Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
July 7, 2019
Hello All – Last month the Trump administration announced, and then cancelled, the imminent arrest and deportation of thousands of immigrants and refugees in 10 US cities. Then it was announced that raids would begin after July 4th – next week. The agency that will carry out these arrests and deportations is ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement. To keep up with local events/arrests, etc., I recommend the Facebook page of the Hudson Valley Community Coalition and the Facebook page of the New York Immigration Coalition. We will also try to put news of any arrests in Westchester on the CFOW Facebook page; and if you have news to share, please post it there also.
The announcement of the raids follow on the exposure of horrific conditions for immigrants/refugees at our southern border, the (so far) failed attempt of the Trump administration to put a citizenship question on the 2020 Census, and announced plans by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for a rule change that would evict over 100,000 immigrants from HUD-assisted housing. Almost every day brings news of another plainly sadistic tweak in borderland regulations, all of which have in common the goal of making immigration or seeking refugee status to the USA so horrible that the word will spread throughout Central America that it is safer to stay home, no matter how horrible the conditions.
What's happening at our southern border is a fight over what Americans owe to those who need our help, and whether the national and international laws regarding immigrants and refugees will be honored. Like many of his European counterparts, President Trump believes there is electoral gold in the hills of xenophobia, and he is willing to pay whatever price must be paid to be admired as a racist and a bigot.
Though the detention of thousands and deaths of dozens is a large enough issue to justify a massive pro-immigrant, anti-government protest wave, we are also aware that the fight at our southern border is just a microcosm of the larger displacement and migration crisis generated by war, climate collapse, and economic displacement. On World Refugee Day 2018, 68.5 million people were adjudged to be forcibly displaced. These numbers will only grow. How we adjust ourselves and our economies and societies to these realities will greatly influence what kind of world we and our children will live in.
News Notes
On the 4th of July, Democracy Now! rebroadcast James Earl Jones' reading of Frederick Douglass' 1852 speech, (Video) "What to the Slave Is 4th of July?" And bringing the argument up to date, Rebekah Barber writes, "What to the immigrant is the Fourth of July?" July 1, 2016] [Link].
Former special counsel Robert Mueller will answer a subpoena and testify before two committees of the House of Representatives on July 17th. He will be asked questions relating to his investigation of, and report on, President Trump's alleged "collusion" with Russia prior to the 2016 election, and on the (alleged) attempts by the President to "obstruct justice" in subsequent investigations. In (partial) preparation for this experience, I recommend taking a look at the most recent (skeptical) review of the Russian "meddling" allegations, this time from Aaron Maté: "CrowdStrikeOut: Mueller's Own Report Undercuts Its Core Russia-Meddling Claims," RealClearInvestigations [July 5, 2019] [Link].
Code Pink's Medea Benjamin and Ann Wright headed the (visible) resistance to Trump's 4th of July extravaganza. Their work included bringing the "Baby Trump" balloon over from London. For an appropriately jaundiced take on the King and his Parade, read "Trump Celebrates Himself on July 4th," [Link].
In choosing your summer beach books, take a look at this useful "Anti-Imperialism Reading List" from the Boston Review. There are many items of interest, imo. [Link].
Protests and music go together like lox and bagels. Many peace or fighting songs become international. In the '60s and '70s, a lot of the music was from the USA or the UK. And so I thought this essay was interesting; it looks at the anthem from South Korea that became an inspirational theme for the demonstrations in Hong Kong. And you can read the English lyrics to "Marching for our Beloved" here.
It's been very hot in Europe. How hot? According to this report, June, 2019, was the hottest month on earth since scientific record-keeping began around 1850. In fact, if you take the averages of 1850-1900, June was 5.4 degrees F. warmer (3 degrees C.) Some parts of Europe were actually 10 degrees C. (18 degrees F.) warmer than normal.
Turkey Peace Prisoners
In a recent newsletter I noted the arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of Turkish antiwar academics. Their crime: being among the 2,000 academics who signed a petition calling for the resumption of peace talks with the Kurdish region of Turkey, and for the end of "deliberate massacre and deportation of Kurdish and other peoples." While most of those sentenced have had their imprisonment suspended, the net result of this wave of arrests has been to force hundreds of liberal academics from their jobs. For a very good update on these events, read "Peace Petition Signatories Face Continued Prosecution," Inside Higher Ed [July 1, 2019] [Link].
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 (usually) 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. The next CFOW monthly meeting will be on Sunday, August 4th, at 7 PM, at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs. And if you would like to support our work by making a contribution, 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. As always, we have some excellent "Featured Essays," I also highly recommend the set of essay on our (worldwide) immigration crisis; some useful insights (from Democracy Now!) on the Trump-Kim meeting in Korea; the mainstream media's contribution to fanning the flames of war with Iran; and on its 100th anniversary, an interesting overview of the movement that won the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote.
Rewards!
The Newsletter's review offer a pit stop of less seriousness and (often) primal delight as readers prepare themselves for some news of the news of the week. The first of this week's offerings come from our Affirmative Action department, which thought we should have some music appealing to younger stalwarts. So here is a family-friendly 2003 protest song from NOFX called "Franco Un-American." (If you're keeping score at home, this was recently and topically updated by MxPx.) [h/t NW] And for readers/listeners of all ages, here once again is local favorite Hudson Valley Sally with "Hard Times Come Again No More" and several more. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
DESPERATE TIMES FOR IMMIGRANTS & REFUGEES
The US Is Making a Mockery of Its Asylum Obligations
By John Washington, The Nation [July 3, 2019]
---- Luisa has been occasionally able to pool enough money, along with a group of other women with young children, to pay for a night in a hotel, but sometimes that means there's not enough to eat. "I prefer to have a roof over our heads than to wander the streets," Luisa says. But now her money is running out, and her options are dwindling. Luisa's plight is a direct result of the Migrant Protection Protocols—commonly referred to as the "Remain in Mexico" policy that the Trump administration first enacted in Tijuana in January and has since rolled out to other Mexican border cities. The protocols take the administration's anti-asylum crackdown to a new level: returning mostly Central American asylum seekers to Mexican border towns as they await their US asylum cases. MPP is at best a deterrent mechanism, at worst an evisceration of international asylum obligations, and the administration is using it to try to convince Central American asylum seekers approaching the US-Mexico border that the journey, and now the long and dangerous wait in Mexico, isn't worth it. [Read More]
Hungry, Scared and Sick: Inside the Migrant Detention Center in Clint, Tex.
---- Since the Border Patrol opened its station in Clint, Tex., in 2013, it was a fixture in this West Texas farm town. Separated from the surrounding cotton fields and cattle pastures by a razor-wire fence, the station stood on the town's main road, near a feed store, the Good News Apostolic Church and La Indita Tortillería. Most people around Clint had little idea of what went on inside. Agents came and went in pickup trucks; buses pulled into the gates with the occasional load of children apprehended at the border, four miles south. … The little-known Border Patrol facility at Clint has suddenly become the public face of the chaos on America's southern border, after immigration lawyers began reporting on the children they saw — some of them as young as 5 months old — and the filthy, overcrowded conditions in which they were being held. … But a review of the operations of the Clint station, near El Paso's eastern edge, shows that the agency's leadership knew for months that some children had no beds to sleep on, no way to clean themselves and sometimes went hungry. Its own agents had raised the alarm, and found themselves having to accommodate even more new arrivals. [Read More]
With Record Numbers of Displaced People, Deterrence Policies to Stop Their Movement Are Mass Murder
By Natasha Lennard, The Intercept [July 6, 2019]
---- Over the last week, a photograph of Salvadoran father Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month-old daughter Valeria, lifeless and facedown in the Rio Grande shallows, has caused similar public dismay in the U.S. and beyond. …The 18,000-plus migrant deaths in the Mediterranean Sea since 2014, as well as the over 7,000 deaths around the U.S.-Mexico border since 1994, were state-sanctioned murders. … As unlivable portions of the planet continue to grow, a refusal to open borders, or at least make them considerably more porous, will produce a powder keg of further conflict and a mass genocide. This point is fast upon us. One could argue we are already there. [Read More]
It Depends on What You Mean by Fascism
By Jason Stanley, New York Times [July 4, 2019]
---- On July 2, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after a visit to migrant detention facilities run by Customs and Border Protection in Texas, claimed that the United States is "headed toward fascism." Much of the response that followed was expected, but little or none of it examined the statement closely or detailed to what degree the United States' immigration policy justifies such comparisons. So how apt is this analogy between the current situation and early years of fascist regimes? [Read More]
And for more on the immigrant/refugee crisis - (Video) "Border Agents Caught Posting Racist, Sexist Messages About Migrants & AOC in Secret Facebook Group," from Democracy Now! [July 3, 2019] [Link]; "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Other Democrats Reject "Staged" Tour of Migrant Detention Facilities," b[Link]; and "Judge in Italy Orders Release of Captain of Migrant-Rescue Ship," New York Times [July 2, 2019] [Link]. The main point of departure for refugees coming to the USA is now Honduras. Why is this? It began (at least) ten years ago. Read "On Honduras," by Sara Kozameh, NACLA [June 28, 2019] [Link]
FEATURED ESSAYS
Noam Chomsky: Trump Is Consolidating Far-Right Power Globally
Interviewed by C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout [July 3, 2019]
[FB – In this interesting interview, Chomsky addresses the US-Iran conflict, US relations with China and Russia, and the place of the Trump administration in uniting authoritarian governments throughout the Middle East.]
---- Chomsky: One of the most appropriate comments I've seen on Trump's foreign policy appeared in an article in The New Republic written by David Roth, the editor of a sports blog: "The spectacle of expert analysts and thought leaders parsing the actions of a man with no expertise or capacity for analysis is the purest acid satire — but less because of how badly that expert analysis has failed than because of how sincerely misplaced it is … there is nothing here to parse, no hidden meanings or tactical elisions or slow-rolled strategic campaign." That seems generally accurate. This is a man, after all, who dismisses the information and analyses of his massive intelligence system in favor of what was said this morning on "Fox and Friends," where everyone tells him how much they love him. With all due skepticism about the quality of intelligence, this is sheer madness considering the stakes. … It's understandable that the farce elicits ridicule, and no doubt some are relishing the coming photo-op of Trump and Boris Johnson upholding Anglo-American civilization. But for the world, it's dead serious, from the destruction of the environment and the growing threats of terminal nuclear war to a long list of other crimes and horrors. [Read More]
The New Deal in the American Political Imagination
By Steve Fraser, Jacobin Magazine [June 2019]
---- The New Deal has served as the ground zero of the country's political imagination. It is the Rosetta stone for understanding every enduring political development of the last seventy-five years. Harry Truman's Fair Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society were conceived as elaborations of what the New Deal had wrought. Neoliberalism and New Conservatism were invented to undo the damage. Today, the Green New Deal marks the far horizon of the left-liberal imagination. For those opposed, the Green New Deal, like the original one, is a camouflage for socialism. Both sides of this divide are touched by irony. Once, during the 1960s, that era's New Left considered the New Deal a form of corporate co-optation. We're a long way from that now. A half century of deregulation, evisceration of the labor movement, shredding of the social safety net, and privatization worked wonders. So that now even the most elementary forms of the New Deal order seem to the contemporary left as visionary, if not infeasible.
In the meantime, those who subscribe in theory to laissez-faire economics and the free market — the liberalism of the nineteenth century — in real life rely on all the forms of state support for private enterprise pioneered by the New Deal. Nearly a century has gone by, and the New Deal continues to function as an inspiration for the Left and as the bête noire of the Right. Both sides share a myth: that the New Deal was anti-capitalist. While confrontations occur on dozens of battlefields, the war itself is about that. And the myth, like all durable myths, carries its own truth. [Read More]
Elections in the Era of Charismatic Politics
By Walden Bello, Foreign Policy in Focus [July 1, 2019]
---- Authoritarian governments have tried to rig elections for ages. More dangerous are the far-right leaders concentrating their power by relatively fair elections. Elections are often regarded as the quintessential expression of democracy. Yet elections can have undemocratic outcomes. The carefully choreographed election designed to give a fig leaf to an authoritarian regime is something everyone is familiar with. But there is also the paradoxical case where a relatively free and fair election ends up bringing the winner closer to absolute power. The recent elections in Thailand, the Philippines, and India provide interesting contrasts in the ways elections can be used to derail democracy. … Charismatic politics exploits the contradiction between traditional authority structures that legitimize inequality and injustice and a rational-legal order based on the principles of democracy, justice, and equality. Charismatic politics is not politics as usual and is a fluid process that moves in uncharted waters until the charisma of the leader is "routinized" into a set of rules, procedures, and processes which become the new source of authority and legitimacy. [Read More]
"Not Backing Down: Israel, free speech & the battle for Palestinian rights"
[FB – A seemingly ordinary and straight-forward project of holding a forum on "free speech and Palestinian rights" was met by a strong backlash from pro-Israeli groups. CFOW encountered a similar situation a few years ago, when a gang of obnoxious pro-Israel people came up from NYC to disrupt a form we were co-sponsoring on the same topic. In both cases, it seems that what was threatening was the attempted normalization of the topic; that the situation of the Palestinians and the ability to discuss this under the banner of Free Speech was simply a bridge too far for some. And this is quite similar to the responses of Rep. Eliot Engel and other supposedly pro-Israel people: that advocacy of boycotts and other actions on behalf of Palestinians must be shouted down by force of law. – This website is interesting not only because it allows us to read what the panel presenters had to say, but esp. because it includes a wealth of documentation about the fight to shut the program down and/or allow it to take place.]
---- "Not Backing Down: Israel, Free Speech & the Battle for Palestinian Rights," a panel discussion on the increasingly vitriolic backlash against pro-Palestinian voices, was held at the UMass-Amherst Fine Arts Center on May 4 in front of a capacity crowd despite a fierce attempt by pro-Israel pressure groups to brand the event as anti-Semitic and shut it down. The panel addressed mounting right-wing efforts to silence and smear Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and other pro-Palestinian voices who have spoken out against Israel's illegal military occupation of Palestinian land and called out the influence of the pro-Israel lobby. Panelists included: legendary rocker Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame; Palestinian-American political activist Linda Sarsour, who was recently targeted by a private Israeli intelligence firm as part of a coordinated U.S. campaign to prevent her from speaking out against Israeli policies on American college campuses; Marc Lamont Hill, a professor and political commentator who was fired earlier this year by CNN for remarks he made in support of Palestinian rights; and Nation magazine sports editor and author Dave Zirin. [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
We're Not the Good Guys: Why Is American Aggression Missing in Action?
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch [July 2, 2019]
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch [July 2, 2019]
---- Headlined "U.S. Seeks Other Ways to Stop Iran Shy of War," the article was tucked away on page A9 of a recent New York Times. Still, it caught my attention. Here's the first paragraph:
"American intelligence and military officers are working on additional clandestine plans to counter Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf, pushed by the White House to develop new options that could help deter Tehran without escalating tensions into a full-out conventional war, according to current and former officials."
Note that "Iranian aggression." The rest of the piece, fairly typical of the tone of American media coverage of the ongoing Iran crisis, included sentences like this: "The C.I.A. has longstanding secret plans for responding to Iranian provocations." I'm sure I've read such things hundreds of times without ever really stopping to think much about them, but this time I did. And what struck me was this: rare is the moment in such mainstream news reports when Americans are the "provocative" ones. … To sum up, no one should ever claim that we Americans aren't "at home" in the world. We're everywhere, remarkably well funded and well armed and ready to face off against the aggressors and provocateurs of this planet. Just one small suggestion: thank the troops for their service if you want, and then, as most Americans do, go about your business as if nothing were happening in those distant lands. As we head into election season 2020, however, just don't imagine that we're the good guys on Planet Earth. As far as I can tell, there aren't many good guys left. [Read More]
(Video) Trump Makes History by Walking into North Korea. Could This Help to Finally End the Korean War?
From Democracy Now! [July 1, 2019]
---- President Trump made history Sunday when he became the first sitting U.S. president to step foot in North Korea. Trump was there to visit North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the military demarcation line at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Kim then invited Trump to cross the line, which has divided North and South Korea since 1953. Trump then took about 20 steps into North Korea. Following the meeting at the DMZ, Trump and Kim held a three-way gathering with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Sunday marked Trump and Kim's first meeting since nuclear talks broke down in February. More nuclear talks are reportedly scheduled to begin in the coming weeks. We speak with Suzy Kim, associate professor of Korean history at Rutgers University, and Christine Ahn, founder and executive director of Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of women mobilizing to end the Korean War. [See the Program]
There Is No Such Thing as a Green War
By Eleanor Goldfield, ROAR Magazine [July 5, 2019]
---- In June, the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs released a report titled "Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War." Echoing previous reports on the link between the US military and climate change, the paper outlines the various ways in which the Pentagon is "the world's largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly, the single largest producer of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world." While this is not necessarily news, it never hurts to have a reminder. …Still, although the paper clearly links the US military to climate chaos, the soft conclusion and the handling of the military industrial complex with kid gloves leaves some gaping holes in what could otherwise be a powerful commentary on intersectionality and the need for systemic change. It is not enough to academically trace a red thread between issues. Recognizing the connections that tie climate chaos to war to imperialism to the growing refugee crisis demand solutions founded on that real-world intersectionality. We need an active solidarity that erases the demarcations of single-issue movements and builds a power that reflects the reality of our place and time. [Read More]
The War against Iran
[FB – I choose this sub-headline – "the war against Iran" – because I think it describes reality. We don't just face the danger of a possible war with Iran; the Trump administration (and its allies) is engaged in a war against Iran right now. For starters, the economic blockade now enforced by the US is an act of war. But this is not enough, and it is clear that the Trump people, especially National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are attempting to create a situation in which it appears that it is Iran who is the aggressor, not the United States. Thus we have the bizarre situation of the United States appealing to the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency that IRAN has broken the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement by enriching uranium, after the United States "broke the nuclear agreement more than a year ago. For an illustration of the military maneuvering going on right now, presumably with the hope of setting up something that looks like Iranian aggression, check out this story from the reliable blog "Moon of Alabama" – "On Eve Of 4th Of July Parade U.S. Attempts To Lure Iran Into Shooting Down Another U.S. Plane."]
If War Breaks Out With Iran, It Won't Be an Accident
July 3, 2019]
---- While Trump pulled back on starting a shooting war, the administration is directly attacking millions of Iranians already. Three sets of new sanctions, imposed in recent months, are crippling much of Iran's economy. They're killing Iranians, as the health care system strains to survive shortages of medicine and medical equipment. "Sanctions [are] the first problem in our country and in our system. We can't transfer the money and make the preparations for surgery. It's a big problem for us," says Dr. Mohammad Hassan Bani Asad, managing director of the Gandhi Hotel Hospital in Tehran. "We have the procedures, but we don't have the instruments. It is very difficult for patients and maybe leads to death of some patients."
A set of sanctions fourth was added just last week, ostensibly aimed at Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khameini. Those are likely to have less immediate impact on the public than the earlier ones, but the political impact is huge, with Iran subsequently threatening to cut off diplomatic channels altogether.
The mainstream media and public opinion – The mainstream media, with its strong anti-Iran bias, plays an important role in creating the necessary public support for war. But will they be successful in overcoming the opposition to war shared by most people? Perhaps not. Read "Poll: Voters back Trump's decision not to strike Iran," by Julia Manchester, The Hill [July 2, 2019 [Link]; "Creating a Climate for War With Iran," by Gregory Shupak, FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting] [July 2, 2019] [Link]; and "Media Falsely Portrays Iran's Nuclear Deal Breach As Dash To Bomb," by Ben Armbruster, LobeLog [July 5, 2019] [Link].
THE DEMOCRATS AND 2020
Here's one way Democrats can defeat Trump: be radically anti-war
By Mark Hannah and Stephen Wertheim, The Guardian [UK] [July 1, 2019]
---- Democrats have a unique opportunity to close the traditional national-security gap with Republicans, but only if they choose a clear direction for foreign policy and not just against Trump. They should listen to the American people and offer them a genuinely pro-peace message — standing firmly against Trump's bellicosity as well as decades of bipartisan military intervention. This was the message some voters heard from Trump last time. Now Trump has failed to deliver, and Democrats can capitalize on that. Case in point: the American public overwhelmingly supports Trump's decision to call off airstrikes designed to retaliate against Iran after it shot down an American drone. A mere 36% favored a strike even in the heat of the moment, when Politico conducted a poll. The number was even smaller — 23% — among Democrats. … As a recent study found, a tiny minority, 8%, would opt for military action if Iran were to resume its nuclear weapons program. Six times as many would either tolerate a nuclear Iran while negotiations resumed or actually believe that Iran has the right to develop a nuclear deterrent. [Read More]
(Video) Kamala Harris Says She Was a Progressive Prosecutor. Her Record Tells Another Story
From Democracy Now! [July 2, 2019]
---- As Senator Kamala Harris rises in the early presidential polls, she is facing increasing scrutiny over her record as a prosecutor in California. In 2004, Harris became district attorney of San Francisco. She held the post until 2011, when she became the attorney general of California. We speak with Lara Bazelon, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law. In January, she wrote a piece in The New York Times titled "Kamala Harris Was Not a 'Progressive Prosecutor.'" [See the Program]
Cory Booker's Foreign Policy Echoes His Biggest Donors
By Eli Clifton, LobeLog [July 2, 2019]
---- In last Wednesday's Democratic debate, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) stood apart from the other candidates on the stage by declining to commit to return to the Iran nuclear deal. Booker's unusual position is shared by NORPAC, a pro-Israel PAC aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). As Booker's biggest donor, NORPAC contributed $185,871 to Booker's campaign committee in 2018, a cycle in which Booker wasn't even up for election. … With candidates looking to distinguish themselves in a crowded Democratic primary, Booker may have done just that and secured himself valuable campaign cash to fuel his presidential campaign. But Democratic voters aren't with him on Iran. A May 2019 J Street poll found that 72 percent of Democratic voters support reentering the JCPOA while only 18 percent oppose reentering. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
'Red State Revolt' offers an inside look at the recent wave of teacher strikes
June 27, 2019]
---- West Virginia teachers, who stunned the nation with their historic 2018 strike, staged a two-day walkout in February and are continuing to battle their Republican-dominated state government this summer. While the immediate issues this time are legislators' attempts to introduce charter schools and impose stiffer penalties on strikers, the need for greater public funding of education remains the core of the struggle. In the new book "Red State Revolt," author Eric Blanc describes the origins of this strike and the wave of subsequent strikes it ignited across the country by giving a play-by-play account of the action — offering lessons that apply to future strikes, as well as other kinds of nonviolent action. Blanc was well placed to observe the strikes. Sent to cover them by Jacobin magazine, his approach could be described as a participant observer — in that he not only wrote about the strikes, but also helped organize national solidarity actions. As a former high school teacher himself, he became a trusted confidant, interviewing service personnel, students, union staffers, and various officials to get their take. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
State of Exception: What role has local and international law played in the Occupied Territories?
By Raja Shehadeh, The Nation [July 1, 2019]
[FB – I recently read this book and found it exceptionally interesting. In significant ways, it reframes Israeli/Palestinian history over the past century. It's discussion of the use of law – and its sometimes opposite legitimacy – applies to many conflicts in the world, not just Israel/Palestine.]
---- Why did the PLO, the Palestinian Authority, and other representatives repeatedly fail to use the law to the Palestinian people's advantage? How did their view of the law differ so significantly from the Israeli government's? And how did Israel succeed in creating alternative legal regimes for regulating Palestinian lives that fell outside the purview of international laws relating to war and occupation? All of these questions have haunted the history of the region for the past half century, and they now find some compelling answers in Noura Erakat's Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. …The law, in Erakat's narrative, has been cynically misused by Israel. Yet there still may come a day when international law can again serve as an arbiter in resolving conflicts. One hopes this is the case, because of its effect not only on the Middle East but on the rest of the world as well. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
2019 Belongs to Shirley Chisholm
By Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times [July 6, 2019]
---- Shirley Chisholm stares out from the side of a dozen coffee mugs these days, her epochal glasses, brocade dresses and distinct crown of curls recognizable trademarks of the most regenerative political figure in modern American culture. As a number of new congresswomen begin to emerge in her image, Ms. Chisholm, who 50 years ago began her service as the first African-American woman in Congress, representing Brooklyn's 12th District, is enjoying a resurgence of interest 14 years after her death. … n 1972, Ms. Chisholm became the first African-American woman to seek the nomination of a major party for president of the United States. Thinking she could consolidate black, female and working-class voters under her campaign slogan and theme, "Unbought and Unbossed," she ran up hard against the political realities and institutional sexism and racism of the era. … Ms. Chisholm was initially blocked from a televised debate, was derided by many of her black male colleagues in Congress who thought she had overstepped, and was abandoned by white feminists like Gloria Steinem. But her unsuccessful run sealed her legacy as an unapologetic antiwar, feminist and working-class advocate, work she pursued until retiring from Congress in 1983. [Read More]
The Imperfect, Unfinished Work of Women's Suffrage
By Casey Cep, The New Yorker [July 1, 2019]
---- In a sense, women voted in America long before there were states, united or otherwise. … Political historians have long described the Haudenosaunee Confederacy [in upstate NY] as the oldest continuously functioning democracy in the world; those democratic principles extended to women. Seventy years had passed since the Seneca Falls Convention, where hundreds of people had gathered in upstate New York to discuss the rights of women, including the right to vote. Forty years had passed since a federal amendment to the Constitution was introduced to extend the franchise to women. Suffragists had tried and failed to convince the courts that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments already did so. The rest of the country was unconvinced, too, and female suffrage remained a controversial cause in American politics. A hundred years ago, though, the Nineteenth Amendment finally passed both houses of the United States Congress, and then went to the states for ratification. On that centennial, it is worth considering not only what these women were fighting fo,r but why they had to fight so hard, and who, exactly, was fighting against them. [Read More]
