Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
October 22, 2018
Hello All – A theater of the absurd is now playing out between Saudi Arabia and the Trump administration. How and why was Jamal Khashoggi killed? The bungling and lying by the leadership of both countries, and the outraged response by much of the political and media elite, has opened up some possibilities for ending the war in Yemen. This war, often described as the world's greatest humanitarian disaster, has been enabled by support from the Obama and Trump administrations. Movements now underway in both the House and the Senate promise to put the Yemen war on the congressional agenda as soon as Congress reconvenes. Opponents of war and supporters of humanitarian relief must seize this moment with all the energy we can muster. If we fail, the war, now threatening the lives of millions of people in Yemen, may continue for years.
Our small part in this effort will resume next Saturday, with a vigil/rally in Hastings, at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.), from 12 to 1 p.m. Please join us.
The vehicle for attempting to stop the war in Yemen is the War Powers Act. This Act, passed in 1973, requires the President to get approval from Congress for military action engaging US troops that lasts for more than 90 days. Since 2001, both Republican and Democratic presidents have used the Authorization to Use Military Force, passed in Congress a few days after the 9/11 attack, as legal cover for whatever war they wanted to wage. The US support for the war in Yemen is different, however, in that it has next to nothing to do with Al-Qaeda, and is thus not covered by the Authorization. You can read more about the plans of congressional opponents of the war here, in an article by California congressman Ro Khanna, one of the movers of the War Powers Act in the House of Representatives.
Our Westchester/New York congressional delegation has an important role to play in this effort to end the Yemen war. Both Nita Lowey and Eliot Engel, usually hawkish on military affairs, have signed on to House Congressional Resolution 138. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is a co-sponsor of Senate Joint Resolution 54. Senator Schumer, as usual, is missing in action. Please contact all of our congressional delegation, asking them to support the War Powers Act resolutions and to take all other necessary action to end US support for the war. Here is their contact info: Senator Gillibrand – (202) 224-4451; Senator Schumer – (202) 224-6542; Rep. Engel – (202) 225-2464; Rep. Lowey – (202) 225-6506. Saudi Arabia can't fight this war without US support; now's our chance to end it.
The Central American Caravan
Some 7,000 would-be immigrants and asylum seekers are on the march from Honduras to our southern border. The reasons why thousands of Central Americans can no longer live safely in their home countries has been laid out in many previous newsletter and is addressed in some excellent articles linked below. In addition to the humanitarian crisis that this exodus and march represents, we must deal with the fact that the Trump administration will use the march to whip up fear of an immigrant invasion. Indeed, it is likely to play a leading role in Republican efforts to save their congressional majorities, between now and November 6th. Accurate information about what's happening is a first step toward countering the Trump propaganda; and for this I refer you to an excellent Q&A report about the Central American caravan, produced by the Washington Office on Latin America, which just arrived in my mailbox, [h/t JG]
News Notes
For several years a dozen or so children have pursued a class-action suit against the federal government for its failure to maintain a livable climate. Needless to say, the Trump administration is fighting back; a government spokesman recently stated that there is no Constitutional right to a livable climate. On Friday, John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, resorted to an unusual legal maneuver to block the next stage of the litigation, scheduled to begin next week in a US District Court in Oregon. Read more here.
Saudi crown prince Mohammd Bin Salman is only the latest in a long line of so-called "reformers" lauded by the US mainstream media. For an entertaining chronicle of this charade, read "Seventy Years of the New York Times Describing Saudi Royals as Reformers," from the on-line journal Jadaliyya. The journal has also posted a good collection of useful articles about Saudi Arabia, which you can read here.
Time magazine has a lengthy article describing and praising the Indivisible movement. Read "How the Anti-Trump Resistance Is Organizing Its Outrage" here.
When the FCC asked the public for "comments" on its proposal to end net neutrality, 99.7 percent of the 800,000 comments it received were in favor of maintaining net neutrality. [Link] It then turned out that many of the positive comments were fraudulent, generated by bots. The matter is being investigated by the NY Attorney General and by 22 other states. [Link]. Needless to say, the FCC went ahead and abolished net neutrality.
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!
Tuesday, October 23rd – What will probably be the final court case in the Stop the Algonquin Pipeline campaign will be heard at the Cortlandt town court, 1 Heady St. in Cortland, starting at 9 a.m. This case involves defendants who crawled into a pipeline to halt construction. They defendants face serious charges, but the case is also important because the judge has stated she will allow the "necessity defense," allowing the defendants to argue that what they did was not illegal, because they were attempting to stop a greater harm.
Sunday, October 28th – CFOW favorite Greenheart will hold a musical fundraiser for its Nepal project. Featuring James Dean Conklin and Fred Gillen, Jr., it's happening at 925 South St. in Peekskill. In addition to good music, they'll have photography, video, and painting. To learn more about the Greenheart project in Nepal, go here.
Sunday, November 4th – CFOW's monthly meeting will be held at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs. We meet from 7 to 9 p.m. At these meetings we review our work over the past months and make plans for what's coming next. Everyone is welcome at these meetings!
Sunday, November 11th – CFOW favorites Hudson Valley Sally, along with CFOW stalwart Jenny Murphy, will be performing at the Society for Ethical Culture, 4450 Fieldston Rd. in Riverdale, from 3 to 5 p.m. Suggested donation is $15. To check out Hudson Valley Sally, go here.
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, I especially recommend the set of articles on Khashoggi & Saudi Arabia; another set of articles on immigration issues and conflicts; several very good articles under "War & Peace"; Rebecca Solnit's essay on our climate crisis and fighting despair; a set of articles about the dangers of voter suppression; and Joe Gerson's article on a path towards peace in Gaza. Essays in "Our History" focus on the protests by John Carlos and Tommy Smith at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, and the origins of "Wages for Housework," via an interview with movement founder Sylvia Federici. Read on!
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 immigration policies 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.
Rewards!
This week's rewards come from the late Leonard Cohen. Here are some of my favorites: "Everybody Knows" (h/t FA); "First We Take Manhattan"; "The Partisan"; and "Boogie Street." And of course there are many more. Enjoy!
Best Wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
This is the Front Line of Saudi Arabia's Invisible War [Yemen]
---- The Saudi-led war in Yemen has ground on for more than three years, killing thousands of civilians and creating what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. But it took the crisis over the apparent murder of the dissident Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate two weeks ago for the world to take notice…. Outside of Yemen, the war has been largely overlooked. The Saudis barred foreign journalists from northern Yemen, scene of the biggest airstrike atrocities and the deepest hunger. The conflict is mostly unknown to Americans, whose military has backed the Saudi-led coalition's campaign with intelligence, bombs and refueling, leading to accusations of complicity in possible war crimes. Since June, the war has centered on the Red Sea port of Hudaydah. After a tense journey along a coastal highway prone to bombs and ambushes, we made a rare visit this month to the chaotic battlefield at the city gates. There we saw what Prince Mohammed's war looks like up close, from one side, among those Yemenis who are fighting and dying in it. [Read More]
Students as Teachers: Facing the World Adults Are Wrecking
By Belle Chesler, Tom Dispatch [October 2018]
By Belle Chesler, Tom Dispatch [October 2018]
---- The best decision I ever made in a classroom was to start listening to my students.As I slowly shifted the power structure in that room, my thinking about the way we look at youth and how we treat adolescents began to change, too. We ask teenagers to act like adults, but when they do, the response is often surprise followed by derision. … The teenagers who marched after Parkland don't necessarily hate the world; they just hate the particular world we've built for them. They've watched as the rules of the status quo have been laid out for them, a status quo that seems to become grimmer, more restrictive, and more ludicrous by the week. Fight for an end to police violence against unarmed black civilians and you're a terrorist. Kneel during the National Anthem and you're un-American. Walk out of your school to force people to confront gun violence and you're not grateful for your education. In short, whatever the problems in our world and theirs, there is no correct way to protest them and no way to be heard. Not surprisingly, then, they've proceeded in the only way they know how: by forging new paths and ignoring what they've been told is immutable and impossible. [Read More]
Hating Muslims in the Age of Trump: The New Islamophobia Looks Like the Old McCarthyism
By Juan Cole, Tom Dispatch [October 2018]
By Juan Cole, Tom Dispatch [October 2018]
---- These days, our global political alliances seem to shift with remarkable rapidity, as if we were actually living in George Orwell's 1984. Are we at war this month with Oceania? Or is it Eastasia? In that novel, the Party is able to erase history, sending old newspaper articles down the Ministry of Truth's "memory hole" and so ensuring that, in the public mind, the enemy of the moment was always the enemy. Today, there is one constant, though. The Trump administration has made Muslims our enemy of the first order and, in its Islamophobia, is reinforced by an ugly resurgence of fascism in Germany, Italy, Hungary, and other European countries. … The Islamophobes like to argue that Islam is an inherently violent religion, that its adherents are quite literally commanded to such violence by its holy scriptures, the Qur'an. It's a position that, as I explain in my new book, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires, is both utterly false and ahistorical. As it happens, you would have to look to far more recent realities to find the impetus for the violence, failed states, and spreading terror groups in today's Greater Middle East. [Read More]
KHASHOGGI, SAUDI ARABIA, THE U.S.A., AND THE YEMEN WAR
What the Arab world needs most is free expression
[FB – This is Khashoggi's last column for the Washington Post, received and published after he had been reported missing, but before it was known that he had been murdered.]
---- I was recently online looking at the 2018 "Freedom in the World" report published by Freedom House and came to a grave realization. There is only one country in the Arab world that has been classified as "free." That nation is Tunisia. Jordan, Morocco and Kuwait come second, with a classification of "partly free." The rest of the countries in the Arab world are classified as "not free." As a result, Arabs living in these countries are either uninformed or misinformed. They are unable to adequately address, much less publicly discuss, matters that affect the region and their day-to-day lives. A state-run narrative dominates the public psyche, and while many do not believe it, a large majority of the population falls victim to this false narrative. Sadly, this situation is unlikely to change.[Read More]
But who was Khashoggi, really? – "Jamal Khashoggi's Final Words—for Other Journalists Like Him," by Robin Wright, The New Yorker [October 18, 2018] [Link]; and "Khashoggi Was No Critic of Saudi Regime," by As`ad AbuKhalil, Consortium News [October 15, 2018] [Link].
Khashoggi Is Not The Only One Reason The US Should Cut Its Saudi Ties
By Medea Benjamin and Mary Miller, Code Pink [October 17, 2018]
---- Saudi Arabia has made headlines recently for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. What happened to Khashoggi is certainly tragic, but it's far from the only crime committed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Despite its history of thuggery, the US has been cozy with the kingdom for decades. Here are10 reasons to sever this nefarious alliance with the Saudi kingdom. [Read More]
Khashoggi's Murder and Saudi War Crimes in Yemen Were Facilitated by US
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout [October 19, 2018]
---- The alleged torture, dismemberment and killing of Saudi citizen and US permanent resident Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul has triggered justifiable outrage throughout the United States and around the world. But amid the outcry over Khashoggi's death, many media and public figures still fail to acknowledge the war crimes Saudi Arabia is committing in Yemen with US assistance. … Six days after Khashoggi's disappearance, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman made the astounding claim, "If Jamal has been abducted and murdered by agents of the Saudi government … [i]t would be an unfathomable violation of norms of human decency, worse not in numbers but in principle than even the Yemen war." Friedman's attempt to minimize the enormity of the carnage, including over 6,000 civilian casualties and the world's worst humanitarian crisis, resulting from three years of war in Yemen is not uncommon. In fact, Saudi Arabia is committing war crimes in Yemen and the US government is aiding and abetting them. [Read More] Also very useful is Alex Emmons, "Outraged Lawmakers Want to End the U.S.'s Cozy Relationship With Saudi Arabia," The Intercept [[Link].
Will Khashoggi's Murder End US Support for the War in Yemen? – "Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance has accomplished what 50,000 Yemeni deaths could not," by Shireen Al-Adeimi, NBC News [October 16, 2018] [Link]; "How One Journalist's Death Provoked a Backlash That Thousands Dead in Yemen Did Not," by Max Fisher, New York Times [October 17, 2018] [Link]; "Why do Yemen's dead not merit the attention of Jamal Khashoggi?" by Pete Dolack, Systemic Disorder [October 21, 2018] [Link]; and "Trump says selling weapons to Saudi Arabia will create a lot of jobs. That's not true," by [Link].
THE IMMIGRATION CRISIS
Migration Is a Form of Fighting Back
By David Bacon, Dollars & Sense [September/October 2018]
---- For eight years at the West County Detention Center in Richmond, Calif., monthly vigils were organized by faith communities and immigrant rights organizations to support those inside. These protests, and the testimony of detainees' families, were so powerful that the county sheriff in July announced he was canceling the contract he signed long ago with the federal government to house the prisoners. While that was a victory, it did not lead to freedom for most of them, however, who were transferred to other detention centers. Instead, it has forced us to examine deeper questions. In those vigils we heard the living experiences of people who have had no alternative to leaving their homes and countries to escape violence, war, and poverty, who now find themselves imprisoned in the detention center. We have to ask, who is responsible? Where did the violence and poverty come from that forced people to leave home, to cross the border with Mexico, and then to be picked up and incarcerated here? Whatever the immediate circumstances, there is one main cause for the misery that has led migrants to the United States: the actions of the government of this country, and the wealthy elites that the government has defended. … How did these children come to be here? And what does taking responsibility mean? It's not enough to believe that all children should be valued and cared for with the greatest tenderness and love. We need to know why they're here, in such an obviously dangerous and painful situation, enduring separation from their families and the adults in their lives. [Read More]
Abolish ICE: Beyond a Slogan
By Tina Vasquez, New York Review of Books [October 10, 2018]
---- What transformed this activist debate into a surging hashtag was the Trump administration's family separation policy at the border, which quietly began months before Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed in April 2018 the "zero tolerance" policy of prosecuting every undocumented person arriving across the south-western border. By mid-June, Homeland Security was forced to admit that more than 2,000 children had been separated from their parents as a result. … Few Americans understood that the "deportation machine" Obama built would eventually be handed off to the next administration. The Trump administration has further empowered ICE, increasing its size, expanding its budget (even, recently, at the expense of FEMA), and licensing an even more aggressive approach to enforcement. Even so, many of those who have been mobilized by the Abolish ICE campaign probably do not realize that family separation is not a Trumpian aberration, but an inevitable byproduct of the system. Family separation has only recently become visible to much of the American public because the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy had the dramatic effect of criminalizing every entrant, including asylum-seekers. For millions of undocumented immigrants, however, family separation is an integral and permanent part of how the US immigration apparatus works—even if that has largely gone unnoticed by most Americans. [Read More]
For more on the immigration disaster – "Caravan of 3,000 Central American migrants crosses into Mexico," by David Agren, The Guardian [UK] [October 19, 2018] [Link]; "The migrant caravan forced Trump to admit he'd sacrifice economic prosperity to politically exploit racism," by Julio Ricardo Varela, NBC News [October 19, 2018] [Link]; and "3,121 desperate journeys Exposing a week of chaos under Trump's zero tolerance," by Olivia Solon et al., The Guardian [UK] [October 14, 2018] [Link]
WAR & PEACE
Military-Friendly: Zooming Into the State-Level War Machine
By Eleanor Goldfield, Art Killing Apathy [October 21, 2018] [h/t DM]
---- All told, the estimated military spending covering the period from October 1st, 2018 through September 30th 2019 is $892 billion. … Of course, our war machine doesn't just exist on a federal level. There are military installations in every state with thousands of personnel playing with billions of dollars worth of local and state contracts. Indeed, there really isn't a state that isn't military-friendly. But seeing as it's a contest and term I was unfamiliar with, I dug deeper. … By focusing our ire on the local tentacles of the military industrial complex, we set ourselves up against a realistic adversary – one that has specific pressure points that we can see and feel in our communities. The Defense Spending by State report is a great place to start. The top companies listed in your state are likely also the ones getting kickbacks. Code Pink's Divest From The War Machine initiative is another good resource for both education and activation. Indeed, even the military-friendly sites can give you an idea of what companies and schools are pedestaling the war machine paradigm. I can't say whether North Carolina deserves the title of most military-friendly state in the nation. But I do know that that shouldn't be a point of pride. [Read More]
Washington's Latest Cold War Maneuver: Pulling Out of the INF
---- The Trump administration has decided to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), the most comprehensive disarmament treaty ever negotiated between Washington and Moscow. This is the latest in a series of U.S. steps over the past 20 years that have put the Russians on the defensive, and led Russian President Vladimir Putin to be more assertive in protecting Moscow's interests in East Europe. The INF treaty actually eliminated an entire class of intermediate-range missiles from the U.S. and Soviet arsenals in 1987. … The Pentagon has opposed all presidential decisions to pursue disarmament, although—in the case of INF—the Soviets destroyed more than twice as many missiles as the United States, and the European theatre became safer for U.S. forces stationed there. The treaty and the improved bilateral relations actually led to a slowdown in military spending in both the United States and Russia. [Read More] Also useful is this interview with Daryl Kimball, head of the Arms Control Association, on today's Democracy Now! [Link].
The War in Yemen
It's Crunch Time for Activism Against US Involvement in Yemen
By Chris Gelardi, The Nation [October 15, 2018]
---- Despite the obscene carnage in Yemen, the renewed urgency of the humanitarian situation, and the undeniable ability of US officials to attenuate it all, why does the US military continue to support the Saudi-led coalition? From the executive branch, both presidential administrations in power over the past three years have prioritized good relations with Gulf monarchies over assuaging the acute malnourishment of 2 million Yemeni children. During the first two years of the coalition assault, the Obama administration was too worried about locking down the US "security" relationship with Saudi Arabia after the Iran nuclear deal to pull support for the botched Yemen campaign. And in the past two years, the Trump administration has unquestioningly embraced Saudi Arabia and the UAE as top allies (and top sources of income for the US military industry). This has left the job of dissent to the legislative branch. [Read More] Also informative/important: "Saudi war on Yemen: World's Worst Famine in a Century could Claim 13 Million," b[Link].
The War in Afghanistan
Afghanistan: America's Longest Forgotten War Turns a grim 17
---- We're already two years past the crystal anniversary and eight years short of the silver one, or at least we would be, had it been a wedding — and, after a fashion, perhaps it was. On October 7, 2001, George W. Bush launched the invasion — "liberation" was the word often used then — of Afghanistan. It was the start of the second Afghan War of the era, one that, all these years later, still shows no signs of ending. Though few realized it at the time, the American people married war. Permanent, generational, infinite war is now embedded in the American way of life, while just about the only part of the government guaranteed ever more soaring dollars, no matter what it does with them, is the U.S. military. … Here's my question, then: What if that first [Soviet] Afghan War was the real-world equivalent of a movie preview? Someday, when the second Afghan War finally ends and the U.S. military limps home from its many imperial adventures abroad as the Red Army once did, will it, too, find an empire on the verge of imploding and a country in deep trouble? [Read More]
The War in Syria
Syria Moves One Step Closer to Ending the Civil War
By Roy Gutman, The Nation [October 17, 2018]
---- After seven years of war, the deaths of as many as 400,000 civilians, and the displacement of half its population, Syria entered a new phase of the conflict on Monday that some analysts see as a major step toward ending the bloodshed. First the military development: Rebel forces, including Islamist radicals, have pulled their tanks and heavy artillery away from the provincial borders of their last stronghold, in Idlib, the northern province packed with 3 million people, half of them displaced from other regions of Syria. The context for the withdrawals was a political deal between Turkey and Russia, under which both powers became guarantors of the security of the province. Turkish forces will patrol from a dozen newly fortified observation posts on the Idlib side of the provincial border and Russia from 10 posts on the Assad-regime side. … Will the Idlib stand-down and the constellation of major players that brought it about last long enough for statesmen to revive the moribund peace process? As the Crisis Group put it, the opportunity is there. [Read More]
War with North Korea?
Washington's Ire Shifts From Kim Jong-un to Moon Jae-in
By Tim Shorrock, The Nation [October 19, 2018]
---- As the two Koreas continue to move their peace process forward in the wake of their highly successful September summit in Pyongyang, the Trump administration, along with military-industrial think tanks and journalists who influence US policy, have shifted their collective indignation away from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and toward South Korean President Moon Jae-in. A year after threatening Kim with a "bloody nose" strike unless he stopped his nuclear buildup, the Trump administration and its allies are now going after Moon's economic engagement with North Korea as a chief impediment to Pyongyang's pledge to denuclearize. Moon, in their view, has weakened Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign of sanctions and military threats by moving too quickly on inter-Korean reconciliation and ignoring US demands that sanctions be lifted only after the North's nuclear disarmament. … The turning point for the Trump administration's relations with Seoul may have come on September 14, when the two Koreas opened a liaison office just north of the DMZ. They did this against the public recommendation of the State Department, which had initially warned that South Korea's supply of electricity, water, and other supplies to the Gaesong Industrial Complex would violate US and UN sanctions. Since the virtual embassies opened, representatives from the two Koreas have had more than 60 face-to-face meetings, and the office has become a clearinghouse for over a dozen bilateral projects launched during the summit. [Read More]
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE COLLAPSE
Don't despair: the climate fight is only over if you think it is
, The Guardian [UK] [October 14, 2018]
----- The future hasn't already been decided. That is, climate change is an inescapable present and future reality, but the point of the IPCC report is that there is still a chance to seize the best-case scenario rather than surrender to the worst. … Climate action is human rights, because climate change affects the most vulnerable first and hardest – it already has, with droughts, fires, floods, crop failures. It affects the myriad species and habitats that make this earth such an intricately beautiful place, from the coral reefs to the caribou herds. What we're deciding now is what life will be like for the kids born this year who will be 82 in 2100, and their grandchildren, and their grandchildren's grandchildren. They will curse the era that devastated the planet, and perhaps they'll bless the memory of those who tried to limit this destruction. … The other thing I find most encouraging and even a little awe-inspiring is how profoundly the global energy landscape has already changed in this century. At the beginning of the 21st century, renewables were expensive, inefficient, infant technologies incapable of meeting our energy needs. In a revolution at least as profound as the industrial revolution, wind and solar engineering and manufacturing have changed everything; we now have the technological capacity to largely leave fossil fuel behind. It was not possible then; it is now. That is stunning. And encouraging. [Read More]
Also interesting/useful on our climate crisis – "CO2 emissions to rise again in 2018," by Marlowe Hood and Catherine Hours, Agence France Presse [October 20, 2018] [Link]; "Fixing the Climate Requires More Than Technology," by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, New York Times [October 16, 2018] [Link]; and "That $3 Trillion-a-Year Clean Energy Transformation? It's Already Underway," by Phil McKenna, Inside Climate News [October 11, 2018] [Link].
THE STATE OF THE UNION
The Democrats' Left Turn Is Not an Illusion
By Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times [October 18, 2018]
---- Over the past 18 years, the Democratic electorate has moved steadily to the left, as liberals have displaced moderates. Self-identified liberals of all races and ethnicities now command a majority in the party, raising the possibility that views once confined mainly to the party elite have spread into the rank and file. From 2001 to 2018, the share of Democratic voters who describe themselves as liberal has grown from 30 to 50 percent, according to data provided by Lydia Saad, a senior editor at the Gallup Poll. The percentage of Democrats who say they are moderate has fallen from 44 to 35; the percentage of self-identified conservative Democrats has gone from 25 to 13 percent. … The party's strengthened social liberalism may help Democrats mobilize more left-leaning Gen Y and Gen Z voters (those between the ages of 18 and 28), Drutman pointed out, which would be crucial. But Drutman added a cautionary note for liberal enthusiasts: "Democrats have consistently been disappointed by hopes of mobilizing younger voters, particularly in midterms." And here's another cautionary note: the very nature of political polarization suggests that even as liberals pull sharply to the left, conservatives are pulling sharply to the right, and it is unclear who will win the tug of war. [Read More]
But what's ignored in this "left turn"? – "Few Democrats Offer Alternatives to War-Weary Voters," bOctober 16, 2018] [Link]; and "Floods. Wildfires. Yet Few Candidates Are Running on Climate Change," by Trip Gabriel, New York Times [October 2, 2018] [Link]. Also useful is "The 2018 Midterm Cycle Could Be the Most Islamophobic U.S. Election Ever," by Sarah Aziza, The Intercept [October 22, 2018] [Link].
Voter Suppression
(Video) Trump Won in 2016 Thanks to Voter Suppression Says Carol Anderson, Author of "One Person, No Vote"
From Democracy Now! [October 16, 2018]
---- Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election due to voter suppression. That's what professor Carol Anderson argues in her new book "One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy," which tracks the rise of restrictive voting laws across the United States. In it, Anderson examines how African-American voter participation has been systematically compromised since a 2013 Supreme Court decision that gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act. By the 2016 election, turnout among black voters nationwide dropped from 66 percent to under 60 percent. The discrepancy was even larger in key areas like Milwaukee, where turnout went down from 78 percent in 2012 to less than 50 percent in 2016. President Trump won Wisconsin by a margin of fewer than 23,000 votes. We speak with Carol Anderson, chair of the Department of African American Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, about her new book and the upcoming midterm elections. [See the Program]
Also useful on USA/voter suppression – (Video) "Stacey Abrams Runs to Become Georgia's First Black Governor as Her Opponent Suppresses the Vote," from Democracy Now! [October 16, 2018] [Link]; "Voter Data Suppression Is GOP's Latest Anti-Voter Tactic," by [Link]; "Intentional or Incompetence—Voter Suppression Where We Live," b [Link]; and "400,000 New Yorkers Were Told Their Voter Registrations Were Inactive. Oops," by William Neuman, New York Times [October 16, 2018] [Link].
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Encountering Peace: No military option for Gaza
By Joseph Gerson The Jerusalem Post [October 19, 2018]
---- There is no military option that can erase normal people's desire to live with dignity and with hope of a better future. The "March of Return" that began in Gaza on March 30 as a civil society initiative has gone on way beyond its initially planned climax on Nakba Day on May 15. Despite more than 220 (mostly young) Palestinians killed by IDF snipers, the weekly demonstrations along the Israel-Gaza border have increased their intensity in numbers, locations and frequency. Although the official title of the demonstrations is about the right and the dream of Palestinian refugees in Gaza to return to their homes now inside of Israel, the real impetus and power driving them is the more than reasonable demand of two million people to end the Israeli-Egyptian siege on Gaza and to enable them to live a normal and decent life. …Without any genuine Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in sight; with the view that another round of war in the South must be prevented, knowing that it would not lead to any strategic changes on the ground; and out of sincere concern for the welfare of Israel's two million Palestinian neighbors in Gaza, the urgency of reaching Israel-Hamas understandings far outweigh the reasons not reach such agreements. [Read More]
Gaza: The Most Important Story Not Covered in the MSM
By Maj. Danny Sjursen, Antiwar.com [October 16, 2018]
---- The Israelis military is killing kids in the Gaza Strip – like, on the regular. You wouldn't know it though; not unless you watch the BBC or Al Jazeera, that is. The uncomfortable truth is this: most Americans, frankly, don't care. Most of the populace and a bipartisan coalition of nearly all policymakers are so reflexively pro-Israel that any critique of Israeli militarism is immediately labeled as anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, Americans should start paying attention. We in the U.S. are, after all, veritably obsessed with our national security. So much so, indeed, that Washington has waged a perpetual "war on terror" across the Greater Middle East and Africa, restricted some civil liberties, and garrisoned the globe with hundreds of foreign military bases. The problem is that none of this expeditionary military action has made the homeland safer or lessened the appeal of violent jihadi Islam. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
Smith and Carlos embodied many African Americans' Summer of Love and Reckoning
---- In the summer of 1967, 100,000 fashion-forward and social-forward youth gathered in San Francisco in what has famously been called the Summer of Love. Similar gatherings occurred throughout the US, Canada, and Europe, all in an effort to reject the Vietnam War, consumerism, and governments who had proven less than forthright, while promoting the ideals of love, kindness, and compassion. The Summer of Love has been branded and celebrated as a symbol of the 60s. African Americans had another name for that summer: the Long, Hot Summer of 1967. During that time, 150 black communities burned in riots, with 26 people killed in Newark, New Jersey, and 43 in Detroit. By the following summer, Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy, two guiding lights in civil rights, had been assassinated. Black people were not feeling the love. That's the context for the 1968 Summer Olympics when, 50 years ago this week, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their gloved fists from the podium in Mexico City, medals dangling from their necks, while the US national anthem played. To many African Americans, that was the Summer of Love – and Pride, and Reckoning. I was 20 when this happened. [Read More] Also informative is "Why Smith and Carlos Raised Their Fists," by Ted Widmer, New York Times [October 16, 2018] [Link].
In the Kitchens of the Metropolis [An interview with Silvia Federici]
By Raia Small, Toward Freedom [October 21, 2018]
---- In 1972, Silvia Federici participated in founding the Wages for Housework campaign of the International Feminist Collective, which formed chapters in Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States to demand wages from their respective federal governments for the labor that women do in the home. Born and raised in Italy, she moved to New York in 1967 to study at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Federici has published Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation (2004) and Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle (2012). As an activist, writer, and teacher, she has fought against women's exploitation, capital punishment, and neoliberal austerity. In January 2015, I spoke to her about the theoretical underpinnings and tactical strategy of the Wages for Housework campaign, how it challenged other movements on the Left, and the importance of making demands that give us more terrain from which to struggle. [Read More]
---- In 1972, Silvia Federici participated in founding the Wages for Housework campaign of the International Feminist Collective, which formed chapters in Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States to demand wages from their respective federal governments for the labor that women do in the home. Born and raised in Italy, she moved to New York in 1967 to study at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Federici has published Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation (2004) and Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle (2012). As an activist, writer, and teacher, she has fought against women's exploitation, capital punishment, and neoliberal austerity. In January 2015, I spoke to her about the theoretical underpinnings and tactical strategy of the Wages for Housework campaign, how it challenged other movements on the Left, and the importance of making demands that give us more terrain from which to struggle. [Read More]
