Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
January 14, 2018
Hello All – Tomorrow is the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Had he lived, he would be 89 years old, and perhaps our world would be different. Those who remember Dr. King from back in the day are often saddened by the way in which his legacy and message has been transformed, sanitized, made acceptable for respectable occasions. In response to this distortion of his life's work, CFOW sent a letter to our local paper, The Enterprise, which unfortunately went unpublished. Below is a slightly augmented version of the letter.
On Monday, January 15th, celebrations marking the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. will take place in the Rivertowns and across the United States. How should we remember him? As a crusader for desegregation? As an advocate for the poor of all races? As a man of peace?
Clearly, Dr. King was all of these, and more. Yet over the half-century since his assassination, Dr. King's life and work have been re-interpreted, today focusing on his opposition to racism and his non-violent struggle for integration, while diminishing his strong opposition to injustice to the poor of any color, and to America's wars.
By limiting or narrowing Dr. King's message we impoverish ourselves, missing an opportunity to connect the needs of our present moment to Dr. King's fundamental legacy. By the end of his life, his message had gone far beyond support for "diversity" and was proposing a new vision of world order, in which peace and justice would prevail, and war and oppression would be ended.
In the mid-1960s Dr. King broke with the mainstream of the civil rights movement to speak out against the war in Vietnam. His major statement was given at the Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, in a speech entitled "Beyond Vietnam." In it, King argued that "there comes a time when silence is betrayal." He denounced the war in Vietnam, calling it "madness" and claimed that the war was "but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit." He called for "a true revolution of values."
Now, a half century later, the "malady within the American spirit" entangles much of the globe. The "war on terror" that our government began after 9/11 now engulfs 76 countries. Last year our troops were involved in significant military action in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Niger, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Our "Special Operations Forces" were deployed to 149 countries, while military expenditures exceeded $1 trillion. Yet 43 million Americans live in poverty, including one out of every five children (15 million). Millions of people have little hope that their lives will get better.
Fifty years after his death, and in the context of our war-torn moment, it is time to recall and recapture the full message of Dr. King. This weekend's celebrations of his birthday would be a good opportunity to begin this reconsideration of what his life and legacy still offer us.
News Notes
Last week New York City announced that it would divest $5 billion of its pension funds from 190 fossil fuel companies. Read more here.
Shades of George Orwell and "1984"! According to this New York Times article, "Nearly a year into the Trump administration, mentions of climate change have been systematically removed, altered or played down on websites across the federal government.…The Bureau of Land Management had deleted its climate change website and removed text about the importance of climate change mitigation from its main site." Into the Memory Hole! If you've read the book, you know this ends badly.
Brainwashing isn't always successful. Telesur reports that "a recent study shows the U.S. "Muslim ban" became unpopular among U.S. voters after its implementation, [and that] public opinion on the so-called Muslim ban has shifted after a nationwide debate on immigration, racism and religion in the U.S. was sparked as a result of the ban's implementation and subsequent protests." For a heartwarming picture in support of this thesis, go here.
Another recent public-opinion poll shows that Americans are strongly opposed to US military intervention. According to the article published in The Nation, the new survey revealed "a national voter population that is largely skeptical of the practicality or benefits of military intervention overseas, including both the physical involvement of the US military and also extending to military aid in the form of funds or equipment as well." The same article cites a recent book that argues that "Hillary Clinton's loss in the 2016 presidential race might well have been owing to her hawkish foreign-policy positions."
Coming Attractions/Things to Do
Ongoing – There are two vacancies in the NYS Senate and nine in the Assembly. Our friends at Indivisible Rivertowns urge us to call Governor Cuomo and demand that he schedule a special election asap, certainly before the state budget is voted on (April 1st). – This is a "No Taxation without Representation" issue. Give Cuomo a call (518-474-8390).
Monday, January 15th – The annual Martin Luther King, Jr. community breakfast will be held at the Community Center (44 Main St.) starting at 9:30 a.m. Being honored this year are our friends at Hastings RISE. The cost is $18 at the door, or $12 with advance registration by calling 914-478-3400 X 664.
Wednesday, January 17th – Our friends at the Justice for Farm Workers Campaign will be in Albany on this day to testify about farm worker conditions in New York. The hearing begins at 10 a.m. A bus will be leaving White Plains (AFL-CIO – 595 W. Hartsdale Ave.) at 7:30 a.m. To register for the bus, go here. For more information, see the Campaign's website.
Wednesday, January 17th – The Thomas H. Slater Center in White Plains will host a rally in support of Haitian and other immigrants who have been slimed by President Trump. The rally will take at the Center, 2 Fisher Court, in White Plains, beginning at 6:15 p.m. For more information, go here.
Saturday, January 20th – The Women's March (men welcome) in NYC will begin with a rally at 11 a.m. at Columbus Circle (59th St. and Central Park West) and then a march to Bryant Park. A zillion people will be going, so don't miss it. A CFOW contingent will attempt to rally/march together, leaving on the MetroNorth train that passes through the Rivertowns about 10:20 a.m. More details coming soon. For the March website, go here. For a map of the March route, go here.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Our leaflet and posters for our rallies are usually about war or climate change, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's tax cut legislation are often targeted, depending on current events. We meet on the first Sunday of each month, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. If you would like to make a financial contribution to our work, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards!
The CFOW newsletter "Rewards" offers a moment for stalwart readers to take a break and rest up for the heavy reading still to come. This Rewards segment features two musicians who have never appeared on the same stage. First up is the 18th century rocker J. S. Bach with his Brandenburg Concerto #3. Next up – it's the 50th anniversary of Johnny Cash's concert At Folsom Prison. Check out this interesting back story about the famous concert and "the Man in Black." Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
After I Lived in Norway, America Felt Backward. Here's Why.
By Ann Jones, The Nation [January 28, 2016]
---- What is it, though, that makes the Scandinavians so different? Since the Democrats can't tell you and the Republicans wouldn't want you to know, let me offer you a quick introduction. What Scandinavians call the Nordic model is a smart and simple system that starts with a deep commitment to equality and democracy. That's two concepts combined in a single goal because, as far as they're concerned, you can't have one without the other. Right there, they part company with capitalist America, now the most unequal of all the developed nations, and consequently a democracy no more. Political scientists say it has become an oligarchy, run at the expense of its citizenry by and for the superrich. Perhaps you've noticed that. … In Norway, capitalism serves the people. The government, elected by the people, sees to that. All eight of the parties that won parliamentary seats in the last national election—including the conservative Høyre party now leading the government—are committed to maintaining the welfare state. In the United States, however, neoliberal politics puts the foxes in charge of the henhouse, and capitalists have used the wealth generated by their enterprises (as well as financial and political manipulations) to capture the state and pluck the chickens. [Read More]
We Are Living Through the Moment When Women Unleash Decades of Pent-Up Anger. Let's hope there's no going back.
By Katha Pollitt, The Nation [January 11, 2018]
---- Despite statistics showing stalled careers, unequal pay, male violence, and the persistence of the double day, we invested in hope. Think how much better our lives are than our mothers' and grandmothers', we told ourselves. Our daughters' lives will be better still. It's as though women's liberation were a kind of conveyor belt, humming along automatically. There was no need, really, to get all angry and hostile and man-hating, or to use antiquated terms like "women's liberation," with all it implied about the sweeping nature of our subjection and the wild collective energy needed to escape it. The Women's March set the tone for the resistance on the first full day of the Trump regime—by some measures the largest march in American history, from Washington, DC, and other major cities to small towns in the deep-red states. [Read More]
'Shithole countries': Trump uses the rhetoric of dictators
By Henry Giroux, The Conversation [January 10, 2018]
---- As authoritarianism gains strength, the formative cultures that give rise to dissent become more embattled, along with the public spaces and institutions that make conscious critical thought possible. Words that speak to the truth to reveal injustices and provide informed critical analysis begin to disappear, making it all the more difficult, if not dangerous, to judge, think critically and hold dominant power accountable. Notions of virtue, honour, respect and compassion are policed, and those who advocate them are punished. I think it's fair to argue that Orwell's nightmare vision of the future is no longer fiction in the United States. Under Trump, language is undergoing a shift: It now treats dissent, critical media coverage and scientific evidence as a species of "fake news." The Trump administration, in fact, views the critical media as the "enemy of the American people." Trump has repeated this view of the media so often that almost a third of Americans now believe it and support government-imposed restrictions on the media, according to a Poynter survey. [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
Why 'Coercive Diplomacy' is a Dangerous Farce
By January 12, 2018]
---- The great irony of the U.S. coercive diplomacy applied to Iran and North Korea is that it was all completely unnecessary. Both states were ready to negotiate agreements with the United States that would have provided assurances against nuclear weapons in return for U.S. concession to their own most vital security interests. North Korea began exploiting its nuclear program in the early 1990s in order to reach a broader security agreement with Washington. Iran, which was well aware of the North Korean negotiating strategy, began in private conversations in 2003 to cite the stockpile of enriched uranium it expected to acquire as bargaining chips to be used in negotiations with the United States and/or its European allies. But those diplomatic strategies were frustrated by the long-standing attraction of the national security elite to of the coercive diplomacy but also by the bureaucratic interests of the Pentagon and CIA, newly bereft of the Soviet adversary that had kept their budgets afloat during the Cold War. [Read More]
From Afghanistan to Somalia, Special Ops Achieves Less with More
By Nick Turse, Tom Dispatch [January 9, 2018]
By Nick Turse, Tom Dispatch [January 9, 2018]
---- Since U.S. commandos went to war in 2001, the size of Special Operations Command has doubled from about 33,000 personnel to 70,000 today. As their numbers have grown, so has their global reach. As TomDispatch revealed last month, they were deployed to 149 nations in 2017, or about 75% of the countries on the planet, a record-setting year. It topped 2016's 138 nations under the Obama administration and dwarfed the numbers from the final years of the Bush administration. As the scope of deployments has expanded, special operators also came to be spread ever more equally across the planet. … Africa, however, has seen the most significant increase in special ops deployments. In 2006, the figure for that continent was just 1%; as 2017 ended, it stood at 16.61%. In other words, more commandos are operating there than in any region except the Middle East. As I recently reported at Vice News, Special Operations forces were active in at least 33 nations across that continent last year. The situation in one of those nations, Somalia, in many ways mirrors in microcosm the 16-plus years of U.S. operations in Afghanistan. [Read More]
Siding with Iran over Trump
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent [UK] [January 14, 2018]
----- President Trump is trying to kill off the nuclear deal with Iran, but at the same time make the Iranians take the blame. Once again today he issued waivers reimposing strict economic sanctions on Iran, but threatened to pull out next time round unless Congress and European countries improve the terms of the agreement from the US point of view. He also announced sanctions against individual Iranian officials for alleged corruption and human rights abuses during the recent street protests in Iran. But the real aim of US opponents of the nuclear deal signed by President Obama and others in 2015 is to make sure that Iran gets no "peace dividend" out of the agreement and is provoked into walking away from it. Probably, Iranian leaders are too clever to fall into the trap, but Iranian policy is the product of competing power centres in Tehran so what they will decide is neither certain nor necessarily very smart. … Sins of omission as well as commission have had a disastrous impact, such as the US failing to pressure Saudi Arabia to end the war in Yemen. All these ill-considered actions and inactions by Trump and his coterie pale in significance compared to the prospect of stoking a military confrontation with Iran. This would be a more serious war than the US and British invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Trump may not want a war with Iran or anybody else, but nobody is more likely than he to flounder into one through ignorance and wishful thinking. [Read More] Also useful reading is Jason Ditz, "Trump Gives World Four Months to Change Iran Nuclear Deal," Antiwar.com [January 12, 2018] [Link]. The New York Times' version can be read here.
----- President Trump is trying to kill off the nuclear deal with Iran, but at the same time make the Iranians take the blame. Once again today he issued waivers reimposing strict economic sanctions on Iran, but threatened to pull out next time round unless Congress and European countries improve the terms of the agreement from the US point of view. He also announced sanctions against individual Iranian officials for alleged corruption and human rights abuses during the recent street protests in Iran. But the real aim of US opponents of the nuclear deal signed by President Obama and others in 2015 is to make sure that Iran gets no "peace dividend" out of the agreement and is provoked into walking away from it. Probably, Iranian leaders are too clever to fall into the trap, but Iranian policy is the product of competing power centres in Tehran so what they will decide is neither certain nor necessarily very smart. … Sins of omission as well as commission have had a disastrous impact, such as the US failing to pressure Saudi Arabia to end the war in Yemen. All these ill-considered actions and inactions by Trump and his coterie pale in significance compared to the prospect of stoking a military confrontation with Iran. This would be a more serious war than the US and British invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Trump may not want a war with Iran or anybody else, but nobody is more likely than he to flounder into one through ignorance and wishful thinking. [Read More] Also useful reading is Jason Ditz, "Trump Gives World Four Months to Change Iran Nuclear Deal," Antiwar.com [January 12, 2018] [Link]. The New York Times' version can be read here.
North and South Korea Have a Breakthrough. What Next?
By Joseph Cirincione, The National Interest [January 9, 2018]
---- On Tuesday, for the first time in two years, North and South Korea held high-level talks in the Demilitarized Zone. The main subject was North Korea's participation in next month's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea (February 9–25), but the implications for a broader dialogue were obvious. While hawkish critics fear the talks are a "trap" or "wedge" that could divide South Korea from the United States, the talks represent a welcome step back from the nuclear brink. The South Koreans seem perfectly capable of achieving their goal of preventing a war on the peninsula while maintaining their strong military alliance with the United States. … Thus, the current talks represent something potentially much greater than a joint athletic team, friendly photos and a two-month "Olympic Truce." North Korean participation in the Olympics would obviously benefit the North by providing possible concessions from the South and an international platform to raise its "peace-loving" status. But even more, this breakthrough represents the first of many steps toward an improvement in North-South relations that may, following the Olympics, pave the way for negotiations related to the North's nuclear and missile program. [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
41 Hearts Beating in Guantanamo
---- January 11, 2018, marked the 16th year that Guantanamo prison has exclusively imprisoned Muslim men, subjecting many of them to torture and arbitrary detention. In Washington, D.C., about thirty people have gathered this week as part of Witness Against Torture, for a weeklong fast aimed at closing Guantanamo and abolishing torture forever. Four days ago, Matt Daloisio arrived from New York City in a van packed with posters and banners, plus sleeping bags, winter clothing, and other essentials for the week. Matt spent an hour organizing the equipment in the large church hall housing us. "He curates it," said one organizer. In 2007, there were 430 prisoners in Guantanamo. Today, forty-one men are imprisoned there, including thirty-one who have endured more than a decade of imprisonment without charge. None of the forty-one prisoners now in Guantanamo was captured by the U.S. military on a battlefield. Afghan militias and the Pakistani military were paid cash bounties for selling most of these prisoners into U.S. custody. Imagine the "green light" this gave for other countries to engage in the buying and selling of human beings. [Read More] For additional information, read "After 16 Years Without Trial, Guantánamo Inmates and Rights Groups Demand End to 'Unconscionable' Imprisonment," [Link].
Congress Renews Warrantless Surveillance—And Makes It Even Worse
By Louise Matsakis, Wired [January 11, 2018]
---- In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency was legally collecting millions of Americans' phone calls and electronic communications—including emails, Facebook messages, and browsing histories—without a warrant. Congress has now decided not only to reauthorize these programs, but also to expand some of their most invasive techniques. The spying initiatives Snowden brought to light are authorized under Section 702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, which was set to expire later this month. On Thursday, Congress voted down an effort to reform Section 702, and instead passed a bill that expanded warrantless surveillance of US citizens and foreigners. The newly passed bill reauthorizes Section 702 for six years, long after President Trump's first term in office will have expired.
The amendment that the House of Representatives shot down would have added significant privacy safeguards to the law, including the requirement that intelligence agents get a warrant in many cases before searching through emails and other digital communications belonging to US citizens. The bill Congress did pass, meanwhile, codifies some of the most troubling aspects of Section 702, according to privacy advocates. The legislation still needs to pass in the Senate, where fewer representatives are interested in significantly reforming the law. [Read More]
Raising questions about the Democrats' role in warrantless surveillance – John Nichols, "Democratic Defections Allow an Assault on Civil Liberties to Pass the House," The Nation [January 12, 2018] [Link]; and Glenn Greenwald, "The Same Democrats Who Denounce Donald Trump as a Lawless, Treasonous Authoritarian Just Voted to Give Him Vast Warrantless Spying Powers," The Intercept [January 12, 2018] [Link]. To see who voted which way, go here.
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHAOS
Justice Department Helped Washington State Prosecutor Target Facebook Records of Anti-Pipeline Activists
By Simon Davis-Cohen, The Intercept [
---- Nine months after pipeline opponents in Washington state staged a protest that blocked freeway traffic, Facebook ended a protracted legal standoff with a county prosecutor, turning over detailed records on the indigenous-led group behind the demonstration. Despite the fact that no criminal charges have been filed in connection with the February action, Whatcom County Prosecuting Attorney David McEachran repeatedly sought a warrant for the group's Facebook page, ultimately securing private information including messages to and from the page and a list of everyone "invited" to the protest event. … The DOJ's intervention in the case makes it the latest example of the Trump administration's direct involvement in law enforcement actions against protesters who allege they are being targeted for protected First Amendment activity: On the other side of the country, the DOJ is pursuing decades of prison time for protesters, journalists, medics, and legal advocates arrested during the anti-Trump "J20" demonstrations on Inauguration Day. In that case, too, the prosecution secured warrants for the Facebook page and website used to organize the protests. Now, Standing Rock-inspired activists in Whatcom County find themselves on the front lines of the battle over Americans' right to anonymously organize with political groups. [Read More]
Is China's dominance of Green Energy Markets a path to Global Dominance?
By Chris G. Pope, The Conversation [January 13, 2018]
---- If there is to be an effective response to climate change, it will probably emanate from China. The geopolitical motivations are clear. Renewable energy is increasingly inevitable, and those that dominate the markets in these new technologies will likely have the most influence over the development patterns of the future. As other major powers find themselves in climate denial or atrophy, China may well boost its power and status by becoming the global energy leader of tomorrow. President Xi Jinping has been vocal on the issue. He has already called for an "ecological civilization". The state's "green shift" supports this claim by striving to transition to alternative energies and become more energy efficient. But there are material benefits as well. China's proactive response has impacted on global energy markets. Today, five of the world's six top solar-module manufacturers, five of the largest wind turbine manufacturers, and six of the ten major car manufacturers committed to electrification are all Chinese-owned. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Dear Democrats: Shut It Down
By
---- If Congress cannot agree on a budget plan by Jan. 19, the government will shut down. This isn't the outcome anyone wants. But Democrats ought to start steeling themselves now: If the Republican majority's budget plan leaves the "dreamers" in limbo, fails to supply desperately needed aid to Puerto Rico and coastal states battered by natural disaster, or allows the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to wither away, Democrats need to be ready to shut the whole thing down. It is necessary to recognize the damage a shutdown could cause in the course of recommending, as I am, that the Democrats prepare to let it happen. If the outcome were sure to be harmless, the possible costs would be small. But the moral stakes of this budget negotiation are extraordinarily high. … What is remarkable about the priorities at hand, however, is that they have no business being articles of compromise. These aren't ordinary policy squabbles; they constitute a choice between America as a humane nation with democratic principles and America as a negligent sovereign with a dim future. The protection of innocents shouldn't be up for debate. But it is. And Democrats can't back down. [Read More]
The Hurricane After Maria [Puerto Rico]
---- Furiously solipsistic, Maria brutalized Puerto Rico, bringing it to its knees. Three main collapses with one blow: Electricity, communications, and roads. From Tuesday to Wednesday, everything came down at once. Who is afraid of wind and water? One hell of a Wednesday, for sure, that will never be forgotten: September 20th, 2017. Maria. More than three months after Her debut, what can be called "Maria after Maria," chaos after the hurricane, has been worse on people than the fury She unleashed on the island that awful Wednesday—after which life became a nightmare in slow motion. Weak governmental response, local and Federal (FEMA). Inaction, immobility, worsening of the already bad. Little improvement. Two months after the blow, one who lost his house asked on a radio program sarcastically: When is "the picnic" going to be over? The inability to fix reality takes over the political landscape of the USA non-incorporated territory of Puerto Rico. A modern colony. Colonialism—when power to effect change lies outside—harnesses the island to the point of implosion. [Read More]
El Salvador Again Feels the Hand of Washington Shaping Its Fate
---- In the streets of this congested capital of winding streets and hillside warrens, shock is giving way to bitterness. Many older residents still recall with anger the United States' support for the government during the 12-year civil war, which sent hundreds of thousands fleeing to America for safety. They remember, too, the return of some of those same refugees, who during their time in the poverty-stricken neighborhoods of Los Angeles formed violent criminal gangs — MS-13 and 18th Street — that now permeate every facet of life in their small nation. And they have not forgotten how gang violence drove 120,000 fearful children from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala to enter the United States through Mexico from 2014 through 2016. Many others never made it.. … "The U.S. has such a deep impact on El Salvador for its own foreign policy needs that it bears significant responsibility, not only for the flow of migrants out of El Salvador into the U.S., but also for the current conditions of violence that exist there," said Erik Ching, a history professor at Furman University in South Carolina. [Read More] For additional insights, read the New York Times editorial, "Don't Deport the Salvadorans,"
[Link]; and "El Salvador's Youth Are Trapped Between Gang Violence and Police Abuse," The Intercept [[Link].
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Is Liberal Zionism Dead?
By Michelle Goldberg, New York Times [January 8, 2018]
---- When the administration initially announced plans to move the embassy, it claimed it was not prejudging the status of Jerusalem in a final peace deal. But Palestinians and Israelis alike understood Trump to be giving the Israeli government carte blanche to continue claiming Palestinian territory. Not long after Trump's announcement, the central committee of the ruling Likud Party passed a resolution calling for the de facto annexation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. … Instead, if the possibility of Palestinian statehood is foreclosed, Israel will be responsible for all the territory under its control. There will be one state; the question is what sort of state it will be. Some on the Israeli right foresee a system in which most Palestinians will remain stateless indefinitely, living under a set of laws different from those governing Israeli citizens. … Supporters of Israel hate it when people use the word "apartheid" to describe the country, but we don't have another term for a political system in which one ethnic group rules over another, confining it to small islands of territory and denying it full political representation. The word "apartheid" will become increasingly inescapable as a small but growing number of Palestinians turn from fighting for independence to demanding equal rights in the system they are living under. … But most of the world — including most of the Jewish diaspora — will have a hard time coming up with a decent justification for opposing a Palestinian campaign for equal rights. … It's impossible to say how long Israel could sustain such a system. But the dream of liberal Zionism would be dead. Maybe, with the far right in power both here and there, it already is. [Read More] For additional insights, read Steven Cook, "Israel moves to annex the West Bank — this is how the two-state solution dies,"
Israel Made Itself A Pariah By Barring Me And My Fellow Activists
January 7, 2018]
[FB - Ariel Gold is the national co-director of CODEPINK. She manages the organization's campaigns for Palestinian rights.]
---- The BDS movement that has so angered and frightened Israel and has now led to my banishment began in 2005 as a call from Palestinian civil society to employ the same methods that successfully ended South Africa's apartheid in order to achieve a just peace in Palestine and Israel. The aims and tactics of the movement are simple and straightforward: Apply nonviolent economic pressure on Israel until Israel ends its occupation of all Palestinian lands conquered in 1967, grants equal rights to Palestinian citizens of Israel, and honors UN resolution 194 that upholds the right of return for Palestinian refugees. As the BDS movement has grown and seen major successes (prominent companies such as SodaStream and Ahava have moved their factories inside of Israel's 1948 boundaries, and global prison and security giant G4S has ended its Israeli contracts), Israel has become more and more afraid and lashed out at those who are most effective in supporting the Palestinian struggle. In March 2017, the Knesset passed a law barring supporters of BDS from entering the country and last month, the parliament approved a $72 million to campaign against the BDS movement. [Read More]
New Orleans resolution is victory, test for Palestinian rights movement
---- On Thursday, the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, passed a resolution to start screening investments and contracts and divest from corporations that profit from human rights abuses. New Orleans becomes the first major city in the US South to pass such a measure. The resolution was drafted by members of the New Orleans Palestinian Solidarity Committee, which has organized protests and called on municipal leaders to declare New Orleans "an apartheid-free city" by banning financial ties to Israel, in accordance with the demands of the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign. "This overwhelming support is the product of only one thing," Max Geller of the New Orleans Palestinian Solidarity Committee told The Electronic Intifada, "and that is consistent direct action and pressure." "No one on the city council went out of their way to help us here – we had to push them every step of the way," Geller said. Activists pointed out that US-based companies such as Caterpillar, which sells bulldozers the Israeli military weaponizes and uses to demolish Palestinian homes, and Hewlett Packard (HP), which is deeply invested in Israel's military and security infrastructure, operate in New Orleans. Campaigners made the connections between the ongoing displacement of people from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Israel's displacement of Palestinians. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
Donald Trump's Vile Words Should Remind Us That America Owes Everything to Haitians
By Jon Schwarz, The Intercept [
---- According to the Washington Post, President Donald Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as "shithole countries" during an Oval Office meeting about immigration on Thursday. The Post also reported that Trump then said that the U.S. should try to attract more immigrants from places such as Norway. Most reactions to this have understandably focused on Trump's berserk racism. But it's worth remembering that his comments are grotesque for another reason: Without the bravery of Haitians, Thomas Jefferson would never have been able to complete the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and the United States as we know it today would not exist. This has been almost completely forgotten in the U.S., so now's as good a time as any to remind ourselves. [Read More]
Wormwood and a Shocking Secret of War: How Errol Morris Vindicated My Father, Wilfred Burchett
---- Wormwood tells the story of Eric Olson's lifelong investigation into his father's death. Did he fall? Did he jump? Was he pushed? Was it an accident? A mind-control experiment gone wrong? Was it murder? Was it an execution? To get to the truth, Wormwood also re-enacts the last ten days of Frank Olson's life. Thus, about 18 minutes into the first episode, Frank Olson is being driven to a lakeside lodge for a meeting with his Fort Detrick and CIA colleagues. He turns on the car radio and the newsreader's voice says:
Just released films lay bare the shocking truth behind communist charges of germ warfare in Korea and the so-called confessions of captured U.S. airmen. Confiscated films show the red press conferences where the captured flyers admitted dropping germ bombs on civilian territory, statements broadcast by the communist propaganda machine throughout the world, and even carried into the halls of the United Nations. These confessions form the basis of a blatant symphony of hatred…
As the voice speaks, this footage briefly appears on the screen. I recognise it. I rewind and pause the film. The man on the far right in the white shirt is my father, Australian journalist, Wilfred Burchett. [Read More]
