Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
April 9, 2018
Hello All – Today we start out with a word from our sponsor. Next weekend, please join CFOW & friends for two good events. On Friday night, at 7 p.m., Medea Benjamin (Code Pink) will be speaking at the First Unitarian Society of Westchester about Iran and her new book, Inside Iran. – And then on Saturday, CFOW stalwarts will join Medea and other peace stalwarts in Greenwich, CT, starting at 11 a.m., for a rally and teach-in on "Peace & Economic Justice." (More information is in the calendar section, below.) And so there will be no CFOW vigil/rally in Hastings next Saturday, as we will all be in Greenwich. - And now we return to our program….
This week seems fated to be one of war and war escalation. Our focus is on Syria, Israel, and Gaza, and what role the Trump administration will play in fanning the flames of war. Ominously, John Bolton starts "work" today. He will be President Trump's National Security Adviser. His job, each morning, will be to explain to President Trump what's happening in the world, and what his military machine should do about it. As the New York Times editorialized, "There are few people more likely than Mr. Bolton is to lead the country into war." In the world of international relations, he is a dangerous madman. If you are the kind of person who wants to learn more about him, here are links to fair-and-balanced essays by Ralph Nader and former CIA analysts Ray McGovern and Philip Giraldi.
On Bolton's first day of work, President Trump will no doubt be seeking advice about what to do about Syria, accused of a chemical attack on civilians who live in a Damascus suburb controlled by anti-Assad rebels. Trump has promised to do something big. Israel has already shown the way by bombing a Syrian airbase supposedly occupied by Iranian soldiers, killing 14. Can the Godfather do less than the Israelis! As so we will see …. Meanwhile, Israel states that it will strike Hamas targets in Gaza if the protests there continue. The protests there will continue, next Friday. As Bolton has been an avid supporter of Israeli military operations for decades, he is likely to encourage his president to take strong action in that part of the Middle East as well. People get ready; and start getting ready by checking out the War & Peace and Gaza Massacre sections of this newsletter, down below.
News Notes
Westchester photographer Andrew Courtney is always on the spot to record political activism. And so it's great that his pictures from the Washington, DC "March for Our Lives" are published in the current issue of The Nation. Congratulations, Andrew!
And on the subject of gun violence, there's some good news! In Massachusetts, where legislation has banned the AR-15 and other assault rifles, a judge has upheld the ban, saying that assault weapons fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment. See the Mass. Attorney General speaking about this A Stunning Victory Against the NRA in Wisconsin"
Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, and other luminaries are among the signers of a petition calling on the government of Ecuador to stop stifling Julian Assange's right of freedom of speech. The petition and the article accompanying it give a useful update on Assange's situation and the injustice that targets him.
More than 3,000 Google employees have signed a letter opposing Google doing work for the US military. The work in question is called Project Maven, a Pentagon program intended to develop drone technology. Read about this inspiring development here and here. And in a totally unconnected (?) development,
cautionary tale about
Finally, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner or operator of nearly 200 television stations in the USA, earned its spot in the Pre-Revolution Museum when it insisted that each of its affiliates read the same statement warning against "fake news." Enjoy the resulting (viral)
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Ongoing – CFOW holds a vigil/rally each Saturday at the VFW Plaza in Hastings (Warburton and Spring) from 12 to 1 p.m. Everyone invited; please join us!
Ongoing – CFOW stalwart Elisa Zazzera manages Hastings' "Community Supported Agriculture" (CSA). The CSA partners with an upstate farm to provide fresh vegetables each Wednesday. Highly recommended. To learn more about this, and/or to sign up for the next growing season, go here.
Thursday, April 12th – Speaking at WESPAC will be Maurice Carney, Executive Director of Friends of the Congo. He will speak about the militarization of the African Continent, the scramble for natural resources, and people's resistance movements. The program starts at 7 p.m. at WESPAC's office, 77 Tarrytown Rd, Suite 2W, in White Plains. For more information, go here.
Friday, April 13th – Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, has just published a book called "Inside Iran." She will be speaking about Iran, and about the dangers of war, at the First Unitarian Society of Westchester, 25 Old Jackson Rd. in Hastings, starting at 7 p.m.
Saturday, April 14th - "Know Drones" (Nick Mottern), Code Pink, WESPAC, and several other organizations will hold a "Rally/Teach-In on Peace & Economic Justice" in Greenwich, CT from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The program will take place at Greenwich Commons, 290 Greenwich Ave. Speaking will be Code Pink's Medea Benjamin; Maurice Carney (Friends of the Congo); Rabyaah Althaibani ("Peace in Yemen and You"), and Carl Dix ("Saving Lives in Black and White"). For more information email marchgreenwich@gmail.com.
Monday, April 23rd – In Albany, a march and rally will demand that Gov. Cuomo do the right thing, fight climate chaos, and bring our state's energy profile into the 21st century. The demands are stop the pipelines and power plants, 100 percent renewable energy, and make the polluters pay. For more information about the event, go here.
Sunday, April 29th. – Hastings Takes Action/NYCD16 Indivisible Environment Committee invites us to a forum on "Indian Point: An Ever-Present Danger." It will take place at the Hastings Community Center from 2 to 4 p.m. Speaking will be Karl Rabago, Executive Director of Pace Energy and Climate Center; Manna Jo Greene, Environmental Action Director of Clearwater; and Richard Webster, Legal Director of Riverkeeper. Peter D. Wolf (of Hastings), the CEO of Center for Sustainable Development, will moderate.
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!
This Newsletter
Articles linked in the CFOW newsletter are intended to illuminate some of the main action-issues about which we are concerned. Coming mostly from the "dissenting media," they provide an alternative to the perspectives of the mainstream media. In addition to the excellent "Featured Essays," there are sections of good essays about the 50th anniversary of the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and about Week Two of the massacre in Gaza. I also especially recommend Mike Klare's essay on the "new Cold War"; a good article on the major legal battles against fossil fuels that are now in court; a positive review about Norman Finkelstein's new book about Gaza; and a critical review by Gareth Porter ("Our History") about a new book on Vietnam that accompanies the Ken Burns documentary film series about the war. Read on!
Rewards!
The rewards for stalwart readers this week come from CFOW favorite singer/funny man Roy Zimmerman. His songs this time are on the serious side. Enjoy "Someday (We Shall Overcome)" and "El Paso," where he is accompanied by his wife Melanie Harby. Roy sends out frequent newsletters with new songs and news of his appearances; check them out here.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
Why the New Cold War Is So Dangerous
By Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor of The Nation [April 5, 2018]
---- In recent weeks, the world has seen an alarming flurry of diplomatic expulsions and counter-expulsions in what has clearly become a new Cold War. In response to the poisoning in England of Sergei Skripal, a Russian intelligence officer turned British spy, and his daughter Yulia, the British government expelled 23 Russian diplomats. In a show of solidarity with their British ally, 23 European Union and NATO countries announced that they would send more than 130 Russian diplomats home. Moscow responded by expelling over 50 British diplomats. In a further step, the Trump administration announced that it would close the Russian consulate in Seattle; Russia responded by announcing that it would close the US consulate in St. Petersburg. These tit-for-tat expulsions come at a time when Washington and Moscow are locked in multiple crises, from Europe to the Middle East. Indeed, the new Cold War is shaping up to be every bit as dangerous as the old one, if not more so, especially when you consider that the US and Russian militaries are standing eye-to-eye in eastern Syria; that NATO and Russian fighter jets have come close to clashing on numerous occasions in the Baltic region; that the simmering war in Ukraine—where the Trump administration has decided to send lethal weapons—threatens the security of the entire region; and that Russian President Vladimir Putin just announced the development of a new generation of nuclear cruise missiles, said to be capable of eluding the US missile-defense systems in which Washington has invested so much. And now the extremist John Bolton—long known as a hawk on Russia—will be joining the Trump administration as national-security adviser. Nevertheless, many political figures and media outlets are calling for the administration to take even harsher action. [Read More]
'I Was Just Following Orders': What Will You Tell Your Children?
By Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [April 8, 2018]
---- 'How did you destroy villages?' one daughter will ask. 'How did you agree to imprison two million people?' another will whisper. The answers will only make their weeping louder… Maybe the day will come and young Israelis – not one or two, but an entire generation – will ask their parents: How could you? If the question is asked, our situation will already be better because it will signal the post-herd stage of the Israeli existence. The problem is we cannot know when this will happen. In another 70 years? In another 50? How low can we sink in our choosing to go along with the herd, wicked and enjoyable in its own right? What nadir must we reach before the young people are shocked about what their parents and grandparents did and stop imitating them, an emulation that is also an upgrade of sorts. … The question "how could you?" will split into a few sub-questions. For example: Why did you consent? You really didn't know? … Why didn't you care? Why did you remain silent? How could you have gone out hiking on the weekends, watch television and movies, go shopping in the new mall and work on your master's degree in history of the gulags or run a business from your home, choose concerts and plays in London and go to the soccer game every week – and also renovate the house as if everything was normal? [Read More]
On the Street in Brooklyn the Morning After the Police Shooting of Saheed Vassell
By Doreen St. Félix, The New Yorker [April 5, 2018]
---- Vassell was born in Jamaica, and immigrated to the U.S. when he was a child. Many people on the street had facts about his life. His nickname was Sy. He lived with his family just up the block from where he was killed. He had a teen-age son named Tyshawn. He did odd jobs and errands for neighbors and, sometimes, worked as a welder. He was a neighborhood character, handsome and helpful. At some point he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Residents told me that they believed that the police knew about the diagnosis, and, according to the Times, "officers had classified him as an emotionally disturbed person in previous encounters." It was as if everyone on the street had personally witnessed Vassell's death. Stephon Clark and the Shooting of Black Men, Armed and Unarmed" [April 5, 2018] [Link].
How do you tell the kids that Grandma is in jail for resisting nuclear weapons?
By Frida Berrigan, Waging Nonviolence [April 6, 2018]
---- "Our grandma is in jail," Madeline tells a woman wrestling a shopping cart at Target. "She went over a war fence and tried to make peace," Seamus adds helpfully. "They arrested her, and she is in jail now."
"Where?" the woman asks, looking from them to me in disbelief and maybe pity. "We don't remember," the kids say, suddenly done with their story and ready to make passionate pleas for the colorful items in the dollar section over the woman's shoulder. "Georgia," I say, but I don't have a lot of energy to add detail to my kids' story. They hit all the high points. "There's a lot going on these days," she says. I agree, and we move on into the store and our separate errands. My mom, Liz McAlister, who turned 78 in November, had been arrested deep inside the King's Bay Naval Base in St. Mary's, Georgia in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Along with six friends, she carried banners, statements, hammers and blood onto the base. They started their action on April 4: the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination. [Read More]
Martin Luther King, Jr. Was Killed 50 Years Ago
Martin Luther King Jr was a radical. We must not sterilize his legacy
, The Guardian [April 4, 2018]
---- The major threat of Martin Luther King Jr to us is a spiritual and moral one. King's courageous and compassionate example shatters the dominant neoliberal soul-craft of smartness, money and bombs. His grand fight against poverty, militarism, materialism and racism undercuts the superficial lip service and pretentious posturing of so-called progressives as well as the candid contempt and proud prejudices of genuine reactionaries. King was neither perfect nor pure in his prophetic witness – but he was the real thing in sharp contrast to the market-driven semblances and simulacra of our day. In this brief celebratory moment of King's life and death we should be highly suspicious of those who sing his praises yet refuse to pay the cost of embodying King's strong indictment of the US empire, capitalism and racism in their own lives. … The killing of Martin Luther King Jr was the ultimate result of the fusion of ugly white supremacist elites in the US government and citizenry and cowardly liberal careerists who feared King's radical moves against empire, capitalism and white supremacy. If King were alive today, his words and witness against drone strikes, invasions, occupations, police murders, caste in Asia, Roma oppression in Europe, as well as capitalist wealth inequality and poverty, would threaten most of those who now sing his praises. [Read More]
Who killed Martin Luther King Jr.? His family believes James Earl Ray was framed.
---- In the five decades since Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead by an assassin at age 39, his children have worked tirelessly to preserve his legacy, sometimes with sharply different views on how best to do that. But they are unanimous on one key point: James Earl Ray did not kill Martin Luther King. For the King family and others in the civil rights movement, the FBI's obsession with King in the years leading up to his slaying in Memphis on April 4, 1968 — pervasive surveillance, a malicious disinformation campaign and open denunciations by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover — laid the groundwork for their belief that he was the target of a plot. "It pains my heart," said Bernice King, 55, the youngest of Martin Luther King's four children and the executive director of the King Center in Atlanta, "that James Earl Ray had to spend his life in prison paying for things he didn't do." Until her own death in 2006, Coretta Scott King, who endured the FBI's campaign to discredit her husband, was open in her belief that a conspiracy led to the assassination. Her family filed a civil suit in 1999 to force more information into the public eye, and a Memphis jury ruled that the local, state and federal governments were liable for King's death. The full transcript of the trial remains posted on the King Center's website. [Read More]
Also of interest – Nikita Stewart, "50 Years After Dr. King's Death, Remembering the Women Who Steered the Movement," (Video) "He Gave His Life in the Labor Struggle: MLK's Forgotten Radical Message for Economic Justice" [April 3, 2018] [Link].
MASSACRE IN GAZA – WEEK TWO
Calling on world conscience
The Electronic Intifada [April 7, 2018]
---- Much has already been written and said about the bloody events of the first Great March of Return protest on 30 March. Some of it will be forgotten in the bloodshed of the second march, on 6 April, which predictably saw Israel respond in the same brutal manner to popular unarmed demonstrations that it simply won't countenance. Indeed, the date of the first protest coincided with the commemoration of Land Day, when Palestinians protesting land confiscation inside Israel in 1976 were also subjected to lethal crowd control tactics and six unarmed demonstrators were shot and killed. On 30 March 2018 the result was even more bloody. Fourteen protesters died on the day, and others succumbed to their injuries over the following week, bringing the total fatalities to 17. … The Great March of Return demonstrations – which are set to run until 15 May, when Palestinians commemorate the anniversary of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine – have been called to restate demands for the right of return of refugees. The right of return is an issue that, if it is broached at all, only receives the most cursory of attention from non-Palestinians and in the foreign and Israeli media and then only to be brushed aside. And yet, it is an issue that lies at the very heart of the Palestine question. [Read More]
The bare facts about the Gaza demonstrators are correct, but the rest of the story is missing
By Saree Makdisi, Los Angeles Times [April 6, 2018]
---- Media coverage of Israel's massacre of Palestinian protesters during the first weekend of multiweek demonstrations in Gaza offered textbook examples of how syntax and word choice shape, and even distort, representations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even if the facts are accurately stated, the ways in which sentences are constructed, and the extent to which details are contextualized, can subtly lead readers astray. Consider for instance the enormous consequence of choosing passive rather than active language to convey what happened. "At least 15 Palestinians die as Israel responds to protest," wrote the Guardian in one early headline. "15 dead in Gaza demonstrations" read the front page of this newspaper, and the New York Times led with a similar formulation: "Confrontations at Gaza Fence Leave 15 Dead."
Such phrasing separates facts from the agency that makes them intelligible. /// So too with the use of the words "clashes" and "confrontations" in describing what happened. The next-day story in the Los Angeles Times began this way: "A day of clashes between Israeli soldiers and protesters left 16 Palestinians dead." Again the passive voice obscured agency, and the word "clash" suggested a rough parity between the action on both sides, an exchange of equal blows. Yet there is no parity between a milling, overwhelming nonviolent crowd of 30,000 demonstrators and heavily armed soldiers manning fortified positions, let alone army snipers picking off their targets from a comfortable distance. Moreover, an army of occupation and an occupied people do not "clash." One tries to crush; the other tries to resist, or at least to remain steadfast. [Read More]
Also important/useful on Gaza - Gideon Levy and Alex Levac, "Nothing makes sense here: A journey along the fences and barbed wire suffocating the Gaza Strip," Haaretz [Israel] [April 4, 2018] [Link]; Patrick Cockburn, "Protests in Gaza are leading to many deaths and injuries among Palestinians, yet Israel has faced little criticism," The Independent [UK] [April 6, 2018] [Link]; and Ahmad Abu Rtemah,"With the Great Return March, Palestinians Are Demanding a Life of Dignity," The Nation [April 6, 2018] [Link].
WAR & PEACE
Could The Cold War Return With A Vengeance?
By Michael T. Klare, Tom Dispatch [April 2018]
---- Think of it as the most momentous military planning on Earth right now. Who's even paying attention, given the eternal changing of the guard at the White House, as well as the latest in tweets, sexual revelations, and investigations of every sort? And yet it increasingly looks as if, thanks to current Pentagon planning, a twenty-first-century version of the Cold War (with dangerous new twists) has begun and hardly anyone has even noticed. … This renewed emphasis on China and Russia in U.S. military planning reflects the way top military officials are now reassessing the global strategic equation, a process that began long before Donald Trump entered the White House. Although after 9/11, senior commanders fully embraced the "long war against terror" approach to the world, their enthusiasm for endless counterterror operations leading essentially nowhere in remote and sometimes strategically unimportant places began to wane in recent years as they watched China and Russia modernizing their military forces and using them to intimidate neighbors. [Read More]
For more on war's "Big Picture" – William D. Hartung, "Weapons for Anyone: Donald Trump and the Art of the Arms Deal," Tom Dispatch [April 2018] [Link]; and Samuel Oakford, "Counting the Dead in Mosul," The Atlantic [April 5, 2018]
Iran's Range of Options
By Nader Entessar and Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, LobeLog [April 6, 2018]
---- As the clock ticks closer to Trump's Iran decision in mid-May, dark clouds are thickening over the Iran deal as a result of the recent White House reshuffling of replacing relative Iran doves with fiercely anti-Iran hawks. Confronted with the likely prospect of Trump's finally delivering on his campaign promise of tearing the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran's diplomacy has accelerated to a higher gear. Tehran is hoping to minimize the damage and still somehow salvage the JCPOA with the help of the rest of the nations who authored it—Russia, China, France, England, and Germany. Chances are, however, that the process of demise of the JCPOA is irreversible. Tehran continues to pin a great deal of hope on Europe, which remains divided on how to properly respond to Trump's on-going march against the JCPOA. But few in Iran's decision-making echelons are optimistic that Europe will stand up to Washington and choose to collide with the Trump administration over Iran. … Iran's image, power, and prestige are currently on the line, and it goes beyond the nuclear issue. For anyone in Iran to contemplate a less-than-forceful response to a unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA is indeed tantamount to political suicide. [Read More] Also interesting/thoughtful – Sean McElwee and Jon Green, "How Racism Could Drive Support for War With Iran," The Nation [April 6, 2018] [Link].
(Video) Trump Inks Arms Deal with Saudis as Humanitarian Crisis Rages in Yemen
From Democracy Now! [April 6, 2018]
---- On Thursday, the Trump administration told Congress it has approved a $1.3 billion artillery sale to Saudi Arabia. This is the second weapons deal between the U.S. and Riyadh in as many months and has sparked concern from human rights groups, who warn the deals may make the United States complicit in war crimes committed in the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. Lawmakers have 30 days to act before the sale is final. The announcement comes as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wraps up his whirlwind tour of the United States. One topic that has received relatively little media attention during his trip is his role in escalating Saudi Arabia's military involvement in Yemen. Last month marked three years since the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition began its military offensive in Yemen, leading to one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The U.S.-backed, Saudi-led airstrikes and naval blockade have destroyed Yemen's health, water and sanitation systems, sparking a massive cholera outbreak and pushing millions of Yemenis to the brink of starvation. More than 15,000 people have died since the Saudi invasion in 2015. We speak with Iona Craig, a journalist who was based in Sana'a between 2010 and 2015 as the Yemen correspondent for The Times of London.
US troops will remain in Syria
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent [UK] [April 6, 2018]
---- Donald Trump has decided to keep US forces in Syria for a limited period, ending speculation about an immediate pull-out fuelled by the president himself. He agreed at a National Security Council meeting that the 2,000 US troops backed by massive airpower should stay in Syria where they support the Kurds in the east of the country. "We're not going to immediately withdraw, but neither is the president willing to back a long-term commitment," said a senior administration official. He added that Mr Trump wanted to ensure the final defeat of Isis and would like other countries to help stabilise Syria. The White House said later that its military mission to eradicate Isis in Syria "is coming to a rapid end". In recent weeks Mr Trump has been at odds with the Pentagon in promising a swift US withdrawal, just as senior generals were reiterating their commitment to stand by the Syrian Kurdish forces, the People's Protection Units (YPG). These hold between 25 and 30 per cent of Syria and are the only US ally in the country. Isis has lost almost all its territory but is reverting to guerrilla warfare in parts of eastern Syria. [Read More]
---- Donald Trump has decided to keep US forces in Syria for a limited period, ending speculation about an immediate pull-out fuelled by the president himself. He agreed at a National Security Council meeting that the 2,000 US troops backed by massive airpower should stay in Syria where they support the Kurds in the east of the country. "We're not going to immediately withdraw, but neither is the president willing to back a long-term commitment," said a senior administration official. He added that Mr Trump wanted to ensure the final defeat of Isis and would like other countries to help stabilise Syria. The White House said later that its military mission to eradicate Isis in Syria "is coming to a rapid end". In recent weeks Mr Trump has been at odds with the Pentagon in promising a swift US withdrawal, just as senior generals were reiterating their commitment to stand by the Syrian Kurdish forces, the People's Protection Units (YPG). These hold between 25 and 30 per cent of Syria and are the only US ally in the country. Isis has lost almost all its territory but is reverting to guerrilla warfare in parts of eastern Syria. [Read More]
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHAOS
Fossil Fuels on Trial: Where the Major Climate Change Lawsuits Stand Today
By David Hasemyer, Inside Climate News [April 4, 2018]
---- A wave of legal challenges that is washing over the oil and gas industry, demanding accountability for climate change, started as a ripple after revelations that ExxonMobil had long recognized the threat fossil fuels pose to the world. Over the past few years: Two states have launched fraud investigations into Exxon over climate change. Nine cities and counties, from New York to San Francisco, have sued major fossil fuel companies, seeking compensation for climate change damages. And determined children have filed lawsuits against the federal government and various state governments, claiming the governments have an obligation to safeguard the environment. The litigation, reinforced by science, has the potential to reshape the way the world thinks about energy production and the consequences of global warming. It advocates a shift from fossil fuels to sustainable energy and draws attention to the vulnerability of coastal communities and infrastructure to extreme weather and sea level rise.
Solar is taking over the World and China is taking over Solar
By Frédéric Simon, EURACTIV.com [April 7, 2018]
---- Solar power dominated a global ranking of new renewable energy investments "like never before" last year, with China accounting for more than half of the world's new capacity, the UN said on Thursday (5 April). Investments in Europe, on the other hand, recorded a massive drop. The world installed a record 98 gigawatts of new solar capacity in 2017, far more than the net additions of any other technology – renewable, fossil fuel or nuclear – according to new data. … At $160.8 billion, solar power attracted far more investment than any other technology. China saw "an unprecedented boom" in solar that saw some 53 gigawatts added – more than half the global total – with $86.5 billion invested. [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
Muslims Accused of Plotting Violence Get Seven Times More Media Attention and Four Times Longer Sentences
By Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept [
---- American courts treat Muslims differently, a new study says. Among perpetrators of ideologically motivated violent plots, those who were perceived to be Muslim received sentences that were four times longer than non-Muslims involved in similar cases. The disproportionality carried over into the court of public opinion, too: Cases of attempted violence by Muslims received 7 1/2 times more coverage from major media outlets, while successful plots were covered twice as much. These findings are contained in a new report, titled "Equal Treatment? Measuring the Legal and Media Responses to Ideologically Motivated Violence in the United States," released on Thursday by the Washington-based Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, or ISPU. Built on years of research on cases of planned or successfully executed acts of ideological violence in the U.S., the report highlights glaring discrepancies in the way the judicial system and media treat such acts, depending on the background of the suspected perpetrator. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Finkelstein on Gaza: Who or What Has a Right to Exist?
---- Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom (Verso, 2018), is an extraordinary book. It is also a difficult book to read. In his preface, Norman Finkelstein writes that this work "has been a painstaking, fastidious undertaking born of a visceral detestation of falsehood, in particular when it is put in the service of power and human life hangs in the balance." He writes that "Gaza is about a Big Lie composed of a thousand, often seemingly abstruse and arcane, little lies. The objective of this book is to refute that Big Lie by exposing each of the little lies." His meticulous inquest into Israel's atrocities and the moral depravity within humanitarian institutions demands answers about who or what has a right to exist. The book primarily investigates the official reports about Operation Cast Lead (2008-09), the Mavi Marmara (2010), and Operation Protective Edge (2014). [Read More]
Inside the Seditious Seder With Jeremy Corbyn and the Jewdas Group
By Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [April 5, 2018]
---- On Tuesday morning, at 7:30 A.M. Gaza time or 5:30 A.M. in London, I awoke to a headline on the popular Israeli news site Ynet: "Britain: Corbyn attends event of group that called for Israel's destruction." Given that I had left that very event seven and a half hours earlier, I can say wholeheartedly that the headline should have read: "Corbyn brings the bitter herbs to alternative seder in London." Jeremy Corbyn grows horseradish in his garden allotment. Slivers of the pungent root he brought were added to the maror, the bitter herbs, waiting in white plastic cups on round tables in the hall below St. Peter's Church de Beauvoir, Hackney. These bitter herbs, a glass of whiskey before (begging pardon from my Muslim friends and Jewish friends who keep kosher) and songs in my father's tongue, Yiddish, destroyed the flu germs that had ruined part of my vacation. [Read More]
Also useful/interesting on Israel/Palestine – From Middle East Monitor, "Israeli occupation denying Palestinians 'right to development' says new UN study" [April 6, 2018] [Link]; and Ted Snider, "What Did Israel Bomb in the Syrian Desert in 2007?" [Link]. The Jewish Voice for Peace has a Health Advisory Council, which reports on health issues related to Occupied Palestine. Here is a link to the April 2018 "Media Watch."
OUR HISTORY
What Ken Burns Left Out of the Vietnam Story
[FB – This is a review of The Vietnam War: An Intimate History by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns.]
---- The book and series are clearly aimed at dominating the popular consciousness about the history of the war. Weighing in at nearly 600 glossy oversized pages, the book is vast in scope, starting with the French colonization of Indochina and the Communist-led struggle against the French and taking the reader though each phase of the War. Like the series, the written version is rich in arresting details, especially about the War's major battles. But when it comes to the question that should still trouble Americans – how and why the United States went to war in Vietnam in the first place – the book reflects the failings of the series. Instead of citing the documentary record that by now sheds harsh light on this fundamental issue, author Geoffrey C. Ward trots out the standard myths. … The author's desire to avoid ultimate judgments on the War won't heal the rift between the two views of Vietnam held by the Vietnam War generations. And especially in light of unending and unpopular US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the greater Middle East, both Ward's book and the Ken Burns series that it reflects have missed an opportunity to help Americans understand why such wars are a recurring theme in recent American history. [Read More]
