Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
August 28, 2017
Hello All – For many years, CFOW's priorities have been to protest war and stop global warming. In what seems to have been a further capturing of Trump's foreign "policy" by the Pentagon, this week Trump reversed his previous skepticism about the war in Afghanistan and escalated the war, giving his generals more troops and what looks like a blank check. As detailed in some of the good/useful reading down below, "escalation" now seems to be the order of the day in Afghanistan, neighboring Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, and Iraq; and civilians in the Syrian city of Raqqa, now occupied by ISIS, are dying by the hundreds under US bombs. Of particular note is the reporting of the killing of children, as noted in articles below about Somalia, Yemen, and Syria. We need to speak up more strongly in opposition to these war crimes.
Climate change surged to the top of the charts this week via Hurricane Harvey. As noted in an article linked below, there are several reasons to suspect that the amount of rain from the storm, if not the storm itself, is strongly influenced by global warming. And yet I read little about this in the print media; what do people see on TV? It will be interesting to see if the Trump people or the climate-deniers in the Texas legislature bat an eye re: global warming concerns. Also, I also see little in the mainstream media about the differential impact of the storm; how, for example, it is affecting low-income neighborhoods and people of color. As we can recall, the race and class impacts of Hurricane Katrina some years ago were devastating, responsible for many of the 1,800 deaths during that disaster.
Finally, check out the articles by Lee Fang and Thomas Edsall below. In them they propose some explanations for the politicization and mobilization of white men in terms of "white identity." Edsall argues that the eroding value of maleness and white skin in today's economic and cultural markets helps to explain the rise of what seem on the surface to be archaic or atavistic rightwing politics. Fang explores the influence of Internet culture and on-line trolling as a route to a fascist framing of modern politics. In either/both cases, I found these essays thought-provoking and breaking some new ground.
News Notes
The fight against the Spectra pipeline next to the Indian Point nuclear plant was hampered by the apparent carte blanche that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had to grant pipeline permits. Now, in an important federal court decision, FERC has been told that it must conduct a real environmental impact review, not just the impact of putting pipes in the ground, but of the environmental consequences of burning zillions of tons of natural gas. As it is a federal court decision, this could have national impact unless/until the Supreme Court overturns it. It also contradicts the State Department's reasoning last year to give a green light to the Keystone XL pipeline. For more information on this important development, go here and here and here.
Do protests work? It depends…. But in the wake of the huge march and rally in Boston against the white supremacists (and their "free speech"), the largest anti-Muslim organization in the USA cancelled plans for 67 rallies in 36 states on September 9th. For more information about this excellent development, go here.
Last week 13 people in Barcelona, Spain were killed by an ISIS suicide-car-driver. In response, almost half a million people marched in Barcelona – for peace, and against Islamophobia. Leading the march was a large contingent of Muslims. You can learn more about this event here and see a video of the march here.
Previous newsletters have reported on the private security firm "TigerSwan" that was hired by the oil companies to spy on, and disrupt, the anti-DAPL pipeline protests in North Dakota. In another step in the investigation of TigerSwan, The Intercept reports on the evil-doers "multistate dragnet." [Link].
Coming Attractions/Things to Do
Please join CFOW next Saturday, September 2nd for our weekly antiwar/pro-peace vigil/protest. We will meet at noon at the VFW Plaza in Hastings. Also, CFOW's next monthly meeting will be on Sunday, September 10th, at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs. We start at 7 p.m. and go until 9 p.m. (sharp). Please join us for interesting discussion and our 16th birthday party!
On Wednesday, August 30th, many NYC organizations will hold a march in defense of the immigration program called "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals," or DACA, which is now in the crosshairs of the Trump team for abolition. The protest will start at Columbus Circle/Trump Tower at 5 p.m. For more information about the march, go here. For a very good article about DACA and the threat to it, go here.
CFOW does not endorse political candidates, but I'm sure everyone who has followed the fight against the Spectra gas pipeline will be excited to know that anti-pipeline stalwart Nancy Vann is running for county legislator. Hastings' own Berenice Tompkins, Nancy's field organizer, writes:
Her platform includes fairly and safely decommissioning Indian Point, keeping housing affordable and accessible, safeguarding immigrant's rights, and continuing to fight to protect our river, public spaces, air and climate from threats like the Spectra Pipeline. Nancy needs your help knocking on doors and calling to inspire people in District One (Peekskill, Cortlandt and Yorktown) to get out and vote for her. Check out her website at nancyvann.com, and fill out this form or call Berenice Tompkins at (914) 564-3094 to volunteer. The office is located at 9 Bank Street in Peekskill, and is open from 11 am to 9 pm daily.
A march to confront white supremacy is leaving Charlottesville, VA today and heading for Washington, DC. It plans to arrive in DC on September 6th. For more information, go here.
The activists who pulled down the Confederate statue in Durham, NC are facing legal charges. They need our help. A story about all this can be found in the The Nation. For the larger picture, the Southern Poverty Law Center has a map of Confederate monuments around the country; and ColorofChange has a petition that demands the removal of all of them.
Rewards!
Here is some sweet music for stalwart newsletter readers. First up is a shout-out to JG., in faraway Innsbruck; some stride piano from the great Albert Ammons. And now here is an old favorite by Bob Dylan. And finally, here Nora Jones covers another song by Dylan. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
This Man
---- This man is a husband, the father of two children, Latino, and a US citizen. For 18 years he taught high school, most recently in a rural area of a southern state—where he also resides among farmers, many of whom reject the notion of a generous earth that nourishes all people. Instead they stand their ground, soil fertile with roots that grow deep into the past. They wave Confederate flags, display the oppressive symbol on their vehicle's bumper, long for a time when black men and women slaved in the fields. They believe Donald Trump will make America great again for many reasons. … Last year, toward the end of the school year at the high school where he was employed, this man learned that a male student who wants to transition to female was being intimidated by student athletes. [Read More]
Exploring the Shadows of America's Security State: Or How I Learned Not to Love Big Brother
By Alfred W. McCoy, Tom Dispatch [August 24, 2017]
By Alfred W. McCoy, Tom Dispatch [August 24, 2017]
[This piece has been adapted and expanded from the introduction to Alfred W. McCoy's new book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.]
---- From my own personal experience over the past half-century, and my family's history over three generations, I've found out in the most personal way possible that there's a real cost to entrusting our civil liberties to the discretion of secret agencies. Let me share just a few of my own "war" stories to explain how I've been forced to keep learning and relearning this uncomfortable lesson the hard way. … The drug traffic that supplied heroin for the U.S. troops fighting in South Vietnam was not, I discovered, exclusively the work of criminals. Once the opium left tribal poppy fields in Laos, the traffic required official complicity at every level. The helicopters of Air America, the airline the CIA then ran, carried raw opium out of the villages of its hill-tribe allies. [and much more]. [Read More]
'A Refugee Crisis Forces a Country to React According to Higher Standards'
An interview with Valeria Luiselli, the author of Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions.
By John Washington, The Nation [August 25, 2017]
---- The strange thing is that, in the US, both Democrats and Republicans have leaned toward conceiving the recent Central American exodus as an immigration crisis, and not a refugee crisis. During the presidential campaign, Democrats tended to project a very generous attitude toward borders, focusing more on protecting human rights than on border protection. But the truth is that, in office, Democrats have been as ruthless and inhumane as their counterparts. It was Obama's administration—as hard as it is to accept—that financed the mass deportations of thousands of Central Americans from Mexico and executed policies like the priority docket for unaccompanied minors. [Read More]
Keep It 100
By Bill McKibben, 350.org [August 27, 2017]
---- The environmental movement seems to be rallying round a new flag. That standard bears a number: 100 percent. It's the call for the rapid conversion of energy systems around the country to 100 percent renewable power—a call for running the United States (and the world) on sun, wind and water. What Medicare for All is to the healthcare debate, or Fight for $15 is to the battle against inequality, 100% Renewable is to the struggle for the planet's future. It's how progressives will think about energy going forward—and though it started in northern Europe and Northern California, it's a call that's gaining traction outside the obvious green enclaves. In the last few months, cities as diverse as Atlanta and Salt Lake have taken the pledge. … These are all good signs—but, set against the rapid disintegration of polar ice caps and the record global temperatures each of the last three years, they still amount to too little. It's going to take a deeper level of commitment—including turning the U.S. government from an obstacle to an advocate over the next election cycles. That's doable precisely because the idea of renewable energy is so popular [Read More]
(Video) How White Nationalism Became Normal Online
By Lee Fang and Leighton Akio Woodhouse, The Intercept [August 25, 2017]
---- The path for radicalization for many young men also has particular roots in the online communities in which they have forged their identities, only recently making the leap to the real-world violence that has lasted all year. The Intercept has investigated the recent phenomenon, exploring the dynamics of race, violence, and online culture in a short documentary that can be viewed above. In recent years, neo-Nazi groups, once confined to spreading their message through marginal radio programs and small publishing houses, have turned to video gaming forums; websites associated with ironic "alt-right" pranksters, who espouse far-right ideologies grounded in white supremacy; and have blended with the so-called "Men's Rights Movement" to find new foot soldiers, many of whom are the kind of disaffected young men who are ripe for recruitment into extremist movements around the world. [See the Video] Also useful on this topic are (Video) "Hate speech v free speech: Where is the line?" from Aljazeera [August 23, 2017] [Link]; and James E. Hawdon, "Over the years, Americans have become increasingly exposed to extremism," [Link].
Worried About Anti-Semitism? Practice The Tolerance You Preach.
By Sophie Ellman-Golan, The Forward [August 22, 2017]
---- I woke up last Saturday morning to images of Charlottesville — to accounts of the white supremacist chants "blood and soil" and "Jews will not replace us." I saw pictures of angry white men with swastikas giving the Nazi salute, their faces twisted in rage. As a white Jewish woman, I have for years approached racial justice work from the position of "ally" or "accomplice." But on that Saturday, it fully dawned on me that they were targeting me too. … also believe that while anti-Semitism is invisibly systemic, in this current moment it is nowhere near as deadly to white Jews as anti-Black racism is to Black people, Islamophobia is to Muslims or the deportation of immigrants is to undocumented people. Because of this, I have always hesitated to push for the inclusion of Jews as a marginalized group in the racial justice [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
Trump May Not Finish His Term But the Assassination Complex Will Live On
By Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept [August 21, 2017]
---- Amid the deluge of scandal, incompetence, and bigotry emanating from the Trump White House, the relative calm of the Obama era seems like a far-off galaxy. The reality that Trump may not even finish a full term as president, either due to removal or resignation, means that the palace intrigue must be reported on thoroughly by the press. But a dangerous consequence of the overwhelming, obsessive focus on the daily Trump affairs is a virtual dearth of coverage on the permanent, unelected institutions of U.S. power, namely the military and the CIA. … If anything, the military and CIA are less restrained and are in greater control of decisions — that arguably create policy rather than implement it — than they were under Obama. … The policy is assassination. [Read More]
It's far too easy for Donald Trump to start a nuclear war
By Stephen Kinzer, Boson Globe [August 18, 2017]
---- American law allows the President to launch a nuclear strike on the basis of nothing more than his own impulse. He need not provide any reason or consult anyone else. … The Nixon experience might have led Congress to impose some limit on the ability of presidents to set off nuclear war. It did not. Today the challenge is more urgent than ever. President Trump has asserted that he is prepared to set off horror "the likes of which the world has never seen before." That should focus attention on the reality that under American law, this single individual has the right to launch a nuclear war. … Some in Washington, shaken by President Trump's rhetoric, are seeking to restrict his power to launch a unilateral nuclear attack [Read More]
The War in Afghanistan
(Video) State Dept. Official Who Quit in 2009 over U.S. War in Afghanistan Speaks Out on Trump's Troop Surge
From Democracy Now! [August 22, 2017]
---- President Trump has announced plans to escalate the U.S. war in Afghanistan—already the longest war in U.S. history. While Trump offered few specifics during his prime-time address Monday night, he has reportedly already signed off on a plan to send about 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan. For more we speak with Matthew Hoh, who resigned from the State Department in 2009 over the Obama administration's escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Prior to his assignment in Afghanistan, he served in Iraq and Afghanistan including time as a Marine Corps company commander in Anbar Province. [See the Program] For more on the Afghanistan escalation, read: Juan Cole, "Trump flip-flops on Afghanistan, opts for Years-long Quagmire," Informed Comment [August 22, 2017] [Link]; Jason Ditz, "US Pilots Expect Even Heavier Airstrikes With Afghan Escalation," Antiwar.com [August 25, 2017] . [Link]; Lucy Morgan Edwards, "After Trump's U-turn, Afghans' suffering now has no end," [Link]; and Steven Shepard, "Trump's challenge: A wall of public skepticism on Afghanistan War," Politico [August 21, 2017] [Link].
And for info on what's really happening in Afghanistan – Courtney Kube, "U.S. Has Thousands More Troops in Afghanistan Than the Pentagon Admits," [Link]; Sarah Almukhtar, "How Much of Afghanistan Is Under Taliban Control After 16 Years of War With the U.S.?" [useful map] [Link]; and Adam Johnson, "Reporting on Trump's Afghan Escalation Omits Dead Afghan Civilians,," Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [FAIR] [August 23, 2017] [Link].
The War in Syria
(Video) Trapped in Raqqa: Amnesty Says Civilians Caught in "Deadly Labyrinth" As U.S. Intensifies Airstrikes
From Democracy Now! [August 24, 2017]
---- In Syria, the local journalistic group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently reports dozens of civilians have been killed by U.S.-led bombing and artillery fire over the last few days amid the ongoing battle to seize control of the city of Raqqa from ISIS. Amnesty International has just released an in-depth investigation documenting how hundreds of civilians have been killed and injured since the offensive began in June to capture the ISIS stronghold. Survivors and witnesses told Amnesty International that they were trapped on "all sides" between ISIS militants, the U.S.-led coalition force's aerial bombardment, and Russia-backed Syrian government airstrikes. Amnesty is now calling on all warring parties to prioritize protecting civilians and granting them safe passage. We speak to Donatella Rovera, Senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International. [See the Program]
For more on the plight of civilians in Raqqa – Here is Amnesty's report: "Syria: 'Deadly labyrinth' traps civilians trying to flee Raqqa battle against Islamic State," [August 24, 2017] [Link]. For more: Louisa Loveluck, "U.S.-led airstrikes are killing hundreds of civilians in the battle for ISIS-held Raqqa, groups say," [Link]; and Jason Ditz, "US Dismisses UN Plea: Won't Stop Bombing Civilians in Raqqa," Antiwar.com [August 25, 2017] [Link].
Israel's Alarm over Syrian Debacle
By Daniel Lazare, Consortium News [August 22, 2017]
---- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now finds himself facing a nightmare scenario in which Iran takes advantage of Assad's winning streak to extend its reach from Iraq and Syria into Lebanon beyond. It's not just a question of political influence, but of the emergence of a powerful Iranian-led military bloc. Eleven years after fighting a vicious 34-day war in southern Lebanon, Israel thus finds itself facing not only Hezbollah but the Syrian Arab Army, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and Iraqi Shi'ite militias – all backed by Russian military might – in a front extending across its entire northern border. All are battle-hardened after years of combat, better armed, better led, and more self-confident to boot. Israel finds itself confronting a new threat that is many times more powerful than Hezbollah (or Syria) alone. [Read More]
The War in Yemen
International Community must Halt Yemen Bloodbath
By Hannah Porter, Informed Comment [August 23, 2017]
---- The international community's unwillingness to push for a resolution is difficult to fathom. Aside from the clear moral imperative to end this crisis, a stable Yemen is certainly in the best interests of global powers. The United States, which has been carrying out airstrikes against al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen for years and considers it to be the organization's most dangerous offshoot, should be alarmed at the degree to which this group benefits, territorially and monetarily, from the ongoing war. European countries, already struggling with an influx of refugees from Africa and the Middle East, will need to make a push for peace in Yemen if they want to minimize the number of migrants arriving on their shores. Despite its complex appearance, Yemen's conflict is a resolvable one in which all parties have grown stubborn and settled into their roles, none willing to initiate a balanced dialogue that would see a reduction of their power in return for the country's stability. [Read More] Except for ignoring the US role in the Yemen war, also useful is Shuaib Almosawa, et al., "'It's a Slow Death': The World's Worst Humanitarian Crisis," [Link]
Saudi Airstrikes Kill 16 Yemen Civilians in Sanaa
By Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com [August 25, 2017]
---- For the second time this week, Saudi warplanes have conducted airstrikes against the Yemeni capital city of Sanaa, hitting residential buildings and killing a substantial number of civilians. At least 16 civilians were killed in today's strikes, against targets in the city's south, with at least seven children among the slain. The attacks mostly hit a single building, killing everyone within. The casualties grew substantially, however, when an adjoining building also collapsed. Some civilians had escaped that building before it crumbled, but many were buried in the wreckage, so the death toll is not believed to be final. This comes just two days after Saudi planes attacked and destroyed a hotel in the capital's northern Arhab District, killing at least 60 people, including 42 civilians. The Saudis insisted that was a "legitimate military target." [Read More]
(Video) Is the Saudi-led coalition failing in Yemen?
From Aljazeera [August 2017]
---- A new confidential UN report says after nearly two-and-a-half years of military campaign in Yemen, the Saudi-led coalition is 'no closer' to achieving its objective. [See the Program]
War with North Korea?
The Only Sensible Way Out of the North Korea Crisis
By Tim Shorrock, The Nation [August 23, 2017]
---- As a wide range of American experts and former policy-makers have argued, if the United States is serious about negotiations, it must respond to Pyongyang's fears by offering an "off-ramp" with something in return. The dual-freeze proposal "could lead to a breakthrough in the impasse, but this would require Washington to seriously consider its own responsibility for resolving the nuclear problem," wrote John Merrill, the former chief of the Northeast Asia division of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department, in a recent op-ed for the Japanese newspaper Nikkei Asian Review. Specifically, that means addressing North Korea's concerns, including its belief that nuclear weapons are its only defense against a United States that turned the country into ashes during the Korean War and is threatening to do so again. The North is also (understandably) worried about the war games, in which thousands of US and South Korean soldiers train for nuclear strikes as well as "decapitation" operations that would eliminate North Korea's leadership. And therein lies the way out. [Read More]
Also useful/interesting on North Korea and the US – Jon Schwarz, "North Korea Keeps Saying It Might Give Up Its Nuclear Weapons — But Most News Outlets Won't Tell You That," The Intercept [August 25, 2017] [Link]; and Suzy Kim, "Breaking America's Cold War Addiction in Korea," Foreign Policy in Focus [August 18, 2017] [LInk].
The War in Somalia
Children Are Among the Dead After a U.S.-Backed Raid in Somalia
---- Ten civilians, including three children, were killed in a raid by foreign and Somali forces on a farm in southern Somalia, a deputy governor said Friday. The United States military confirmed that it had supported a counterterrorism operation in the area, and said it would look into the allegations. The deaths raise questions about growing American military involvement in Somalia after President Trump approved expanded operations, often in support of Somali forces, against the Shabab, an extremist group linked to Al Qaeda. [Read More]
CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING
Top 5 ways Man-made Climate Change made Hurricane Harvey much Worse
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment [August 28, 2017]
---- The images from Houston and its environs are heart-breaking and we at IC wish all those affected a speedy and safe return to normality. Extreme weather events are associated with climate change, and whenever they occur, they raise the question of their relationship to that process. Human-induced climate change did not "cause" Hurricane Harvey. There have after all been hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico all along, and some of them have been monstrous. So can we relate Hurricane Harvey to human pumping of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere by driving cars, heating or cooling buildings, etc.? The answer is "yes." Climate change did not produce Harvey the Hurricane, but climate change made Harvey worse than it would otherwise be. [Read More]
What Exxon Mobil Didn't Say About Climate Change
---- Scrutiny is mounting on the world's largest publicly traded oil and gas company. On multiple legal fronts the question is being asked: Did Exxon Mobil's communications about climate change break the law? … Our findings are clear: Exxon Mobil misled the public about the state of climate science and its implications. Available documents show a systematic, quantifiable discrepancy between what Exxon Mobil's scientists and executives discussed about climate change in private and in academic circles, and what it presented to the general public. … In short, Exxon Mobil contributed quietly to climate science and loudly to raising doubts about it. We found that, accounting for reasonable doubt given the state of the science at the time of each document, roughly 80 percent of the company's academic and internal papers acknowledged that climate change is real and human-caused. But 81 percent of their climate change advertorials in one way or another expressed doubt. [Read More]
Alaska's Permafrost Is Thawing
---- Estimates vary on how much carbon is currently released from thawing permafrost worldwide, but by one calculation the amount is slightly more than the United States emits from fossil-fuel burning, or about 1.5 billion tons a year. Already, thawing permafrost and warmer temperatures are being blamed for rising carbon emissions in the Alaskan tundra, both here and farther north. … The rise in emissions has been so significant, the researchers found, that Alaska may be shifting from a sink, or storehouse, of carbon, to a net source. [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
Trump Administration Can Sift Through User Data of Inauguration Protest Website, Judge Rules
By Alex Emmons, The Intercept [August 24, 2017]
---- Defying First Amendment concerns, a judge in a Washington, D.C., trial court has upheld a controversial search warrant that would allow the government to sift through data from a major protest website. Prosecutors allege that the website, DisruptJ20.org, was used to coordinate a riot on Inauguration Day, which led to property damage at multiple businesses in downtown Washington. But the vast majority of the actions and protests the site coordinated were peaceful. It's unclear what connection, if any, the site had to the violence. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Time to Impeach Trump
By Marjorie Cohn, Truth Out [August 19, 2017]
---- As we mourn the death of Heather Heyer, murdered by a white supremacist at the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally on Saturday, and hope for the recovery of the dozens of other anti-racist counterdemonstrators injured that day, Donald Trump continues to fan the flames of hatred and bigotry he has nourished throughout his brief presidency. The president's reprehensible behavior in this moment creates a new sense of urgency. We cannot postpone consideration of impeachment until Special Counsel Robert Mueller finishes his criminal investigation. It is time to pressure the House of Representatives to bring articles of impeachment against Trump for his abuse of power. We must stop this president before he launches a new civil war and/or nuclear war. [Read More]
Trump's Pardon for Arpaio Is the Workings of the American Political System Laid Bare
By Julianne Hing, The Nation [August 27, 2017]
---- Arpaio was convicted last month of violating a 2011 court order which forbade him from stopping and detaining people solely on the basis of their suspected immigration status. Arpaio had ignored the court order, a federal judge found. The court order itself stemmed from a civil lawsuit charging that Arpaio systematically racially profiled Latinos. The lawsuit, which Arpaio lost, offered yet more confirmation of the findings of a 2011 Department of Justice report, which also found that in the course of traffic stops, workplace raids, and neighborhood sweeps, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office unlawfully stopped, detained, and arrested Latinos and retaliated against those who criticized the agency's practices. [Read More]
Donald Trump's Identity Politics
By Thomas B. Edsall, The New York Times [August 24, 2017]
---- In the wake of the presidential election, we've all been asking simplistic questions about how Donald Trump won. Was it economics? Was it racism? Was it misogyny? Did it come down to identity? We know that it can't have been just one thing, and that President Trump's triumph was a concoction of many things. Nonetheless, several factors came together in a peculiar way, with serious electoral consequences. Millions of white voters began to see themselves more openly not as white supremacists but as white identified. … Careful examination of Trump's initial support shows the key role of white identity voters in Trump's ascendance. … Most — though by no means all — white identifiers appear to be driven as much by anger at their sense of lost status as by their animosity toward other groups, although these two feelings are clearly linked. [Read More]
The Media Is the Villain – for Creating a World Dumb Enough for Trump
By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone [August 27, 2017]
---- We learned long ago in this business that dumber and more alarmist always beats complex and nuanced. Big headlines, cartoonish morality, scary criminals at home and foreign menaces abroad, they all sell. We decimated attention spans, rewarded hot-takers over thinkers, and created in audiences powerful addictions to conflict, vitriol, fear, self-righteousness, and race and gender resentment. … Donald Trump didn't just take advantage of these conditions. He was created in part by them. What's left of Trump's mind is like a parody of the average American media consumer: credulous, self-centered, manic, sex-obsessed, unfocused, and glued to stories that appeal to his sense of outrage and victimhood. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Three years after Protective Edge, Gaza is in free fall
By Amir Rotem, +972 Magazine [August 25, 2017]
---- The ceasefire agreement that ended Operation Protective Edge went into effect on August 26, 2014. The operation was the deadliest and most devastating in Gaza to date, taking the lives of 2,202 Gaza residents, including 1,391 people deemed to be civilians and 526 of whom were children. Sixty-six Israeli soldiers and six civilians, Israelis and foreign nationals, were also killed, including one child. Some 11,000 housing units in Gaza were entirely destroyed, and approximately 160,000 more damaged. Tens of thousands of people were made homeless. So much destruction and pain, and yet nothing has really changed. [Read More]
State Department says committing to two-states is 'bias' as Kushner is sent to broker peace
By Allison Deger, Mondoweiss [August 25, 2017]
---- Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner is meeting with leaders in Israel and the West Bank on a mission to broker a peace, yet his visit comes on the heels of a State Department spokesperson refusing to confirm if the U.S. is still committed to a two-state solution. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert told reporters on Wednesday that if she divulged the president's agenda and whether he intends to seek or scrap Palestinian statehood, it would "really bias one side over the other." [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
A Look Back at the 1939 Pro-Nazi Rally at Madison Square Garden and the Protesters Who Organized Against It
By Matt Giles, Long Reads [2016]
---- In late February 1939, roughly 22,000 people gathered at New York City's Madison Square Garden for a rally, which included a 50-member drum and bugle corps and a color guard of more than 60 flags. The event, which had been proposed the year before and—after much hand-wringing and debate—had been given the green light by NYC mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, drew scores of protesters and at least one thousand police officers which promised to turn the Garden into an "a fortress impregnable to anti-Nazis." What type of gathering would draw this much scrutiny and opposition? A pro-Nazi rally organized by the German American Bund, which festooned MSG's interior with both American flags, swastika-bearing banners, and a thirty-plus foot high painting of George Washington. Also included were signs that read "Wake Up American. Smash Jewish Communism" and "Stop Jewish Domination of Christian Americans." [Read More]
