Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
December 4, 2017
Hello All – As many commentators have noted, the Republicans' "Tax and Job" legislation is much more than just a redistribution of billions of dollars from the working and middle classes to the wealthy and very wealthy. It also portends great changes in the ways that Americans will live in the next decade and beyond. With the cuts in federal support for social services and human needs that the tax legislation will inevitably lead to, state and local governments will be pressed to pick up the pieces. And this will not be possible. The standard of living for all but the wealthy will decline. College will provide upward mobility for fewer people; poor people will be less likely to have adequate housing, food, and shelter; and the elderly will remain forever anxious that cuts in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid may be just around the corner.
Equally disturbing to some of us is how this great disaster came about. It was done in the dark, scribbled in the margins, with no public hearings, and with Democratic politicians wringing their hands helplessly. Where Lenin may have talked about the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, America has now achieved the Dictatorship of the Very Wealthy. Always powerful beyond their limited numbers, and thus having to make coalitions with others to be competitive electorally, the Very Wealthy now monopolize most of the levers of real political power, and appear to have the potential to continue their reign beyond the expiration date of the Trump Family.
As Elizabeth Warren stated so eloquently, the purpose of the "Tax and Jobs" legislation is to repay the donors who bankrolled so many Republican candidates on their road to victory in last year's election. Among the core elements of this Dictatorship of the Very Wealthy are the fortunes based on the extractive and armament industries. Thus a significant section of the Dictatorship is the multinational companies promoting militarism and climate breakdown, the main issues on which CFOW has focused for 15 years. While there are many important political campaigns within "the Resistance," to attack at the heart of the Trump Agenda means fighting back against war and the war-makers, against climate breakdown and the fossil fuel industries. We invite serious Resisters in the Resistance to join CFOW in carrying on this fight.
Some small, practical steps
It appears that the Republicans are trying to short-circuit the "reconciliation" process in Congress and have the House of Representatives (or the Republicans therein) simply vote to accept the Senate version of the "Tax and Jobs" legislation. If this fails, it may be that the reconciliation process is prolonged for several days. In this short period, speaking for myself, I think intense agitation and disruption is important, not just on the off chance that something might get dislodged from the horrible legislation, but also to send a warning to both the Republicans and the Democrats that they have a fight on their hands. Whatever the Democrats were doing in Washington, DC, across the country I know of no Democratic-sponsored occupations of state capitols, marches, prolonged sit-ins, etc. This has to change. For openers, we can join whatever ACTION develops in NYC. We can also call our congressional representatives and let them know that "business as usual" is not acceptable, not least because it appears to be ineffective against the Dictatorship of the Very Wealthy.
In case these numbers are not on your speed dial, let these people know that you're fed up and not going to take it anymore - Governor Andrew Cuomo: 518-474-8390; Senator Charles Schumer: 212-486-4430; Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: 212-688-6262; Congresswoman Nita Lowey: 914-428-1707; and Congressman Eliot Engel: 718-796-9700.
News Notes
Dozens of demonstrators, innocent by-standers, and a few journalists are now on trial after having been arrested during protests at Trump's inauguration-day festivities. Some face decades in jail. Check out this interview/report from Democracy Now!
The killers of five Spanish Jesuits in El Salvador in 1989 may finally face justice. As war protesters from back then may recall, the Jesuits (and their housekeeper and her daughter) were murdered in cold blood in their home for their crime of advocating negotiations and a peace settlement. And said protesters may also recall that the killers were part of El Salvador's Atlacatl Battalion, an elite killing unit from the Salvadoran Army who had been trained by the US military. Read the story here.
The staff of the CFOW newsletter is anxiously paying attention to the text of the US government's charges against the Russian-controlled news outlet RT, which recently led Twitter to ban RT tweets from its social-media empire. The bulk of the charges relate not to errors in RT's news coverage, something that would be of no concern to the CFOW newsletter, but rather the content of RT's broadcasting. Thus the charge sheet of felonies includes coverage of Occupy Wall St., the Jill Stein presidential campaign, anti-fracking news, and similar twaddle. If RT is banned, we wonder, who could be next? [Read More]
In New York Times columnist Thomas Edsal's recent article "The Self-Destruction of American Democracy," we find a pretty shocking graph of the dramatic fall of the world's opinion of the USA during Trump's first 11 months in office. For example, in response to a question asking respondents if they had confidence in the U.S. president to do the right thing regarding world affairs, the Obama-to-Trump transition went from 93 percent to 10 percent in the case of Sweden, and 86 percent to 11 percent in the case of Germany. The only countries which gained confidence during the Trump presidency have been Russia and Israel. And there is much more in this depressing article.
Finally, political commentator Samantha Bee has a lot to work with these days; for example, this sketch about Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore. In a no-surprise factoid from The Washington Post, we learn that "women are more likely than men to find the allegations credible and to support [Moore's opponent] Jones, with 41 percent of women saying Moore made unwanted advances compared with 28 percent of men saying the same. Moore leads by 15 points among men likely to vote, while Jones leads by 18 points among likely female voters." We report, you decide.
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Tuesday, December 5th – WESPAC is sponsoring a march and rally in White Plains to protest the "Tax and Jobs" legislation that passed the Senate last week and is now headed towards a House-Senate conference for "reconciliation." We will gather at the fountain at the intersection of Mamareneck Ave and Main St. at 12:15 for a few speakers and then for a march to the Republican headquarters (214 Marmaroneck Ave.) to display our anger and our determination to fight back
Monday, December 11th – Let Yemen Live: Protest at the UN. Organized by the Catholic Worker, War Resisters League, Code Pink, etc. some (trained) participants will be performing nonviolent civil disobedience at the U.S. and Saudi missions to demand an end to US support and assistance to the Saudi-led war on Yemen. Meet at Ralph Bunche Park at 10:30AM, and then we will march towards the U.S. and Saudi missions at noon. Learn more on Facebook
Saturday, December 30th – CFOW holiday party at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 2 to 5 p.m. Everybody welcome; please join us!
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 news about the coup that may be underway in Honduras; the several articles about the war in Yemen; the article about the mainstream media and Libya's slave markets; and the proposals by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for reconstruction in Puerto Rico.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protestl/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 the Puerto Rico crisis are targeted from time to time, 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.
Contributions, Please
Our treasury is getting a little low, so if you are able to support our work, please make your check out to "CFOW" and mail it to PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards!
As this is a too-long newsletter, readers might want to pause and hear some Rewards before launching into the state-of-the-world quagmire. First up this week is some virtuoso violin playing from Janine Jansen. Read this interesting profile via which I learned about her, and then listen to/watch her perform, playing Vivaldi's "Four Seasons." And for something truly, completely different, check out British spoken-word artist Kate Tempest, here with "Tunnel Vision" and "Europe is Lost." Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
The GOP Plan Is the Biggest Tax Increase in American History, By Far
By Ryan Grim, The Intercept [December 1, 2017]
---- The tax bill moving its way through Congress is routinely referred to as a $1.5 trillion tax cut. And, in some ways, that's true: on net, it would reduce the amount of taxes collected by the federal treasury by about $1.5 trillion over 10 years. But that figure masks the eye-popping scale and audacity of the GOP's rushed restructuring of the economy. Most immediately, the plan will take a large chunk out of state and local revenue that isn't factored into that total. But more broadly, the bill cuts taxes by a full $6 trillion over a decade. … The key question is who gets a tax hike and who gets a tax cut. Put simply, the bulk of the tax cut is going toward the rich, while the tax increases go to everybody else. And so the bill, properly described, is two things: the largest tax cut — and also the biggest tax increase — in American history. [Read More].
For additional perspectives on the tax cut/take increase – Peter S. Goodman and Patricia Cohen, "It Started as a Tax Cut. Now It Could Change American Life," [Link]; Jesse Drucker and Patricia Cohen, "Tax Bill Offers Last-Minute Breaks for Developers, Banks and Oil Industry," New York Times [December 2, 2017] [Link]; and from Democracy Now! (Video) "Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz: Trump Tax Plan to Worsen Inequality, Expand Loopholes" [November 30, 2017] [Link].
What's Wrong with Talking to North Korea?
By Jonathan Marshal, Consortium News [November 30, 2017]
---- Past negotiations with North Korea did succeed dramatically in slowing down its nuclear program. Thanks to citizen diplomacy by former President Jimmy Carter, and President Bill Clinton's realization that preemptive war was not an option, Washington and Pyongyang negotiated a "landmark deal" in 1994. North Korea agreed to shut down its plutonium production in return for promises of help with its civilian nuclear energy infrastructure. Over the next several years, the United States was able to inspect some of North Korea's nuclear facilities — an unheard-of concession — and also negotiate a freeze on its missile-testing program. Although North Korea shared in the blame, the deal eventually unraveled in no small part because a Republican-dominated Congress refused to allow the Clinton administration to keep its commitments. … If North Korea has proved anything, it's that it will accept any level of suffering to achieve security. All those failed opportunities leave the United States and South Korea only one real option with North Korea: to live with mutual nuclear deterrence, as we do with China and Russia, two far stronger nuclear powers that were once deeply hostile to the United States. It's time — really, long past time — for both sides to drop their preconditions and start talking about how our countries can learn to live rather than die with each other. [Read More]
And for two additional, excellent essays on USA/North Korea – Catherine Killough, "Let the Record Show: Negotiations with North Korea Work," LobeLog [November 29, 2017] [Link]; and Evan Osnos, "Is the Political Class Drifting Toward War with North Korea?" The New Yorker [November 8, 2017] [Link].
UnFounding Father: Why We Need to Stare at You Know Who
By Tom Engelhardt, Tom Dispatch [December 1, 2017]
By Tom Engelhardt, Tom Dispatch [December 1, 2017]
---- Don't look away. I mean it! Keep on staring just like you've been doing, just like we've all been doing since he rode down that escalator into the presidential race in June 2015 and, while you have your eyes on him, I'll tell you exactly why you shouldn't stop. … Since that escalator ride, he's been in the news (and in all our faces) in a way once unimaginable. Cable news talking heads and talk-show hosts can't stop gabbling about him. It's the sort of 24/7 attention that normally accompanies terrorist attacks in the United States or Europe, presidential assassinations, or major hurricanes. … He's gotten so much attention in part because he rose in (or, in his case, descended into) a changed media landscape that most of us hadn't even begun to grasp. He didn't, however, create that landscape either. If anything, it created him. What he did was make himself the essence of it. He was what a news media in crisis needed, as staffs were being decimated and finances challenged by the online world, and reporters were disappearing. He came on the scene, politically speaking, just when a once-upon-a-time sense of the "news" was morphing into so many focus groups on what would glue eyeballs, while coverage was increasingly being recalibrated for a series of designated 24/7 events, each generally filled with horror, fear, and plenty of weeping people. Think: terror attacks, mass killings, and anything involving "extreme weather" with all its photogenic damage. [Read More]
US Middle East policy doesn't exist
By Robert Fisk, The Independent [UK] [November 29, 2017]
---- The Middle East I live in looks less and less like the place I arrived to report on more than four decades ago. Then US "policy" was real if often delusional, balanced by an ever more crumbling Soviet Union, constantly reassuring a battery of dictators that they would support them – at various times, they included Saddam Hussein, Hafez al-Assad, Anwar Sadat, King Hussain of Jordan, Colonel Gaddafi and the Shah of Iran. It was a time, too, when even the PLO and Arafat were "terrorists" – though they were confusingly taken on and off "terrorist lists" by the US or Israel every few years. In fact, these were the jolly days when the Israelis were encouraging that nice friendly Hamas movement – now, of course, back in the "terrorist" cage – to open new mosques in Gaza to counterbalance Arafat's statelet in Lebanon. The Israelis have effectively "forgotten" that dangerous little policy of theirs. … The great Arab revolutions have played themselves out, in some cases – in Egypt, for example – actually re-infantalising their people to yet again love deep state dictators and brutal cops and generals with governessy eagles on their cap badges. Perhaps Saudi Arabia is a revolution still to come. I have always thought that the day the royal princes started locking each other up might be the beginning of the end of the Kingdom. But there is precious little reason to find any optimism across the smashed and rubbleised landscape of the Middle East. [Read More]
---- The Middle East I live in looks less and less like the place I arrived to report on more than four decades ago. Then US "policy" was real if often delusional, balanced by an ever more crumbling Soviet Union, constantly reassuring a battery of dictators that they would support them – at various times, they included Saddam Hussein, Hafez al-Assad, Anwar Sadat, King Hussain of Jordan, Colonel Gaddafi and the Shah of Iran. It was a time, too, when even the PLO and Arafat were "terrorists" – though they were confusingly taken on and off "terrorist lists" by the US or Israel every few years. In fact, these were the jolly days when the Israelis were encouraging that nice friendly Hamas movement – now, of course, back in the "terrorist" cage – to open new mosques in Gaza to counterbalance Arafat's statelet in Lebanon. The Israelis have effectively "forgotten" that dangerous little policy of theirs. … The great Arab revolutions have played themselves out, in some cases – in Egypt, for example – actually re-infantalising their people to yet again love deep state dictators and brutal cops and generals with governessy eagles on their cap badges. Perhaps Saudi Arabia is a revolution still to come. I have always thought that the day the royal princes started locking each other up might be the beginning of the end of the Kingdom. But there is precious little reason to find any optimism across the smashed and rubbleised landscape of the Middle East. [Read More]
Another Coup in Honduras?
Is the Honduran Election Being Stolen Eight Years After U.S.-Backed Coup?
By Sonali Kolhatkar, TruthDig [November 30, 2017]
---- Eight years after a U.S.-backed coup overthrew the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, a new election, held Sunday, offered hope for a fresh political chapter. According to early results released by the Honduran electoral tribunal on Monday, former sportscaster and television reporter Salvador Nasralla had, surprisingly, taken the lead in the presidential vote. With about 60 percent of the votes counted at the time, Nasralla hovered five points above incumbent Juan Orlando Hernández of the right-wing National Party. This lead has disappeared, according to the latest results, but Nasralla's stunning showing nonetheless demonstrates that Hondurans are ready to rise up against an era marked by corruption, violence and dictatorship in the post-coup years. … Hillary Clinton, who was U.S. secretary of state at the time of the Honduras coup, last year defended the military's removal of President Zelaya during her presidential campaign. "The national legislature in Honduras and the national judiciary actually followed the law in removing President Zelaya," Clinton said, going on to reaffirm her position of allowing U.S. aid to flow to the post-coup regime—a regime that was marked by rampant violence against human rights activists, journalists and others. The most high-profile victim of the U.S.-backed post-coup government in Honduras is Berta Cáceres, the famed prize-winning indigenous environmental activist who was brutally murdered in March 2016. [Read More]
Also interesting/useful on (maybe) the next coup in Honduras – Elisabeth Malkin, "Honduras Declares Curfew as Protests Over Vote Count Continue," [Link]; Jonathan Blitzer, "A U.S. Ally Says He Won Honduras's Presidential Election. Hondurans Aren't So Sure," The New Yorker [November 29, 2017] [Link]; and Justin Raimondo, "How Hillary Clinton Screwed Honduran Democracy," [Link].
WAR & PEACE
There are no precise air strikes
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent [UK] [December 2, 2017]
---- The final elimination of Isis in Iraq and Syria is close, but welcome though the defeat of these monstrous movements may be, it has only been achieved at the cost of great destruction and loss of life. This is the new face of war which governments try to conceal: a limited number of combat troops on the ground call in devastating air strikes from planes, missiles and drones, be they American or Russian, to clear the way for their advance. Governments pretend that air wars today are very different from Vietnam half a century ago when towns were notoriously "destroyed in order to save them". These days air forces – be it the Americans in Iraq, the Russians in Syria or the Saudis in Yemen – say that this mass destruction no longer happens thanks to the greater accuracy of their weapons: using a single sniper, a room in a house can supposedly be hit without harming a family crouching in terror in the room next door.
---- The final elimination of Isis in Iraq and Syria is close, but welcome though the defeat of these monstrous movements may be, it has only been achieved at the cost of great destruction and loss of life. This is the new face of war which governments try to conceal: a limited number of combat troops on the ground call in devastating air strikes from planes, missiles and drones, be they American or Russian, to clear the way for their advance. Governments pretend that air wars today are very different from Vietnam half a century ago when towns were notoriously "destroyed in order to save them". These days air forces – be it the Americans in Iraq, the Russians in Syria or the Saudis in Yemen – say that this mass destruction no longer happens thanks to the greater accuracy of their weapons: using a single sniper, a room in a house can supposedly be hit without harming a family crouching in terror in the room next door.
The sale of vastly expensive high precision weapons to countries such as Saudi Arabia is even justified as a humanitarian measure aimed at reducing civilian casualties. The PR has changed but not the reality. [Read More] For more on the Empire's weapon of choice: Matt Taibibi, "New Drone Strikes Underscore, Again, How Much Power We Give Trump," Rolling Stone [November 2017] [Link].
Lawmakers Are Scrambling To Prevent Trump from Launching a Nuclear War
December 1, 2017]
---- Former National Security Council Director Peter Feaver recently told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "even a single nuclear detonation" could "trigger an escalatory spiral that would lead to civilization-threatening outcomes." Two days later, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) introduced a bill that could therefore save civilization. The entirety of the No First Use bill reads: "It is the policy of the United States to not use nuclear weapons first." The risk of nuclear war is at an all-time high, according to Former US Secretary of Defense William Perry and expert Scott Sagan. Smith's bill could be one of the most effective ways to mitigate that risk. It would substantially reduce the likelihood that either the US or North Korea would start a war, whether through a premeditated attack or as a result of miscalculation. [Read More]
If Tillerson's Out, is Iran War In? An Interview with Trita Parsi
From The Real News [December 1, 2017]
---- It's The Real News. I'm Aaron Maté. The White House is reportedly planning a major cabinet shakeup that has strong implications for the world. According to reports, the White House is seeking to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and install in his place CIA Director Mike Pompeo. To replace Pompeo at the CIA, the White House is reportedly planning to install Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican of Arkansas. Now, both Pompeo and Cotton have many things in common, including an avowed disdain for Iran and the Iran Nuclear Deal. My next guest argues that, together, Trump, Pompeo, and Cotton are a recipe for war on Iran. Trita Parsi is President of the National Iranian American Council and author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy. Trita, welcome. Your response to this news, it was in The New York Times today, confirmed later on by The Washington Post of this major cabinet shakeup with Tillerson out today. [Read More] For more speculation on what's going on, see (Video) "Is Trump Plan to Replace Rex Tillerson a Push for More U.S. Aggression Toward Iran, North Korea?" from Democracy Now! [December 1, 2017] [Link]; and read "White House Plans Tillerson Ouster From State Dept., to Be Replaced by Pompeo," [Link].
---- It's The Real News. I'm Aaron Maté. The White House is reportedly planning a major cabinet shakeup that has strong implications for the world. According to reports, the White House is seeking to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and install in his place CIA Director Mike Pompeo. To replace Pompeo at the CIA, the White House is reportedly planning to install Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican of Arkansas. Now, both Pompeo and Cotton have many things in common, including an avowed disdain for Iran and the Iran Nuclear Deal. My next guest argues that, together, Trump, Pompeo, and Cotton are a recipe for war on Iran. Trita Parsi is President of the National Iranian American Council and author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy. Trita, welcome. Your response to this news, it was in The New York Times today, confirmed later on by The Washington Post of this major cabinet shakeup with Tillerson out today. [Read More] For more speculation on what's going on, see (Video) "Is Trump Plan to Replace Rex Tillerson a Push for More U.S. Aggression Toward Iran, North Korea?" from Democracy Now! [December 1, 2017] [Link]; and read "White House Plans Tillerson Ouster From State Dept., to Be Replaced by Pompeo," [Link].
The War in Yemen
Yemen's dangerous war
By Laurent Bonnefoy, Le Monde diplomatique [Fr.] [November 30, 2017]
---- Yemen has been engulfed in civil, and regional, war since September 2014; in the West it is often called a hidden or forgotten war, being so far from the minds of the major powers and media. The war has led to a severe humanitarian crisis, with the biggest ever cholera epidemic (nearly a million suspected cases since March 2017 according to the Red Cross) and a famine that threatens 70% of Yemen's 30 million people. All this seems barely to touch our consciences. The heavy human toll — now higher than the 10,000 victims, half of them thought to be civilians, estimated by the UN in January 2017 — has failed to put enough pressure on the belligerents to halt the fighting, in a war driven by regional actors … The laissez-faire attitude of the major powers shows a deep contempt for Yemenis and a refusal to understand the underlying motives of a conflict with consequences far beyond the country's borders. The world's lack of interest in this conflict suggests that it is regarded as just another low-intensity backwater conflict, yet Yemen is at the heart of critical issues that it would be foolish to ignore. [Read More]
Yemen: Today's Guernica
Counterpunch [November 30, 2017]
---- On the market day of April 26, 1937, at the bequest of General Francisco Franco, a bombing of the Basque town of Guernica took place. It was carried out by Spain's nationalistic government allies, the Nazi German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria. The attack, under the code name Operation Rügen, in which hundreds of people died, became a rallying cry against the brutal killing of innocent civilians. 80 years later, however, an even more criminal action is carried out against Yemeni civilians mainly by Saudi Arabia, with the complicity of the United States. The Yemeni civil war began in 2015 between two factions that claim to represent the Yemeni government. Houthi soldiers allied with forces loyal to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, clashed with forces loyal to the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. A coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched military operations against the Houthis, and the U.S. provided logistical and military support for the campaign.[Read More]
Also useful/depressing about the Yemen War – Tom Miles, "U.N. aid chief appeals for full lifting of Yemen blockade," Reuters [December 2, 2017] [Link]; Rick Gladstone, "Ravaged by Cholera, Yemen Faces 2nd Preventable Scourge: Diphtheria," [Link]; Colum Lynch and Dan De Luce, "With Saudi Blockade Threatening Famine in Yemen, U.S. Points Finger at Iran," Foreign Policy [November 22, 2017] [Link]; Paul R. Pillar, "Misusing Intelligence to Sell Conflict with Iran," The National Interest [November 30, 2017] [Link]; and Thomas Juneau, "No, Yemen's Houthis actually aren't Iranian puppets," [Link].
The US Invasion of Africa
Strong Evidence that U.S. Special Operations Forces Massacred Civilians in Somalia
By Christina Goldbaum, The Daily Beast [November 29, 2017]
---- The U.S.-led operation on Aug. 25 would result in the death of 10 civilians, including at least one child, and become the largest stain on U.S. ground operations in the country since the infamous Black Hawk Down incident in 1993. In the operation's aftermath, hundreds of people in the nearby town Afgoye flooded the city's streets demanding justice for those killed, and survivors on the farm refused to bury their dead until the Somali government recanted its allegations that they were members Al Shabaab, and offered an apology. … The details that emerged paint a damning picture of at least one U.S. ground operation in the African nation. This includes U.S. Special Operators firing upon unarmed civilians, using human intelligence from sources widely considered untrustworthy to Somalis in the region as well as government officials, and instructing their Somali counterparts to collect weapons that were being stored inside a home—not displaced on the field in the course of the firefight—and placing them beside the bodies of those killed prior to photographing them. In the aftermath of the incident, according to our sources, American diplomats also pressured the Somali government to bury the unfavorable findings of a Somali Federal Government-led investigation. [Read More] For more on the invasion of Africa, read "Niger Approves Armed U.S. Drone Flights, Expanding Pentagon's Role in Africa," [Link].
Mass Media Tutorial
Media Erase NATO Role in Bringing Slave Markets to Libya
By Ben Norton, FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in the Media] [November 28, 2017]
---- Twenty-first century slave markets. Human beings sold for a few hundred dollars. Massive protests throughout the world. The American and British media have awakened to the grim reality in Libya, where African refugees are for sale in open-air slave markets. Yet a crucial detail in this scandal has been downplayed or even ignored in many corporate media reports: the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in bringing slavery to the North African nation. … In the six years since [2011], Libya has been roiled by chaos and bloodshed. Multiple would-be governments are competing for control of the oil-rich country, and in some areas there is still no functioning central authority. Many thousands of people have died, although the true numbers are impossible to verify. Millions of Libyans have been displaced—a staggering number, nearly one-third of the population, had fled to neighboring Tunisia by 2014. Corporate media, however, have largely forgotten about the key role NATO played in destroying Libya's government, destabilizing the country and empowering human traffickers. Moreover, even the few news reports that do acknowledge NATO's complicity in the chaos in Libya do not go a step further and detail the well-documented, violent racism of the NATO-backed Libyan rebels who ushered in slavery after ethnically cleansing and committing brutal crimes against black Libyans. [Read More]
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE BREAKDOWN
The Politics of Climate Change Need to Be Anti-Elitist
By Kate Aronoff, The Intercept [
---- The common threads linking the West's disparate and ascendant right populism aren't too hard to parse: xenophobia, an aversion to so-called globalism, and a sense of loss rooted — for the most part — in the real or imagined economic fears of an increasingly precarious middle class. Populists on the right have some common ground with those on the left, especially when it comes to a rejection of the elites. Trump is an elite, of course, but as a candidate, he cast himself as the ultimate outsider, a straight-talking businessperson who would drain the swamp of career politicians. While Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have taken aim at Wall Street and rising inequality, Trump and Le Pen have targeted globalists and scapegoated immigrants. In such a context, having some of the most visible faces of the climate fight be a handful of Davos-frequenting 1-percenters — almost universally housed in coastal cities — presents some obvious challenges. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren Propose $146 Billion "Marshall Plan" for Puerto Rico
By Aída Chávez, The Intercept [November 28, 2017]
---- Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday unveiled a massive $146 billion "Marshall Plan" for Puerto Rico with several other senators. The plan includes immediate relief for the island's cash-strapped government, billions more for economic development, renewable energy, and Medicaid and Medicare parity, a key priority for the island. "More than two months after Hurricanes Irma and Maria struck Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, half of the people there — American citizens all — still have no electricity," Sanders said at a press conference Tuesday morning. "Many are struggling to get clean drinking water, and more than 100,000 people have left Puerto Rico alone. This is not acceptable, and we are here today to tell the people of Puerto Rico and tell the people of the Virgin Islands that they are not forgotten, they are not alone, and that we intend to do everything possible to rebuild those beautiful islands." The far-reaching legislation would grant $62 billion to the governments of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, $27 billion to renovate infrastructure, and $13 billion in additional Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to rebuild the electric grid "with more modern, resilient technologies," instead of the Stafford Act's requirements that the grid be restored to its condition before the storms, according to a summary of the bill from Sanders's office. [Read More] For more on this proposal: "Bernie Sanders Unveils Massive Puerto Rico Reconstruction Bill," Huffington Post [November 2017] [Link]; and "Sanders pushes Marshall Plan, Renewables, for Puerto Rico as Trump tries to Lower own Taxes," Informed Comment [November 29, 2017] [Link]
The urgent need for the New Poor People's Campaign
December 1, 2017]
-- Date that Bishop William Barber of North Carolina's Moral Movement, Dr. Liz Theoharis of the Kairos Center and its Poverty Initiative, and other clergy and organizers will visit Washington, D.C., to announce the launch of the New Poor People's Campaign, an anti-poverty effort involving nonviolent civil disobedience in state capitals nationwide: 12/4/2017
-- Number of years before to the day that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. announced the original Poor People's Campaign at an Atlanta press conference, warning of "the presence of a kind of social insanity which could lead to national ruin": 50
-- Number of people the first campaign mobilized to travel to Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1968 to petition the government for an Economic Bill of Rights, which was never passed: 3,000 [FB – And much more.] [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
A Wary Response, So Far, on Trump's Expected Recognition of Jerusalem
---- There were warnings of a new Palestinian uprising and calls for protests at United States embassies, dire predictions that hopes for peace would be dashed irretrievably — and expressions of relief from Israelis who have waited a half-century for the world to remove the asterisk next to this city's name. … of all the issues that have defied resolution despite decades of talks between Palestinians and Israelis, the final status of Jerusalem — with its sites holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, and warring claims dating back to the Crusades and the Romans — has been uniquely nettlesome. The United States has taken pains to refrain from recognizing the Holy City as Israel's capital precisely to avoid being seen as prejudging the outcome of peace talks, in which Palestinians seek to make East Jerusalem the seat of their eventual government. Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee, said dispensing with that longstanding reticence would reveal the United States as "so incredibly one-sided and biased" that it "would be the total annihilation of any chances of peace, or any American role in peacemaking." [Read More] And looking ahead, "Hamas Calls for 'Intifada' Should US Deem Jerusalem Israel's Capital," from TeleSur [December 3, 2017] [Link].
Also interesting/useful on USA/Israel/Palestine – Grant Smith, "Poll: Americans Oppose the 'Anti-Semitism Awareness Act'," [Link]; and Zaid Jilani, "In an Unprecedented Move, 10 Democratic Senators Demand That Netanyahu Halt Israel Demolition of Palestinian Village," The Intercept [November 29, 2017] [Link].
OUR HISTORY
A Short History of American Empire
By Jeff Faux, Dissent Magazine [November 28, 2017]
[FB – This is a review of The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire, a new book by Stephen Kinzer.]
---- The story we tell ourselves, of course, is that we are the guardians of the peace, besieged by forces of evil that hate us because of our unique national virtues of freedom, tolerance, and democracy. The possibility that we are being attacked here—in San Bernardino, Orlando, or Boston—because we are bombing there—in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Yemen—lies beyond the current intellectual capacity of our public discourse. Yet, what word better than "empire" describes America's role among nations? We have at least 800 acknowledged military installations around the world, the most extensive imperium in history. In 2016, U.S. Special Operations forces—commandos, Navy Seals, Green Berets—were deployed in 138 countries. In many foreign capitals, the most important figure is the U.S. ambassador. We are the globe's biggest military spenders by far, and sell as many weapons of war as the rest of the world's arms traffickers combined. … Roosevelt's most prominent antagonist was Mark Twain, whose wit and satire made him the most popular American personality of the age. Like the founders of the Republic, Twain thought America's role in the family of nations was to inspire others to democracy by perfecting it at home. He dismissed the "white man's burden" as sheer hypocrisy, and sympathized with the efforts of people in Asia and Africa to free themselves from colonial rule. [Read More]
---- The story we tell ourselves, of course, is that we are the guardians of the peace, besieged by forces of evil that hate us because of our unique national virtues of freedom, tolerance, and democracy. The possibility that we are being attacked here—in San Bernardino, Orlando, or Boston—because we are bombing there—in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Yemen—lies beyond the current intellectual capacity of our public discourse. Yet, what word better than "empire" describes America's role among nations? We have at least 800 acknowledged military installations around the world, the most extensive imperium in history. In 2016, U.S. Special Operations forces—commandos, Navy Seals, Green Berets—were deployed in 138 countries. In many foreign capitals, the most important figure is the U.S. ambassador. We are the globe's biggest military spenders by far, and sell as many weapons of war as the rest of the world's arms traffickers combined. … Roosevelt's most prominent antagonist was Mark Twain, whose wit and satire made him the most popular American personality of the age. Like the founders of the Republic, Twain thought America's role in the family of nations was to inspire others to democracy by perfecting it at home. He dismissed the "white man's burden" as sheer hypocrisy, and sympathized with the efforts of people in Asia and Africa to free themselves from colonial rule. [Read More]
