Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
July 18, 2017
Hello All – When the clouds of rhetoric drift away, a nation's priorities may stand revealed in its annual budget. If so, the military budget now making its way through the US Congress reveals a nation obsessed, indeed crazed, by war and militarism. Last Friday, the House of Representatives approved a $696 billion military spending bill by a vote of 344 to 81. All but eight of the House Republicans voted for this bill, as well as a majority of the Democrats, including our own representatives, Nita Lowey and Eliot Engel. The appropriation far exceeds even President Trump's request; and, needless to say, it is many times larger than the military budget of the planet's #2, China. Why is there no outcry against this foolishness, especially at a time when the federal budget is shrinking for just about everything else? It is understandable that the Democratic Party leadership, up to its neck in militarism during the Obama years and the Clinton candidacy, goes along with this, but why are the so-called "resistance" groups such as "Indivisible" silent? Rank-and-file members of the Democratic Party, "Indivisibles," and the New York Progressive Action Network should challenge their leaders about this. How can the Republicans and the Trump Agenda be defeated if war and militarism, and the consequent deformation of our nation's spending priorities, are kept out of the debate?
This newsletter includes special sections on the heartbreaking tragedies unfolding in Yemen and Turkey. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia's horrific war has killed thousands of civilians, and the consequent collapse of the country's infrastructure has led to more than 300,000 cases of cholera. The collapse is so bad that last week the United Nations pulled out of a cholera-prevention effort, citing its futility under current conditions. It is to the lasting shame of the United States that Saudi Arabia's genocidal efforts are militarily supported by the United States. (An amendment attached to the current House military appropriation bill seeks to prohibit further military assistance, but its ability to survive final budget negotiations appears to be bleak.) Without a strong stand by the United States, it seems that the people of Yemen are doomed.
The events in Turkey demand our attention because of the huge human-rights tragedy unfolding in a country that has, in the past, been closely supported by the United States (military, CIA) and which is a member of NATO. The 1980 coup that enabled more than a decade of military government horror in Turkey was facilitated by US intelligence agencies that deemed it a preventive action against the growing strength of leftist, trade union, and democratic forces. Following the capture of the Turkish state by a rightwing Islamic party, and its increasing move towards the right, last year's failed military coup has enabled wall-to-wall repression against any dissent, with the government arresting more than 100,000 people, and with approximately the same number being fired from their jobs. All dissenting media outlets have been closed, and journalists have been arrested. It's hard to see what concrete support the outside world can give to those being persecuted, beyond demanding that our governments speak out, but we can begin our search for avenues of support by learning about what's going on.
News Notes
Starting out as #47 on the library reserve waiting list, I finally got my copy of Arundhati Roy's new novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, last week end. Twenty years since her last/first novel, it was worth waiting for. Democracy Now! aired a lengthy interview with Roy last month [Link]; and The Nation put a new interview with her online yesterday [Link]. Learn more about this great activist/intellectual/writer; we are so lucky to have her!
Congresswoman Barbara Lee was the only member of the US House of Representatives who voted against the Authorization to Use Military Force a few days after 9/11/2001. Although the AUMF supposedly authorized military force to fight Al Qaeda and/or those responsible for 9/11, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service, the AUMF has been invoked as the "authority" to justify at least 37 military actions in 14 countries, "including the Philippines, Georgia, Libya, Somalia, and the Horn of Africa"; obviously none of these countries had anything to do with 9/11. Obama and Trump also used the AUMF to justify US military action in Syria. Congresswoman Lee made another attempt to end the ability to the AUMF against ISIS during the debate on the military budget, but the House rejected her amendment by 285 to 138 last week. You can read more about the AUMF debate here.
Young men and women in Israel are expected to serve a term in the military, often involving enforcing law-and-order in the Occupied Territories of Palestine. In this (video) interview, Noa Gur Golan explains why she declared conscientious objection and went to jail. A moving statement from a courageous woman, imo.
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!
It's time for stalwart readers to take a break and savor their rewards for reading all the way to here. First, some music. Here is "It don't mean a thing" from Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. And now check out Louis Armstrong with "Potato Head Blues." [1927!]. Also musician/singer Bev Grant has been posting some fabulous pictures of movement actions and demos from the 1960s; check them out here. [h/t Jenny M.]
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
(Video) Naomi Klein and Jeremy Corbyn Discuss How to Get the World We Want
From The Intercept [July 13, 2017]
---- NK: I want to talk about this extraordinary moment in which the project that really began under Thatcher in this country, and Reagan in the U.S. — the whole so-called consensus that never really was a consensus, the war on the collective, on the idea that we can do good things when we get together — is crumbling. But it's also kind of a dangerous moment, when you have a vacuum of ideology, because dangerous ideas are also surging. So what is the plan to make sure that it is progressive, hopeful ideas that enter into this vacuum that has opened up?[See the Interview]
---- NK: I want to talk about this extraordinary moment in which the project that really began under Thatcher in this country, and Reagan in the U.S. — the whole so-called consensus that never really was a consensus, the war on the collective, on the idea that we can do good things when we get together — is crumbling. But it's also kind of a dangerous moment, when you have a vacuum of ideology, because dangerous ideas are also surging. So what is the plan to make sure that it is progressive, hopeful ideas that enter into this vacuum that has opened up?[See the Interview]
A Lifetime with Labor
By Vincent Emanuele, ZNet [July 16, 2017]
---- My history with organized labor is a personal history that truly spans the length of my life (32 years). My great grandfathers, both European immigrants—Italian on my father's side, and Italian and Croatian on my mother's side—organized with their local unions in Chicago during the 1930s. They benefited from the victories of the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s. Subsequent strikes in 1922 and 1925 included many Italian immigrants who came before my great grandfathers…. Now, the key for all of our movements is to learn from those mistakes and hopefully build a left with the knowledge and best practices of the past, but with the ability to prepare for the future. If the left can rebuild the labor movement by creating new institutions that are capable of addressing climate change/ecological devastation, U.S. Empire, systemic racism and patriarchy, while also challenging ideological concepts such as nationalism, who knows what the future may hold for our species? [Read more]
---- My history with organized labor is a personal history that truly spans the length of my life (32 years). My great grandfathers, both European immigrants—Italian on my father's side, and Italian and Croatian on my mother's side—organized with their local unions in Chicago during the 1930s. They benefited from the victories of the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s. Subsequent strikes in 1922 and 1925 included many Italian immigrants who came before my great grandfathers…. Now, the key for all of our movements is to learn from those mistakes and hopefully build a left with the knowledge and best practices of the past, but with the ability to prepare for the future. If the left can rebuild the labor movement by creating new institutions that are capable of addressing climate change/ecological devastation, U.S. Empire, systemic racism and patriarchy, while also challenging ideological concepts such as nationalism, who knows what the future may hold for our species? [Read more]
First, a Symbol of Occupy Wall Street. Then He Waded Into Syria.
--- Robert Grodt was a volunteer medic at the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011, when he pulled Kaylee Dedrick, who had just been pepper-sprayed in the face, out of the crowd to treat her. The pair quickly hit it off, and when video of Ms. Dedrick being sprayed in the face captured the world's attention, the spotlight turned to their budding romance. They again garnered media attention the next year, when they had a daughter — quickly nicknamed "Occubaby" — because she was conceived in the protest camp in Manhattan's Zuccotti Park where the pair had been camped out. But then he made a dangerous decision that few young Westerners have made — joining a Kurdish militia fighting in the Syrian War.
On Monday, Kurdish fighters announced that Mr. Grodt died on the outskirts of Raqqa, Syria. [Read More]
Will Last Year's Peace Treaty Survive, or Is the Past Prologue in Colombia?
By Greg Grandin, The Nation [June 22, 2017]
[FB – The negotiated settlement to end Colombia's half-century guerilla insurgency were greeted with great hope. In addition to ending a bloody conflict, the negotiated settlement stood as a model of a successful peace process. Post-settlement events, however, have dimmed this initial optimism. I think there are many lessons to be learned in this tragedy.]
---- Even as the demobilization of the FARC guerrillas and wind-down of Colombia's long civil war continues apace, political violence targeting human-rights activists, trade unionists, and environmentalists ticks up. Between January 2016 and February 2017, there have been 134 assassinations of political activists, in addition to failed assassination attempts and other acts of violence. The rate seems to be accelerating. The first four months of 2017 alone witnessed the assassinations of 41 "social leaders," many of them demobilizing members of the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia). Between April 15 and April 25, for instance, two FARC activists and six FARC family members were killed. More than 300 social organizations are operating under increasing threats. Also on the rise is the number of "mass displacements." … The past is prologue, and nothing foreshadows Colombia's current peace process more than what happened in the 1980s, when peace talks between the government, the FARC, and other guerrilla groups led to the creation of the Patriotic Union (UP), which, according to The Washington Post, was "the most successful leftist party in Colombian history." [Read More]
THE CRISIS IN YEMEN
Ignoring the Human Disaster in Yemen
By Alon Ben-Meir, Consortium News [July 12, 2017]
---- It is hard to imagine that along with the catastrophe that has been inflicted on Syria for the past six years, another calamity is unfolding in Yemen of damning proportions while the whole world looks on with indifference. What is happening in Yemen is not merely a violent conflict between combating forces for power, but the willful subjugation of millions of innocent civilians to starvation, disease and ruin that transcends the human capacity to descend even below the lowest pit of darkness, from which there is no exit. Seven million people face starvation, and 19 out of 28 million of Yemen's population are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. Both the Saudis and the Houthis are restricting food and medicine supplies from reaching starving children; many of them are cholera-ridden, on the verge of joining the thousands who have already died from starvation and disease. More than 10,000 have been killed, and nearly 40,000 injured. UNICEF reports nearly 300,000 cholera cases, and a joint statement from UNICEF and the World Health Organization declares the infection is spreading at a rate of 5,000 new cases per day. [Read More]
Yemen: The War That Isn't Happening Even as It's Happening
---- The manipulation of news and the distortion of reality are the most powerful weapons in the hands of power. They can make a whole reality disappear. Yemen's, for example. A child dies in Yemen every ten minutes from preventable causes, UNICEF reported in June. These deaths are only part of a humanitarian catastrophe, among the worst in the world, including a rampaging cholera epidemic, to which the witness of the overwhelming majority of the West's warmongering Goebbelist media pretends to be deaf, mute, and blind. …The cholera infection, marked by violent diarrhea, is caused by ingestion of water contaminated by fecal matter. The outbreak in Yemen first manifested itself in October 2016, but between April and June of 2017, it became rampant. According to the United Nations' World Health Organization, 300,000 Yemenis are already infected. 1,500 people have died, 55% of them children. Hospitals are full with patients showing symptoms. Clean water, sanitation, and healthcare—the means to check the epidemic—are woefully scarce. And no one yet asks, "Is it/was it worth it?" [Read More]
Further reading about the war in Yemen – Samuel Oakford, "U.S. Doubled Fuel Support for Saudi Bombing Campaign in Yemen After Deadly Strike On Funeral," The Intercept [July 13, 2017] [Link]; Nick Cummings-Bruce and Rick Gladstone, "U.N. Suspending Plan for Cholera Vaccination in Yemen," [Link].
THE CRISIS IN TURKEY
Inside Erdogan's Prisons
---- I have been a member of Turkish Parliament representing Istanbul for the opposition Republican People's Party for the past six years. It has forced me to become a specialist in the Turkish prison system as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (A.K.P.) government has increasingly persecuted politicians, activists, professionals and all sorts of citizens who oppose his rule and arrested thousands after the failed coup attempt last July. My morning begins with reading the news; looking for court appearance dates for detained parliamentarians, journalists and academics; and checking a website where the government posts its decrees and the names of people who are about to be purged from the government, the military, hospitals, banks, schools and other institutions. [Read More]
The start of Turkey's hot summer?
---- An immense crowd of as many as 2 million people rallied in Istanbul on July 9 to protest the authoritarian regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It was the latest sign that Turkey's angry discontent cannot be crushed out by the relentless crackdown of Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. The regime has used last July's botched coup attempt as justification for intensifying a campaign of repression that has been developing for several years. Since last July, Turkish courts have processed more than 168,000 cases of people linked to the takeover attempt–at least 100,000 of them remain in custody, according to the government. More than 103,000 state employees have been fired and some 33,000 suspended. Around 150 media outlets are shut down. But the signs of struggle are multiplying in Turkey–with last weekend's rally providing confirmation that even more people have gone over into active opposition against the regime. [Read More]
Further reading about Turkey – Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are following events in Turkey closely. For updates on arrests and their context, check out the website Turkey Purge. Several leading human-rights organizations have published an "Open Letter on Detention of Human Rights Defenders in Turkey" [Link]. Please sign a petition to "Free Amnesty Turkey's Director Idil Eser and Other Human Rights Defenders" here. Middle East historian Juan Cole had a good overview article about "Erdogan Marks Coup anniversary with more Crackdowns," Informed Comment [July 16, 2017] [Link].
WAR & PEACE
Moral Corrosion of Drone Warfare
By Ray McGovern, Consortium News [July 16, 2017]
---- Most Americans are blissfully unaware that, from states-side drone bases like Hancock, drone "pilots" – with a push of the joystick, a click of a mouse, or simply a keystroke – can incinerate "suspected terrorists," on the other side of the globe WITHIN THREE MINUTES. Thanks to a media that is heavily influenced by what Pope Francis (speaking before Congress in 2015) called the "blood-drenched arms traders," it's largely a comfortable case of out-of-sight-out-of-mind. However, the more the killing is hidden, the more we feel a moral imperative to bring the killing out into the open and appeal to the consciences of U.S. citizens – including those of drone "pilots" many of whom have moral qualms about what they are being ordered to do and end up with bad cases of PTSD. [read More]
The Demolition of U.S. Global Power: Donald Trump's Road to Debacle in the Greater Middle East
By Alfred W. McCoy, Tom Dispatch [July 17, 2017]
By Alfred W. McCoy, Tom Dispatch [July 17, 2017]
----Washington's global power rested on such strategic fundamentals that its leaders might still have managed carefully enough to maintain a reasonable semblance of American hegemony: notably, the NATO alliance and Asian mutual-security treaties at the strategic antipodes of Eurasia, trade treaties that reinforced such alliances, scientific research to sustain its military's technological edge, and leadership on international issues like climate change. In just five short months, however, the Trump White House has done a remarkable job of demolishing these very pillars of U.S. global power. [Read More]
Challenging Nuclearism
By Richard Falk, ZNet [July 14, 2017]
---- The Nuclear Ban Treaty (NBT) is significant beyond the prohibition. It can and should be interpreted as a frontal rejection of the geopolitical approach to nuclearism, and its contention that the retention and development of nuclear weapons is a proven necessity given the way international society is organized. It is a healthy development that the NBT shows an impatience toward and a distrust of the elaborate geopolitical rationalizations of the nuclear status quo that have ignored the profound objections to nuclearism of many governments and the anti-nuclear views that have long dominated world public opinion. … The enormous fly in this healing ointment arises from the refusal of any of the nine nuclear weapons states to join in the NBT process even to the legitimating extent of participating in the negotiating conference with the opportunity to express their objections and influence the outcome. … As of now the NBT is a treaty text that courteously mandates the end of nuclearism, but to convert this text into an effective regime of control will require the kind of deep commitments, sacrifices, movements, and struggles that eventually achieved the impossible, ending such entrenched evils as slavery, apartheid, and colonialism. [Read More] For some implications going forward, read Matt Taibbi, "North Korea Isn't the Only Rogue Nuclear State," Rolling Stone [July 2017] [Link].
---- The Nuclear Ban Treaty (NBT) is significant beyond the prohibition. It can and should be interpreted as a frontal rejection of the geopolitical approach to nuclearism, and its contention that the retention and development of nuclear weapons is a proven necessity given the way international society is organized. It is a healthy development that the NBT shows an impatience toward and a distrust of the elaborate geopolitical rationalizations of the nuclear status quo that have ignored the profound objections to nuclearism of many governments and the anti-nuclear views that have long dominated world public opinion. … The enormous fly in this healing ointment arises from the refusal of any of the nine nuclear weapons states to join in the NBT process even to the legitimating extent of participating in the negotiating conference with the opportunity to express their objections and influence the outcome. … As of now the NBT is a treaty text that courteously mandates the end of nuclearism, but to convert this text into an effective regime of control will require the kind of deep commitments, sacrifices, movements, and struggles that eventually achieved the impossible, ending such entrenched evils as slavery, apartheid, and colonialism. [Read More] For some implications going forward, read Matt Taibbi, "North Korea Isn't the Only Rogue Nuclear State," Rolling Stone [July 2017] [Link].
The War in Syria
Syrian Observatory: Over 330,000 Killed in Syrian War
By Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com [July 16, 2017]
---- With umpteen different factions with vested interests in the figures coming out different ways, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has become one of very few groups even trying to document the overall death toll of the Syrian War. Today's report put the toll at 331,765 people nationwide, starting in March of 2011, and continuing through Saturday. Understanding the breakdown of these tolls is important to understanding which factions have borne the brunt of the conflict, and time and again, Observatory stats have shown the Syrian government and its allies as sustaining the largest losses. … Next among the deaths were civilian populations, at 99,617 killed. This included 18,243 women and 11,427 children. [Read More]
Pentagon wants to build new US facilities in Iraq, Syria
By Jack Detsch, Al-Monitor [July 13, 2017]
---- The Donald Trump administration is pushing Congress for the authority to build new "temporary" facilities in Iraq and Syria as part of the US-led campaign against the Islamic State. In a policy statement released Tuesday night, the White House argues that US troops are hamstrung by legal restrictions on their ability to expand US military infrastructure "in both Iraq and Syria." The administration wants lawmakers to extend existing authorities that only cover the "repair and renovation" of facilities to also encompass "temporary intermediate staging facilities, ammunition supply points, and assembly areas that have adequate force protection." [Read More]
The War in Iraq
Mosul Residents Count Cost of Massive Airstrike Campaign Against Isis
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent [UK] [July 11, 2017]
---- People in west Mosul say that the intensity of the bombardment from the air was out of all proportion to the number of Isis fighters on the ground. Saad Amr, a volunteer medic, worked in both east and west Mosul during the nine-month siege. He says that "the airstrikes on east Mosul were fewer but more accurate, while on the west there were far more of them, but they were haphazard." … The accusations of Mosul residents interviewed by The Independent are backed-up by an Amnesty International report called At Any Price: The Civilian Catastrophe in West Mosul. It says that civilians were subjected "to a terrifying barrage of fire from weapons that should never be used in densely populated civilian areas." AI researchers interviewed 151 west Mosul residents, experts and analysts, and documented 45 attacks in total, which killed at least 426 civilians and injured more than 100. This was only a sample of thousands of air attacks on the city, some of which are still going on. [Read More]
War with Korea?
US Experts Say North Korean Leadership May Be Ruthless and Reckless, But They Are Not Crazy
By Ann Wright, Common Dreams [July 14, 2017]
---- Despite the rhetoric from the Trump administration about military confrontation with North Korea, the common theme of many U.S. experts on North Korea is that the U.S. presidential administration MUST conduct a dialogue with North Korea—and quickly! Military confrontation is NOT an option according to the experts. And most importantly, the new President of South Korea Moon Jae-in was elected in May 2017 on a pledge to engage in talks with North Korea and pursue diplomacy to finally officially end the Korean conflict. Nearly 80 percent of South Koreans support a resumption of long-suspended inter-Korean dialogue, according to a survey by a presidential advisory panel showed in late June. [Read More]
War with Iran?
Trump Is Endangering Nuclear Deal, Says Iranian Foreign Minister
By Julia Conley, Common Dreams [July 16, 2017]
---- As the United States and Iran mark two years since reaching their landmark deal on nuclear weapons, analysts say Iran has met its obligations stipulated by the agreement—while the U.S. has failed to do so. The deal, forged in July 2015 by Iran and the Obama administration along with Germany and the four other members of the U.N. National Security Council, stipulated that sanctions on Iran would be lifted in exchange for its halting of nuclear development for the next decade and its compliance with continuous surveillance of its nuclear enrichment and storage sites, among other requirements. … In an interview on Sunday on "Fareed Zakaria GPS," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that President Donald Trump has failed to hold up the United States' end of the bargain by urging its allies to cut business ties with Iran, effectively enacting more sanctions. [Read More] Also useful/interesting are "US expected to recertify Iran compliance with nuclear deal," July 13, 2017] [Link]; and "Iran's parliament criticizes remaining US sanctions,"' Al Monitor [July 2017] [Link].
CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING
Donald Trump's Climate Change Denial Ignites the Grass Roots
By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan, Truthdig [July 14, 2017]
---- As "Russiagate" becomes a full-blown conflagration threatening to consume Donald Trump's presidency, his denial of human-induced global warming continues to threaten a planet already on fire. The world reeled on June 1 when Trump made good on his campaign promise to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement. Since then, governments around the world, from the largest nations to the smallest hamlets, have joined together in criticism of the move, vowing to accelerate their own commitments to combating climate change, with or without Donald Trump and the U.S. The time remaining to prevent irreversible climate change is short. Donald Trump was notably isolated at the G-20 meeting in Hamburg last week. Over 100,000 protesters marched despite a massive and at times violent police crackdown. Inside, the 19 other world leaders took a stand against Trump's rejection of the Paris climate agreement. [Read More]
A Trillion-Ton Iceberg Broke Off Antarctica and All I Can Think About Is Food
By Erin Sagen, Yes! Magazine [July 14, 2017]
---- Two days before the Antarctic iceberg broke loose, a study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that, in a nutshell, confirmed some of our worst fears: Earth's sixth mass extinction is already underway, threatening the planet's animal populations and ecosystems. To use the authors' words, we're looking at a "biological annihilation" that's largely human-caused. Unlike the researchers assessing the iceberg, the authors of this study clearly point to climate change: "In the last few decades, habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive organisms, pollution, toxification, and more recently climate disruption, as well as the interactions among these factors, have led to the catastrophic declines in both the numbers and sizes of populations. …" Recently, a colleague and I have been collaborating on a project measuring the environmental impacts of residential lawns and the industrial food system. Our research uncovered some surprising facts, and the data, compiled in one convenient place, have been sobering. [Read More]
Also useful/interesting on climate change – Joseph Stiglitz, "Trump and Climate Change," ZNet [July 16, 2017] [FB – In 2001, Joseph Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize in Economics.] [Link]; and Tess Riley, "Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says," The Guardian [UK] [July 10, 2017] [Link].
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Democrats Gone Mad: The Year of Living Stupidly
By Glen Ford, The Black Agenda [July 12, 2017]
---- For more than a year now, the collective U.S. ruling class, with Democratic Party and corporate media operatives in the vanguard, has frozen the national political discourse in a McCarthyite time warp. A random visit to a July 26, 2016, issue of the New York Times reveals the same obsession as that which consumes the newspaper today: "Following the Links from Russian Hackers to the U.S. Election," "Spy Agency Consensus Grows That Russia Hacked D.N.C." A year later, the allegations persist, piled ever higher with innuendo and outright nonsense. However, proof of the predicate act—that Russia, not Wikileaks, penetrated the DNC—remains totally absent. What is the purpose of this torture-by-media? Clearly, the Trump White House has been crippled by the tsunami that never ebbs, but the Democrats have not been strengthened in the process, and the corporate media's standing among the public erodes by the day [Read More]
Also useful/interesting on life in the USA – Paul Buchheit, "Stunning Truths about the Bloated Safety Net for the Wealthy," Common Dreams [July 10, 2017] [Link]; and RoseAnn DeMoro, "Nurses Scolded: Not OKAY to Play Hardball with Democrats," Common Dreams [July 14, 2017] [Link]. The Nation has put up an interesting video explaining why people in Denmark are happier than people in the United States.
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Palestinian Options, Jewish Allies, and the Zionist Crisis
---- NH: What's been frustrating for Palestinians, in the present time is that there's a movement for Palestinian rights in the U.S. but there's been no clear Palestinian leadership of that movement. And no strong Palestinian organizations to lead it. And what I hear from young Palestinians is that you know, we're very active in Students for Justice in Palestine, which is a great multi-ethnic multi-religious multiracial movement—but then when they leave university, there's no natural home.
PW: What makes Jews important? Hispanics, blacks, Europeans, a lot of people are called to the question.
NH: On the whole a lot more Jews are called to this question than other groups. I once saw the volumes that listed the number of American Jewish organizations that represented the Jewish community: obviously the Jewish community in the United States is very organized, in many different ways and different spheres, and so on. … If Jews make this their issue, they've been in the system in the United States much longer than Palestinians and Arabs and they know how the system works and they know how to make it work. A lot of Palestinians and Arabs are now coming on stream that have that knowledge, but Jews have that historical depth with the system. Secondly, no one can tell them that it cannot be their issue and they are better placed than anyone to challenge the Zionist discourse. They are– it's just a fact. Now I've had a lot of arguments with my dear friend Phyllis, as to: Everybody should have a right to challenge. Yes, in theory, everyone has a right to challenge—but Jews are really, it's a fact, much better placed to challenge. [Read More]
My Family in Gaza Tells Me: We Can't Breathe
By Muhammad Shehada, Haaretz [Israel] [July 16, 2107] Jul 16, 2017
---- For most of my friends in Gaza, all the days of the week are routinely identical, and most of the young people are depressingly "unemployable" due to the blockade that has killed the economy, so there's no actual difference between weekdays and the weekend. What's different is the incremental accrual of age that accumulates more rage inside you and reminds you that you haven't had much in life, and probably won't have much more in the future. And with each year, another cohort of graduates is exposed to the dead job market, with no prospects for making a livelihood. … Disaffection and rage have no limit in Gaza. Tension is evidently at peak, but it's going nowhere, and everything is standing still like a ticking bomb, the only hope is for when the bomb blows up. But popular dissatisfaction with Abbas or Hamas has no outlet. [Read More]
Also useful on the Gaza crisis – Adam Johnson, "While Attacks in Israel Make Headlines, Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza Ignored," Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [FAIR], [July 14, 2017] [Link]. Jewish Voice for Peace has set up a useful/informative website, https://gazablackout.org/, to track what's happening in Gaza.
OUR HISTORY
Andrzej Wajda's Search for Freedom
, Counterpunch [July 14, 2017]
---- When Andrzej Wajda died last year at the age of 90 after having just completed "Afterimage", he was one of the last of the great auteurs of the 60s and 70s, leaving only Jean-Luc Godard (now 86) the sole survivor. …Beyond his achievements as a filmmaker there is something else that recommends his films, namely their focus on one of the big political questions of our epoch–especially after a full century. What was the impact of the USSR on its own people and those like the Poles living under its control? Widely recognized as an anti-Communist director, he might be a polarizing figure to many who see the geopolitical divide as demanding alignment with the Kremlin—either pre or post-Communism. As such, his work demands attention, however you stand on this question insofar as his reputation and influence will persist long after his death. Was Wajda an enemy of communism or was his mission to create films that transcended narrow ideological considerations? [Read More]
Out of Left Field
By Peter Dreier and Robert Elias, Jacobin Magazine [July 2017]
---- Major league baseball has a long but little-known history of rebels, reformers, and radicals. Compared to their counterparts in football and basketball, baseball players have tended to be cautious about speaking out on controversial social and political issues, but, throughout the sport's history, a minority of players — alongside executives, sportswriters, and managers — has challenged the status quo. Baseball's rebels, reformers, and radicals took inspiration from the country's dissenters and progressive movements, speaking and acting against abuses both within their profession and in the broader society: racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty, war, repression, corporate domination, and worker exploitation. [Read More]
