First up is a favorite (1939) from great guitarist Django Reinhardt. And it has been too long since we last rewarded you with piano from Teddy Wilson. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
Against Discouragement
By Howard Zinn, Tom Dispatch [May 2017]
By Howard Zinn, Tom Dispatch [May 2017]
[The late Howard Zinn gave this commencement speech at Spelman College in 2005. In 1963 Zinn was fired from Spelman, where he was chair of the History Department, because of his civil rights activities. This is the text of his 2005 commencement speech, perhaps even more relevant today.]
--- Let me tell you why you must not be discouraged. … The lesson of history is that you must not despair, that if you are right, and you persist, things will change. The government may try to deceive the people, and the newspapers and television may do the same, but the truth has a way of coming out. The truth has a power greater than a hundred lies. … My hope is that whatever you do to make a good life for yourself — whether you become a teacher, or social worker, or business person, or lawyer, or poet, or scientist — you will devote part of your life to making this a better world for your children, for all children. My hope is that your generation will demand an end to war, that your generation will do something that has not yet been done in history and wipe out the national boundaries that separate us from other human beings on this earth. [Read More]
A Murderous History of Korea
By Bruce Cumings, London Review of Books [UK] [May 18, 2017]
[FB – Bruce Cumings is our leading historian on Korea, especially the Korean War. One of his recent books is Korea's Place in the Sun, the best introduction that I know of to this complex – and tragically divided – people.]
---- How is it possible that we have come to this? How does a puffed-up, vainglorious narcissist, whose every other word may well be a lie (that applies to both of them, Trump and Kim Jong-un), come not only to hold the peace of the world in his hands but perhaps the future of the planet? We have arrived at this point because of an inveterate unwillingness on the part of Americans to look history in the face and a laser-like focus on that same history by the leaders of North Korea. … Since the very beginning, American policy has cycled through a menu of options to try and control the DPRK: sanctions, in place since 1950, with no evidence of positive results; non-recognition, in place since 1948, again with no positive results; regime change, attempted late in 1950 when US forces invaded the North, only to end up in a war with China; and direct talks, the only method that has ever worked, which produced an eight-year freeze – between 1994 and 2002 – on all the North's plutonium facilities, and nearly succeeded in retiring their missiles. [Read More]
Are We Witnessing a Coup Operation Against the Trump White House?
By Patrick Lawrence, The Nation
[FB – This article elicited a lot of controversy when published last week. It argues that a) the "national security state" – CIA, Pentagon, etc. – has an agenda of its own which is still fixed on Russia as The Enemy, and thus Trump is a danger/traitor; and b) that the Democrats are putting us in danger by using the (fictitious) Russian Danger to bring Trump down. We report, you decide.]
---- You have studied the Enlightenment? Good: You know what I mean when I say we are headed into the Endarkenment. The lights upon us are dimming. We have been more or less abandoned by a press that proves incapable of informing us in anything approaching a disinterested fashion. As suggested, either the media are Clintonian liberals before they are newspapers and broadcasters, or they are servants of power before they serve us. This is the media's disgrace, but our problem. It imposes a couple of new burdens. We, readers and viewers, must discriminate among all that is put before us so as to make the best judgments we can and, not least, protect our minds. The other side of the coin, what we customarily call "alternative media," assumes an important responsibility. [Read More]
Anarchists Fill Services Void Left by Faltering Greek Governance
[FB – As "neoliberalism" mandates the contraction of state-supported social services, movements like our own Occupy are filling the gap in many countries. What's happening in Greece – under extreme stress, see below – is a good example.]
---- Since 2008 scores of "self-managing social centers" have mushroomed across Greece, financed by private donations and the proceeds from regularly scheduled concerts, exhibitions and on-site bars, most of which are open to the public. There are now around 250 nationwide. Some activists have focused on food and medicine handouts as poverty has deepened and public services have collapsed. …The burst of citizen action is just the latest chapter in a long history for the anarchist movement in Greece. Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, anarchists have joined leftist groups in occupying portions of Greek universities to promote their thinking and lifestyle; many of those occupied spaces exist today, and some are used as bases by anarchists to fashion the crude firebombs hurled at the police during street protests. [Read More]
Letters from Europe
[FB – I recently read Fear City, a book about New York City's fiscal crisis in the mid- late-1970s. The book shows that the crisis – the city was no longer able to borrow money, and was cut off from needed levels of state and federal support – resulted in a transition from New York as a place where lower-income people could live satisfying lives to one in which rich people had investment opportunities. Much the same is happening in Europe today, where – just like New York City – states can no longer control their own currency, devalue when needed, borrow without austerity, etc. – Here are two imo excellent reports about how this is working in France and in Greece.]
All Power to the Banks! The Winners-Take-All Regime of Emmanuel Macron
---- A ghost of the past was the real winner of the French presidential election. Emmanuel Macron won only because a majority felt they had to vote against the ghost of "fascism" allegedly embodied by his opponent, Marine Le Pen. Whether out of panic or out of the need to feel respectable, the French voted two to one in favor of a man whose program most of them either ignored or disliked. Now they are stuck with him for five years. …. The significance of this election is so widely misrepresented that clarification requires a fairly thorough explanation, not only of the Macron project, but also of what the (impossible) election of Marine Le Pen would have meant. [Read More]
The European Left and the Greek Tragedy
---- What is the policy of German and the European "Left"? Do they have one? Did they learn something from the collapse of PASOK in Greece, of the Dutch Labour Party or of the French Socialists. Or they are so dependent from Finance, they are ready to commit suicide? … Greece has become a terrain for experimentation in "regime change" and even what we might call "country change" in the West. What they are attempting to do is to transform the regime of Western democracy into a mechanism for direct rule by Finance. The external forms of parliamentary democracy are kept intact, but emptied of content. [Read More]
PRESIDENT TRUMP IN THE MIDDLE EAST
[FB – The most obvious reading of President Trump's trip to the Middle East is that he sees the interests of the United States tied to the emerging Saudi-Israeli consortium to dominate the region. As Middle East expert Patrick Cockburn reported today, this means in the first instance putting the United States on the Sunni Muslim side of the sectarian war being waged against Shias (e.g. Iran). It presumably means a doubling down on President Obama's support of Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen. And it casts doubt on US-Russian cooperation to end the war in Syria. In his speech in Saudi Arabia, Trump sought to rally a united front around hostility towards Iran, less than a week after signing a waiver on sanctions against Iran, which acknowledged that Iran was living up to its obligations under the US – Iran nuclear agreement negotiated by President Obama. And irony of ironies, the alignment with Saudi Arabia – one of the most reactionary countries in the "modern world" – took place just after the reelection of Iran's "moderate" President Rouhani, a landslide affirmation of the diplomatic opening to "the West" that was part of the nuclear agreement. All this is discussed in some good/useful reading linked below.]
What Explains Trump's Sharp About-Face on Saudi Arabia?
By James Carden, The Nation [May 23, 2017]
---- It is hard not to conclude that American Middle East policy rests upon a deep, willful misreading of the geopolitics of the region, which sees the Saudis and their Gulf allies as US-friendly bulwarks against a revanchist Iran. In fact, according to the respected Middle East expert and former State Department official Vali Nasr, the opposite is true. … What else might explain America's responsiveness to the whims and wishes of the Wahhabi Kingdom? Access to oil markets, certainly. But so does the Saudi government's robust lobbying efforts in Washington. [Read More]
In the Saudis' Den of Extremism, Trump Trades Advanced Weapons for a $200 Billion Investment in Rust Belt Swing States
By Max Blumenthal, AlterNet [May 18, 2017]
---- When Trump arrives in Riyadh this week, he plans to deliver a speech that will "demonstrate America's commitment to our Muslim partners," according to his National Security Council Director, Gen. H.R. McMaster. … As in the past, American foreign policy in the Middle East has sacrificed national security and human rights for the dubious pursuit of empire. The leading edge of its cynical project is Saudi Arabia, the Arab Spring's destroyer, one of the world's leading exporters of extremism and the top importer of American arms. Trump and the Islamophobes he has empowered might be seen as the enemy of Muslims back home, but in Riyadh, they are received as natural partners in a geopolitical death dance that grooves to the drums of war. [Read More]
Iran's Presidential Election
Iran's Victory for Moderation
By Trita Parsi, National Iranian American Council [May 20, 2017]
---- The Iranian population's political sophistication continues to impress. Despite a highly flawed political system where the elections are neither fair nor free, the overwhelmingly majority chose a non-violent path to bring about progress. They massively participated in the elections with a 75 percent turnout – compare that to the turnout in the U.S. elections in 2016, 56 percent – and handed the incumbent moderate President Hassan Rouhani a landslide victory with 57 percent of the vote. …despite Trump's undermining of the nuclear deal with Iran, and despite significant problems with the sanctions relief process which has left many Iranians disappointed in the nuclear deal, Iranians still chose diplomacy, detente and moderation over the confrontational line of previous Iranian administrations. Iran is today one of the few countries in the world where a message of moderation and anti-populism secures you a landslide election victory. [Read More] Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, spoke about the Iranian election on Democracy Now!
Rouhani's victory is good news for Iran, but bad news for Trump and his Sunni allies
By Robert Fisk, The Independent [UK] [May 20, 2017]
---- So the man who signed Iran's nuclear agreement with the United States, who struggled (often vainly, it has to be said) to reap the economic rewards of this nuclear bomb "truce" with the West, who believed in a civil society not unlike that of former president Mohamed Khatami – who supported him in the election – won with 57 per cent of the vote, backed by 23½ million of the 41 million who cast their ballot. … But what a contrast this election has been to the vast congress of dictators and cut-throat autocrats greeting Donald Trump in Riyadh – just as the Iranian election results were announced. Save for Lebanon and Tunisia and Pakistan, almost every Muslim leader gathered in Saudi Arabia treats democracy as a joke or a farce – hence the 96 per cent victories of their leaders – or an irrelevancy. They are there to encourage Sunni Saudi Arabia's thirst for war against Shia Iran and its allies. Which is why the Saudis will be appalled that a (comparatively) reasonable Iranian has won a (comparatively) free election that almost none of the 50 dictators gathering to meet Trump in Riyadh would ever dare to hold. [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
The ban treaty must address the scientifically predicted consequences of nuclear war
By Steven Starr, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [May 19, 2017]
[FB – Against the objections of the United States and other nations that have nuclear weapons, the UN is working on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. You can read the basic story in this New York Times article. In the article linked below, the author argues that the treaty should add language clearly stating that the use of nuclear weapons – even in a "small war" – would jeopardize much of life on Earth because of the "nuclear winter" effect.]
---- The preamble of the treaty to ban nuclear weapons now under consideration at the UN will be greatly strengthened if it includes a summary of the long-term environmental consequences of nuclear war. … The research predicts that a nuclear war fought between emerging nuclear weapon states—with less than 1 percent of the explosive power contained in the global nuclear arsenals—can produce catastrophic long-term damage to global environment and weather. A war fought with 100 atomic bombs can result in the coldest average annual surface temperatures experienced in the last 1,000 years, and this prolonged cold (and drought) would last for several years before temperatures began to return to normal. Medical experts predict that this prolonged cold would lead to a global famine causing up to two billion people to starve to death. Climatologists also predict that such a war would cause major damage to the Earth's protective stratospheric ozone layer, leading to a doubling of harmful UV-B radiation in the populated mid-latitudes. [Read More]
Will Trump Agree to the Pentagon's Permanent War in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria?
By Gareth Porter, Antiwar.com [May 15, 2017]
---- The two top national security officials in the Trump administration – Secretary of Defense James Mattis and national security adviser HR McMaster – are trying to secure long-term US ground and air combat roles in the three long-running wars in the greater Middle East – Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.. … The plans for the three countries now being developed within the Trump administration encompass long-term stationing of troops, access to bases and the authority to wage war in these three countries. These are the primordial interest of the Pentagon and the US military leadership, and they have pursued those interests more successfully in the Middle East than anywhere else on the globe. US military officials aren't talking about "permanent" stationing of troops and bases in these countries, referring instead to the "open-ended commitment" of troops. But they clearly want precisely that in all three. [Read More]
Forty-Five Blows Against Democracy: How U.S. Military Bases Back Dictators, Autocrats, and Military Regimes
By David Vine, Tom Dispatch [May 16, 2017]
By David Vine, Tom Dispatch [May 16, 2017]
[FB – David Vine is the author of Base Nation, a comprehensive study of US military bases around the world.]
---- To ensure basing access from Central America to Africa, Asia to the Middle East, U.S. officials have repeatedly collaborated with fiercely anti-democratic regimes and militaries implicated in torture, murder, the suppression of democratic rights, the systematic oppression of women and minorities, and numerous other human rights abuses. Forget the recent White House invitations and Trump's public compliments. For nearly three quarters of a century, the United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in maintaining bases and troops in such repressive states. [Read More]
The War in Iraq
The Globalization of Misery: Mosul on My Mind
By Tom Engelhardt, Tom Dispatch [May 15, 2017]
---- Fourteen years have passed since the U.S. invaded Iraq and punched a hole in the oil heartlands of the Middle East. In the wake of that invasion, states have been crumbling or simply imploding and terror movements growing and spreading, while wars, ethnic slaughter, and all manner of atrocities have engulfed an ever-widening region. Millions of Iraqis, Syrians, Afghans, Yemenis, Libyans, and others have been uprooted, sent into exile in their own countries, or fled across borders to become refugees. In Mosul alone, untold numbers of people whose fathers, mothers, grandparents, children, friends, and relatives were slaughtered in the Iraqi Army's offensive or simply murdered by ISIS will be left homeless, often without possessions, jobs, or communities in the midst of once familiar places that have been transformed into rubble. [Read More]
The War in Syria
Ignored By Western Media, Syrians Describe the Nightmare the Armed Opposition Brought Them
By Rania Khalek, AlterNet [May 2017]
---- Supporters of the Syrian opposition have relentlessly demanded that Western observers listen to "Syrian voices." The idea is that by absorbing the testimonies of Syrians who have experienced the violence of the conflict first hand, Westerners will know how to best help them. Yet Western media consumers have scarcely heard from ordinary people who reside within the areas controlled by the government -- the areas where the vast majority of Syrians live. Indeed, the voices of Syrians like Areej, one of many people I spoke to inside Syria's government-held areas for this report, present a testimony that is simply too inconvenient for Western media to consider. [Read More]
The War in Yemen
Trump's Saudi Trip Should Not Be To Clinch Arms Deal But To End Yemen War
By Medea Benjamin, Code Pink [May 20, 2017]
---- President Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia is designed to highlight his "art of deal" by clinching a massive $100 billion arms deal. But instead of using his presidency to be a salesman for the arms industry, Trump should be a statesmen for the suffering Yemenis. He should use his visit to press for a ceasefire and negotiations to end the conflict in Yemen. … The Obama administration bragged that it had sold $115 billion dollars worth of weapons during its eight years. Trump, with just four months under his belt, seems anxious to outdo Obama's record. His $100 billion deal could mushroom into $300 billion over the next decade. … The war in Yemen is now in its third year and has resulted in an epic tragedy of destruction and starvation. Twenty people are dying every day, many of curable diseases because barely 45 percent of the health facilities are functioning. A UNICEF report shows over 400,000 Yemeni children suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and a child dying every 10 minutes from malnutrition, diarrhea and respiratory-tract infections. [Read More] For more on the health disaster accompanying the war in Yemen, read "Yemen cholera cases could hit 300,000 within six months: WHO," Reuters [May 21, 2017]
[Link]; and Lauren McCauley, "As Trump Pushes Massive Saudi Weapons Deal, Yemenis Suffer from Cholera, War, and Famine," Common Dreams [May 19, 2017] [LInk].
CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
Getting Assange: the untold story
By John Pilger, ZNet [May 21, 2017]
---- Julian Assange has been vindicated because the Swedish case against him was corrupt. The prosecutor, Marianne Ny, obstructed justice and should be prosecuted. Her obsession with Assange not only embarrassed her colleagues and the judiciary but exposed the Swedish state's collusion with the United States in its crimes of war and "rendition". Had Assange not sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, he would have been on his way to the kind of American torture pit Chelsea Manning had to endure. … In 2008, a secret Pentagon document prepared by the "Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch" foretold a detailed plan to discredit WikiLeaks and smear Assange personally. The "mission" was to destroy the "trust" that was WikiLeaks' "centre of gravity". This would be achieved with threats of "exposure [and] criminal prosecution". Silencing and criminalising such an unpredictable source of truth-telling was the aim. [Read More] Another useful/important story about the Assange case is by Glenn Greenwald, "Sweden Withdraws Arrest Warrant for Julian Assange, but He Still Faces Serious Legal Jeopardy," The Intercept [May 19, 2017] [Link].
---- Julian Assange has been vindicated because the Swedish case against him was corrupt. The prosecutor, Marianne Ny, obstructed justice and should be prosecuted. Her obsession with Assange not only embarrassed her colleagues and the judiciary but exposed the Swedish state's collusion with the United States in its crimes of war and "rendition". Had Assange not sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, he would have been on his way to the kind of American torture pit Chelsea Manning had to endure. … In 2008, a secret Pentagon document prepared by the "Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch" foretold a detailed plan to discredit WikiLeaks and smear Assange personally. The "mission" was to destroy the "trust" that was WikiLeaks' "centre of gravity". This would be achieved with threats of "exposure [and] criminal prosecution". Silencing and criminalising such an unpredictable source of truth-telling was the aim. [Read More] Another useful/important story about the Assange case is by Glenn Greenwald, "Sweden Withdraws Arrest Warrant for Julian Assange, but He Still Faces Serious Legal Jeopardy," The Intercept [May 19, 2017] [Link].
ICE Has Made Over 41,000 Arrests in Trump's First 100 Days
By Julianne Hing, The Nation [May 18, 2017]
---- In the first 100 days that Donald Trump has been in office, arrests for immigration violations have increased 38 percent over to the same period in 2016, according to figures Immigration and Customs Enforcement released Wednesday. More than 41,000 people have been arrested. His Muslim ban remains tied up in the courts, and judges have issued early setbacks to his attempts to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities, but this week's announcement is robust proof that Donald Trump has indeed managed to translate his fiery anti-immigrant campaign rhetoric into an actual policy agenda targeting undocumented immigrants. … The Trump administration is not yet arresting as many people as Obama did at the height of his administration's enforcement spree. In the same 100-day period in 2013, Obama's DHS arrested 64,903 people. Among them, 16,877 had no criminal history, The Guardian reported. The reality is that, for many years of his presidency, Obama pursued a very similar agenda to Trump. [Read More]. For an interesting/useful article about the lawyers who defend immigrants, read this article by Rachel B. Riven, "The Airport Lawyers Who Stood Up to Trump Are Under Attack," The Nation [May 19, 2017] [Link].
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Resurrecting 'Gilded Age,' Trump Budget Sacrifices All for Military and Ultra-Rich
By Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams [May 23, 2017]
---- President Donald Trump officially unveiled his budget on Tuesday and made clear that the candidate who rose to power with a promise to protect the downtrodden and working class had swapped that rhetoric for "hardline rightwing economics" that prioritizes military might and insulating the one-percent at the expense of all else. Trump's "rigged budget," as critics are calling it, sacrifices public health, environmental protection, reproductive rights, international aid, social safety nets, farm subsidies, the arts, student aid, and public education all in the interest in expanding the Defense budget and building the much-maligned southern border wall. … As The Hill reported Tuesday, Trump's plan lays out a 10-year proposal for balancing the budget by "dramatically shift[ing] spending to the Pentagon from domestic programs" until the U.S. military actually consumes more than two-thirds of all domestic spending. [Read More] For the New York Times story on the budget, read "Trump's Budget Cuts Deeply Into Medicaid and Anti-Poverty Efforts," [Link]
How Trump's new 'election integrity' appointee has unleashed chaos on elections in the South
May 17, 2017]
---- President Trump signed an executive order last week creating the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to promote "fair and honest Federal elections," following up on his unproven claims that he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton because of widespread voter fraud. The commission will be chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, and its vice chair will be Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, also a Republican. Kobach's appointment has alarmed voting rights advocates, who point to his record of making unsubstantiated claims about the extent of voter fraud — which study after study has found to be negligible — and using them to promote strict voter ID laws and other policies that make it harder to vote. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
The True Price Israel Pays for the Occupation
By Shlomo Swirski, +972 Magazine [Israel] [May 17, 2017]
---- What is the cost to Israel of the occupation? And who in Israel is paying it? Discussions of Israel's military rule over the Palestinian territories conquered in 1967 — now marking 50 years — usually revolve around moral, military, diplomatic, and legal matters. The impact of the conflict on Israeli society — on the standard of living, economic growth, inter-ethnic and Arab-Jewish relations, and disparities between the center and the periphery — is rarely considered. Political, academic, and media discourse often takes place as if the occupation has no real connection to what is happening within Israeli society. This report seeks to add a vital and missing dimension to the discussion by focusing on some of the critical social and economic repercussions of the occupation and of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
Slandering Native Americans
By James W. Loewen, History News Network [May 9, 2017]
[FB – James Loewen is the author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.]
---- The $24 story mythologizes much more than the taking of one small island. Manhattan is a synecdoche that symbolizes the taking of much of a continent. Indeed, like the Dutch, European Americans repeatedly paid the wrong tribe or paid off a small faction within a much larger nation. Often, like the Dutch, they didn't really care. Fraudulent transactions might even work better than legitimate purchases, for they set one tribe or faction against another while providing the newcomers with a semblance of legality to stifle criticism. [Read More]
The Radical Dissent of Helen Keller
By Peter Dreie, Yes! Magazine [July 12, 2017]
---- Here's what they don't teach: When the blind-deaf visionary learned that poor people were more likely to be blind than others, she set off down a pacifist, socialist path that broke the boundaries of her time—and continues to challenge ours today. The bronze statue of Helen Keller that sits in the U.S. Capitol shows the blind girl standing at a water pump. It depicts the moment in 1887 when her teacher, Anne Sullivan, spelled "W-A-T-E-R" into one of her 7-year-old pupil's hands while water streamed into the other. … Less well known (but no less inspiring) is the fact that Keller, who was born in 1880 and died in 1968, was a lifelong radical who participated in the great movements for social justice of her time. In her investigations into the causes of blindness, she discovered that poor people were more likely than the rich to be blind, and soon connected the mistreatment of the blind to the oppression of workers, women, and other groups, leading her to embrace socialism, feminism, and pacifism. [Read More]
