Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
December 24, 2017
Hello All – A few minutes ago, the on-line New York Times updated its front page with the chilling news that "for the new year, Republican leaders in the House have their sights on decades-old programs for the poor that they say are too easily exploited by those who do not need them." Republican House leader Paul Ryan has told his party that his priority for 2018 is "welfare reform." And in the years to come, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will be the go-to places to find money to fill the yawning budget gaps that will inevitably result from the recently passed Tax Reform law.
What will we do about this? What will the Democrats do? What will the post-election "Resistance" do? I think the take-away lesson from the attempt to block the Tax Reform legislation is that We the People are on our own. During the past months, expert testimony from zillions of economists had zero effect on the determination of the Republican majority to reward the Very Wealthy of this land, thanking them for their financial support in the past election. Nor did dial-a-prayer phone calls to "wavering" Republican Senators produce any results. Yet even though stymied on the floors of Congress, the Democrats did not even consider calling on the People of This Land to rise up, to demonstrate, to gather at their state capitols in protest, or to otherwise display anger. Nor did We the People do this on our own. We did not make much of an effort to break out of the two-party box, or to take our dissent to the streets. We watched in anguish, but scarcely moved a muscle.
When the Republicans begin their attacks on "entitlements," – the social safety net that every modern country in the world has as a matter of course -- we can't remain passive. We can't allow a repeat of the Tax Reform debacle. There is and will be too much at stake to do politics as usual, to hope that "moderate Republicans" from some gerrymandered Midwestern or Upstate backwater will be influenced by logic and humanitarian impulses. The lesson of the Tax Reform is that our country is now under the dictatorship of the Very Wealthy, who view the "little people" as a problem to be managed, rather than as fellow citizens, or as people who have as much of a right to live a good life as they do. If we don't scare them, we won't move them.
Let us hope that "the Resistance" of 2017 will be worthy of its name, and that we will find new and effective ways to protest the economic terror being waged against us. We really don't have a choice.
News Notes
Almost a year ago, on Trump's inauguration day, about 200 protesters were arrested and charged with heavy crimes. Most of them were simply "kettled"; cornered and surrounded and arrested as a group and charged with conspiracy and felonious badness. On Thursday, a jury acquitted the first six defendants, essentially rejecting the government's claim that being at a protest was in itself a crime. For a lively account of the protest and the trial by one of the freed defendants, "stoked" live-streamer Alexei Wood, see this fun Democracy Now! segment.
I found this photo essay/story extraordinary. Jakarta, Indonesia – the world's second largest city – is literally sinking below sea level. Moreover, its government seems so dysfunctional that practical steps towards survival appear inconceivable. Is this a metaphor for the 21st century? Read about it here.
According to this NPR report, the number of cholera cases in Yemen has passed one million. The main reason for this health disaster is the war and blockade waged against Yemen by Saudi Arabia. That the US is supporting this horror is a) beyond belief; or b) consistent with its role as a vast terror-state.
Of great interest and a spark of hope is the spectacular growth of the Democratic Socialists of America. Since Trump's election a year ago, about 24,000 people, mostly young, have joined DSA. This very interesting article gives a good assessment of the organization's activities and broad range of views.
Reporting about the opioid epidemic has focused on its entrenchment is depressed white communities, especially in Appalachia. This useful article describes the spread of the crisis into black America. In the aged of failed neo-liberalism, despair knows no color.
Coming Attractions/Things to Do
Saturday, December 30th – Please join us for CFOW's annual Holiday Party. We will gather at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 2 to 5 p.m. Bring a snack or something to eat/drink to share. We have hopes that a contingent of Raging Grannies will attend to lead us in song. Everyone welcome!
Thursday, January 4th - The CFOW Facebook page is often adorned with the pictures of Erik R. McGregor, whom we got to know during the fight against the Spectra pipeline, and who seems to be everywhere that there is a protest or demonstration. He will be presenting and discussing his work on at the Municipal Archives, 31 Chambers St. in NYC, from 6 to 8 p.m. For more information, go here.
Ongoing – Each year Katha Pollitt of The Nation posts a list of a dozen peace-and-justice organizations to which you might wish to make an end-of-the-year donation. Among them this year is the Afghan Women's Fund, for which CFOW organized a fund-raiser quite a few years ago, and which is still on the ground in Afghanistan, organizing schools and literacy programs. Another suggestion for donations is Resist, now in its 50th year. Resist pools small donations and makes grants (more than 8,000 so far) to small, grassroots organizations. Check it out.
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 essays on the stolen Honduras election; the article by Stephen Cohen about US military threats toward Russia and the several articles about the irrational and dangerous course initiated by "Russia-gate"; updates on the war crimes underway in Yemen; a good set of articles on the likely consequences of the Tax Law; and some useful articles on Trump's "recognition" of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and the consequent international isolation of the US in the UN.
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 Christmas approaches it's time to remember a great moment in peace-making, the "Christmas Truce" of 1914. After months of fighting, with many thousands of deaths in what was to be history's most stupid war, German and British troops met in "no man's land" on Christmas Eve. A few years ago, CFOW stalwart George MacAnanama and the Veterans for Peace organized a program at the Cooper Union, attended by many of us, at which folk singer John McCutcheon performed his Christmas in the Trenches. It's special; enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
Forget Coates vs. West — We All Have a Duty to Confront the Full Reach of U.S. Empire
By Naomi Klein and Opal Tometi, The Intercept [December 23, 2017
---- …Ever since Cornel West published his piece in The Guardian challenging Ta-Nehisi Coates, an article you either regard as an outrageous injustice or an earth-shattering truth bomb, depending on which team you have chosen. We see it differently. We see this debate as a political opportunity, one that has far less to do with either of these brilliant men and everything to do with how, at a time of unfathomably high stakes, we are going to build a multiracial human rights movement capable of beating back surging white supremacy and rapidly concentrating corporate power. As women, both Black and white, both American and Canadian, we see the question like this: What are the duties of radicals and progressives inside relatively wealthy countries to the world beyond our national borders? A warming world wracked by expanding and unending wars that our governments wage, finance, and arm — a world scarred by unbearable poverty and forced migration? … …Which is why it's high time to change the subject from West vs. Coates, and begin the much more salient debate about what we all can do to rediscover the power of a genuinely internationalist, anti-imperialist worldview. A power that our movement ancestors well understood. [Read More] Also of interest is this Laura Flanders interview, "Trump Embodies the Crisis of Capitalism: A Conversation With Naomi Klein," Truthout [December 23, 2017] [Link].
The Truth About Power and Capitalism: A Socialist Response to the Tax Bill
---- The limitation of "speaking truth to power" is and always was that it risks leaving us with the truth and them with the power. In today's world, the GOP, Trump and the corporate leaders who sustain them have the power to treat truths as so much "fake news" or simply to ignore them as they push their agendas. For the truth to become socially effective, it needs an alliance with an oppositional power able and willing to contest the ruling power. … The Democrats as a party currently do little more than speak their truth to GOP power. They do not act as or collaborate with or try to build a real social opposition. As far as the party goes, there are no demonstrations, no mass mobilizations: The Democrats vote and lose and make weak speeches to ever-smaller audiences. Democrats seem to fear losing major donations and donors were they to mount real opposition. The primary loyalty of major donors is to the capitalist system that undergirds their social position. This or that form of capitalism is of much less importance. The GOP gets this, too. Both parties now pander to the same donors; they have become, more than before, two wings of a party unified in its devotion to capitalism. [Read More]
Ahed Tamimi Has Become the Symbol of a New Generation of Palestinian Resistance
By Ben Ehrenreich, The Nation [December 24, 2017]
---- Ahed Tamimi was 11 when I met her, a little blond slip of a thing, her hair almost bigger than she was. I remember her grimacing as her mother combed out the knots each morning in their living room. The second time I went to a demonstration in Nabi Saleh, the West Bank village where she lives, Ahed and her cousin Marah ended up leading the march. Not because they wanted to, but because Israeli Border Police were chasing everyone, and shouting and throwing stun grenades, and she and Marah ran ahead of the crowd. That's how it's been ever since. The Israeli military keeps pushing—into the village, into the yard, into the house, beneath the flesh and into the skulls and tissue and bones of her family and her friends—and Ahed ends up out in front, where everyone can see her. She was there again last week after a video of her slapping an Israeli soldier went viral. I can assure you it's not where she wants to be. She would rather be with her friends, on their phones, doing the things that teenagers do. She would rather be a kid than a hero. [Read More]
Ahed Tamimi's action/arrest has generated many interesting comments – Simone Zimmerman, "At 16, Israel promised me freedom. Why does it deny it to Ahed Tamimi?" +972 Magazine [Israel] [December 21, 2017] [Link]; Hossam Shaker, "Ahed Tamimi: The symbol of the new defiant Palestinian generation," Middle East Monitor [December 22, 2017] [Link]; and Amira Haas, "Behind the Palestinian Girl-slaps-soldier Incident: Her Teenage Relative Was Shot in the Head," Haaretz [Israel] [December 20, 2017] http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page//1.830214
Who Cares? Not Them, Not It, Not Him, Not (Evidently) Us
By Tom Engelhardt, Tom Dispatch [December 21, 2017]
By Tom Engelhardt, Tom Dispatch [December 21, 2017]
---- We're all now immersed in an evolving Trumpocalypse. In a sense, we were there even before The Donald entered the Oval Office. Just consider what it meant to elect a visibly disturbed human being to the highest office of the most powerful, potentially destructive nation on Earth. What does that tell you? One possibility: Given the near-majority of American voters who sent him to the White House, by campaign 2016 we were already living in a deeply disturbed country. And considering the coming of 1 percent elections, the growth of plutocracy, the blooming of a new Gilded Age whose wealth disparities must already be competitive with its 19th-century predecessor, the rise of the national-security state, our endless wars (now turning "generational"), the increasing militarization of this country, and the demobilization of its people, to mention only a few 21st-century American developments, that should hardly be surprising. [Read More]
The Crisis in Honduras
The Election Fraud in Honduras Follows Decades of Corruption Funded By the U.S. War on Drugs
By Danielle Marie Mackey, The Intercept [
[FB – This is another amazing article by amazing journalist Danielle Mackey. Check it out.]
---- On December 17, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal officially crowned Hernández president-elect. That night, the delegation of election observers from the Organization of American States recommended the results be scrapped and that a new election be held. Despite increasing calls from U.S. senators to support the OAS verdict, on December 20 a senior State Department official said that unless presented with additional evidence of fraud, the U.S. government has "not seen anything that alters the final result." Two days later, the State Department sealed Honduras' fate, congratulating President Hernández on his victory, prescribing a "robust national dialogue" to "heal the political divide," and advising those who claim fraud to recur to Honduran law. The Department ended its statement by calling upon Hondurans to refrain from violence. [Read More]
Also useful/illuminating on the thwarting of democracy in Honduras – Vijay Prashad, "About That Stolen Election in Honduras," AlterNet [December 19, 2017] [Link]; and Jeff Abbott, "Youth mobilization challenges election fraud in Honduras," Waging Nonviolence [December 22, 2017] [Link]. On Friday, the United States "recognized" the stolen election as valid [Link], and (presumably to prevent violence) the opposition conceded [Link].
The Crisis in Catalonia/Spain
What is Happening in Catalonia and Spain?
By Vicente Navarro, Counterpunch [December 21, 2017]
---- A very important development occurring in Spain and in Catalonia has not been covered by the media. It is the Indignados movement (clearly inspired by the Arab Spring) that mobilized millions of people against the political establishment. Their slogan, "they do not represent us," became very popular, and the movement has created new left-wing forces in many parts of Spain: in Madrid (Podemos), in Galicia (Mareas), and in Catalonia (en Comun). Along with a renewal of leadership of the traditional left party (IU), these left-wing parties have established a new political formation, Unidos Podemos (UP), which in a very short period of time (three years) has become the second largest political formation in the opposition and already governs in some of the most important cities in Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Coruña, Cadiz, etc.). In Catalonia, it has won the last two elections in the Spanish parliamentary elections. It has been a political tsunami and has created an enormous hostility from the major media and the political establishment. This alliance is against the law 155 and against independence. It calls for a plurinational state and for the right of self-determination of the different nations of Spain. It is a new development that is changing the political climate in Spain as a response to people's rejection of the highly repressive Spanish State against Catalonia, side by side with a demand for recognition of the plurinational nature of Spain. We will see what will happen next. [Read More] Also of interest is this Democracy Now! Segment:
---- A very important development occurring in Spain and in Catalonia has not been covered by the media. It is the Indignados movement (clearly inspired by the Arab Spring) that mobilized millions of people against the political establishment. Their slogan, "they do not represent us," became very popular, and the movement has created new left-wing forces in many parts of Spain: in Madrid (Podemos), in Galicia (Mareas), and in Catalonia (en Comun). Along with a renewal of leadership of the traditional left party (IU), these left-wing parties have established a new political formation, Unidos Podemos (UP), which in a very short period of time (three years) has become the second largest political formation in the opposition and already governs in some of the most important cities in Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Coruña, Cadiz, etc.). In Catalonia, it has won the last two elections in the Spanish parliamentary elections. It has been a political tsunami and has created an enormous hostility from the major media and the political establishment. This alliance is against the law 155 and against independence. It calls for a plurinational state and for the right of self-determination of the different nations of Spain. It is a new development that is changing the political climate in Spain as a response to people's rejection of the highly repressive Spanish State against Catalonia, side by side with a demand for recognition of the plurinational nature of Spain. We will see what will happen next. [Read More] Also of interest is this Democracy Now! Segment:
(Video) "Catalan Separatists Win Electoral Majority,"[December 22, 2017] [Link].
WAR & PEACE
Why Russians Think 'America Is Waging War Against Russia'
By Stephen F. Cohen, The Nation [December 20, 2017]
---- The most central, ramifying, and dangerous allegation of Russiagate is that "Russian attacked American democracy" during the 2016 presidential election. After 18 months, there is still no credible evidence for this allegation. On the other hand, many Russians—in the policy elite, the educated middle class, and ordinary citizens—believe that "the United States has been at war with Russia" for 25 years, a perception regularly expressed in the Russian media. They believe this for understandable reasons. … Above all, Russians consider the history of US policy toward post-Soviet Russia since the early 1990s, enacted by both Democrats and Republicans, particularly major episodes that they perceive as war-like and as including acts of "betrayal and deceit" in the form of promises and assurances made to Moscow by Washington and subsequently violated. Cohen briefly itemizes the main examples: [Read More] Also of great interest is Andrew J. Bacevich, "When Washington Assured Russia NATO Would Not Expand," December 20, 2017] [Link].
Did Obama Arm Islamic State Killers?
By Daniel Lazare, Consortium News [December 21, 2017]
---- Did Barack Obama arm ISIS? The question strikes many people as absurd, if not offensive. How can anyone suggest something so awful about a nice guy like the former president? But a stunning report by an investigative group known as Conflict Armament Research (CAR) leaves us little choice but to conclude that he did. CAR, based in London and funded by Switzerland and the European Union, spent three years tracing the origin of some 40,000 pieces of captured ISIS arms and ammunition. Its findings, made public last week, are that much of it originated in former Warsaw Pact nations in Eastern Europe, where it was purchased by United States and Saudi Arabia and then diverted, in violation of various rules and treaties, to Islamist rebels seeking to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The rebels, in turn, somehow caused or allowed the equipment to be passed on to Islamic State, which is also known by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL, or just the abbreviation IS. This is damning stuff since it makes it clear that rather than fighting ISIS, the U.S. government was feeding it. [Read More]
The Saudi-US War in Yemen
Let Yemenis Live
By Kathy Kelly, Waging Nonviolence [December 23, 2017]
---- On May 2, 2017, before becoming Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, as Minister of Defense, spoke about the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen, a war he orchestrated since March of 2015. "A long war is in our interest," he said, explaining that the Houthi rebels would eventually run out of cash, lack external supplies and break apart. Conversely, the Saudis could count on a steady flow of cash and weapons. "Time is on our side," he concluded. Powerful people in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Sudan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Morocco, Senegal and Jordan have colluded with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince to prolong the war against Yemen. The Saudis have employed Sudanese fighters from the terrifying Janjaweed militias to fight in small cities along Yemen's coast line. The seeming objective is to gain ground control leading to the vital Port of Hodeidah. UAE military are reported to operate a network of secret prisons where Yemenis disappear and are tortured, deterring people from speaking up about human rights violations lest they land in one of these dreaded prisons. Among the most powerful warlords participating in the war are the U.S. and the UK. [Read More]
---- On May 2, 2017, before becoming Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, as Minister of Defense, spoke about the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen, a war he orchestrated since March of 2015. "A long war is in our interest," he said, explaining that the Houthi rebels would eventually run out of cash, lack external supplies and break apart. Conversely, the Saudis could count on a steady flow of cash and weapons. "Time is on our side," he concluded. Powerful people in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Sudan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Morocco, Senegal and Jordan have colluded with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince to prolong the war against Yemen. The Saudis have employed Sudanese fighters from the terrifying Janjaweed militias to fight in small cities along Yemen's coast line. The seeming objective is to gain ground control leading to the vital Port of Hodeidah. UAE military are reported to operate a network of secret prisons where Yemenis disappear and are tortured, deterring people from speaking up about human rights violations lest they land in one of these dreaded prisons. Among the most powerful warlords participating in the war are the U.S. and the UK. [Read More]
Also useful/illuminating on the war in Yemen – "Trump's Pentagon Admits to 'Multiple Ground Missions' in Yemen," from TeleSur [December 22, 2017] [Link]; "How the Saudi Blockade Is Starving Yemen," New York Times [December 19, 2017] [Link]; and "Yemen's War Enters a Dark Stage as Rebels Squeeze the Capital," New York Times [Link].
"Russia-gate and the American political crisis
The Abyss Between Russian and US Media Just Got Wider
By Nadezhda Azhgikhina, The Nation [December 22, 2017]
---- Russiagate managed in a few months to strike a much stronger blow against the prospects of improving relations than all the years of the Cold War and the arms race together. The mutual trust of the elites is gone. The rules of the game, once reliably observed, have been violated. The worst part is that trust is lost between the people and the intellectuals of both countries. There is another danger that has not been fully comprehended—the basic theses that provided the necessity and possibility of dialogue have been put into doubt. The hybrid war that mixes truth and fake, interpretation and fact, vileness and virtue is a fight without rules in a dark room. One can now say to an audience of millions what until recently was considered unthinkable. The concepts of decency and measure have been cast aside. The battlefield belongs to moral marauders. No one believes anyone anymore. [Read More] Also very interesting is Aaron Maté, "More Media Malpractice in Russiagate," The Nation [December 21, 2017] [Link].
The Democratic Money Behind Russia-gate
By Joe Lauria, Consortium News [October 29, 2017]
---- The two sources that originated the allegations claiming that Russia meddled in the 2016 election — without providing convincing evidence — were both paid for by the Democratic National Committee, and in one instance also by the Clinton campaign: the Steele dossier and the CrowdStrike analysis of the DNC servers. Think about that for a minute. We have long known that the DNC did not allow the FBI to examine its computer server for clues about who may have hacked it – or even if it was hacked – and instead turned to CrowdStrike, a private company co-founded by a virulently anti-Putin Russian. Within a day, CrowdStrike blamed Russia on dubious evidence. … In other words, possibly all of the Russia-gate allegations, which have been taken on faith by Democratic partisans and members of the anti-Trump Resistance, trace back to claims paid for or generated by Democrats. [Read More]
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE BREAKDOWN
Is it Too Late to Restore Our Relationship to Earth in the New Year?
By David Korten, Yes! Magazine [December 24, 2017]
---- According to the Ecological Footprint Network, humans currently consume at a rate 1.7 times what Earth's generative capacity can sustain—and the gap is growing. To have a viable human future on this overstressed planet, it is essential that we build a solidarity economy that seeks material sufficiency and spiritual abundance for all in balance with a living Earth. We must join in common cause to build local relationships of caring and equitable sharing across the lines of race, religion, and class. Strong and healthy local relationships, however, are only one element of the larger economic transformation required to rebalance our relationship to Earth and achieve a radical redistribution of access to and control of the essentials of living. … We all depend on the health and productivity of living Earth systems that none among us created. We earn our right to use them by fulfilling our responsibility to care for and restore them to full health and productivity. No one has a right to more than they need so long as others' needs go unmet. Here are some of the actions required to simultaneously restore human–Earth balance and redistribute the human share of Earth's wealth. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Militarized Police and the Psychological Impact on the Black Community
From The Brian Lehrer Show [December 2017]
---- When community members protested the death of Alton Sterling, who was shot in close range by Baton Rouge Police Department officers, they were met with brutality from the police and long lasting trauma. As police forces all over the country grow increasingly militarized many in the black community all over the country are still dealing with the psychological trauma encounters with the police have left them, reports Collier Meyerson, contributing writer at The Nation, investigative fellow at Reveal and a Knobler Fellow at the Nation Institute. [Read More]
2017 Year in Review: Turning Lemons into Lemonade [the US labor movement]
By Alexandra Bradbury and Samantha Winslow, Labor Notes [December 19, 2017]
---- If there's one lesson labor can draw from the events of 2017, it's this—to survive and grow in the face of a nationally coordinated employer offensive, we'll have to use the attacks against us as organizing opportunities. Everywhere you look workers are either on the defensive or just plain getting crushed. Take anti-union "right-to-work" laws, which weaken union strength and budgets by giving workers covered by union contracts a short-term financial incentive to opt out of membership. Since Kentucky fell in January, the entire South is right-to-work. Such laws cover much of the Midwest and West too, a total of 27 states. A February law put Missouri on track to become number 28—until unionists blocked it from going into effect by collecting an astounding 310,567 signatures for repeal. The question will appear before voters on the November 2018 ballot. [Read More]
Why 41 percent of white millennials voted for Trump
, Washington Post [
---- Contrary to what some have suggested, white millennial Trump voters were not in more economically precarious situations than non-Trump voters. Fully 86 percent of them reported being employed, a rate similar to non-Trump voters; and they were 14 percent less likely to be low income than white voters who did not support Trump. Employment and income were not significantly related to that sense of white vulnerability. So what was? Racial resentment. … Many white Americans are uneasy with what they see as their future, surrounded as they are by growing racial and cultural diversity in mainstream media, politics, entertainment and music. White millennials are part of the U.S.'s most diverse generation, as so many have discussed — but not all of them are comfortable with it. Voting for Trump reveals those racial and cultural anxieties. [Read More]
The Republicans' New Tax Law
The Trojan Horse in the Tax Bill
By Bryce Covert, New York Times [December 20, 2017]
---- Now that they've succeeded in passing a tax package that will reduce government revenues so much, the ensuing cost will serve as the excuse to get everything else they want. They'll count on our short memories to forget who created larger deficits in the first place. Those deficits will serve as the motivation to enact cuts they've sought all along. The tax bill isn't just a regressive giveaway to corporations and the rich. It's a Trojan horse with deep government reductions stuffed inside. [Read More]
The GOP Tax Bill and the Crisis of American Democracy
By Richard Kim, The Nation [December 21, 2017]
---- Throwing these enablers of oligarchy out of Congress is an obvious first step, but changing the rules that put them there in the first place is the longer game. That's a frustrating conclusion, because it means a lot of hard and uncertain work in a terrain that is often as mind-numbing as tax law itself—the census, redistricting, voting rights, and campaign-finance reform. But this past week proved that there's no way around it. For among the root causes of poverty in the United States identified by [UN rapporteur Philip Alston] was the withering of democracy itself. "The foundation stone of American society," he wrote, "is being steadily undermined." "The net result is that people living in poverty, minorities, and other disfavored groups are being systematically deprived of their voting rights…and some political elites have a strong self-interest in keeping people in poverty. [Read More]
Also helpful in understanding the deeper layers of the new law – Greg Kaufmann, "The Republican Plan Isn't Just About Taxes—It's About Shredding the Safety Net," The Nation [December 19, 2017] [Link]; Thomas B. Edsall, "You Cannot Be Too Cynical About the Republican Tax Bill," New York Times [December 21, 2017] [Link]; Lee Fang and Ryan Grim, "'Game On': K Street Salivating Over Next Step in Tax Fight,," The Intercept [December 20, 2017] [Link]; and Steven Pressman, "GOP tax plan doubles down on policies that are crushing the middle class," The Conversation [December 21, 2017] [Link].
Immigrants and Refugees
(Video) DACA Recipients' Message to Democrats: Stop Playing with Our Lives, and Pass a Clean DREAM Act Now
From Democracy Now! [December 21, 2017]
---- As Congress passes a massive rewrite of the U.S. tax code that could mean the largest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in history, it is also negotiating a stopgap spending measure that will not include the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. This comes as seven young DACA recipients and one ally were released from jail Wednesday after six days in jail on hunger strike. The eight were arrested Friday during nonviolent sit-in protests inside the offices of Democratic lawmakers, demanding they commit to voting "no" on the spending bill this month unless it includes a version of the DREAM Act without concessions for funding for the border wall or enhanced border security. We are joined by Erika Andiola, one of the eight activists just released and a nationally known immigrant activist who served as a spokesperson for Bernie Sanders and helped him craft immigration policy. She is the political director for Our Revolution. She is a DACA recipient who grew up in Arizona, where her house was raided in 2013 and immigration agents picked up her mother and brother. [See the Program]
Judge Partially Lifts Trump Administration Ban on Refugees
---- A federal judge in Seattle on Saturday partially lifted a Trump administration ban on certain refugees after two groups argued that the policy prevented people from some mostly Muslim countries from reuniting with family living legally in the United States. U.S. District Judge James Robart heard arguments Thursday in lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union and Jewish Family Service, which say the ban causes irreparable harm and puts some people at risk. Government lawyers argued that the ban is needed to protect national security. Robart ordered the federal government to process certain refugee applications. He said his order applies to people "with a bona fide relationship to a person or entity within the United States." [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
At United Nations, Trump's Attack on Palestinians Rebuffed by 128 Nations
By
---- The UN General Assembly sent a message from the world to the Trump administration yesterday—and it wasn't pretty. Despite dire threats to countries voting against the United States, a huge majority of countries called Trump's bluff to condemn Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The vote was overwhelming against the U.S. position—128 countries voted to condemn, only 9 opposed, and 35 abstained. The United States, with its uncritical support of Israeli violations, has long been criticized at the UN. But Thursday's vote reflects the profound global antagonism that the Trump administration has caused and indeed embraced. And once again U.S. protection of Israel is the basis for Washington being so thoroughly isolated at the UN. [Read More] Also of interest is "Poll: Fewer than half of Americans support Jerusalem recognition," f[Link].
The Jerusalem Votes at the UN
By Richard Falk [December 24, 2017]
---- 128-9 is a clear expression of an overwhelming moral and legal sentiment, and deserves to be respected by any government that values the role of the General Assembly as the arbiter of legitimacy with respect to sensitive global issues. Although far weaker and more subject to geopolitical manipulation than is desirable, these main political organs of the UN provide the best guide that currently exists as to what global policy should be if the global and human interest is to be protected, and not merely an array of national interests and their multilateral aggregation to achieve cooperative results. What this discussion glosses over in this instance without stopping to observe its significance is the degree to which issues of substance prevailed over matters of geopolitical alignment. Not one of America's closest allies (UK, France, Germany, and Japan) heeded the fervent arguments and pleas of Haley and Trump. Beyond this, every important country in the world backed the General Assembly Resolution on December 21, 2017 regardless of geography or political orientation (China, Russia, India, Brazil, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran). This unanimity enhances the quality of the consensus supportive of the resolution repudiating Trump's arrogant decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital as 'null and void.' Such an impression is strengthened by listing the nine governments that voted against the resolution (Guatemala, Honduras, Marshall Islands, Israel, Miscronesia, Nauru, Palau, Togo, and the U.S.). [Read More]
Children of Stone
---- A friend of mine sent me an article by a respected Palestinian. He described his first demonstration, many years ago. The way he tells it, he was 15 years old, living in a village under occupation, hating Israeli soldiers. With a group of friends of the same age, he went to the center of his village, where a line of soldiers was waiting for them. Each of the demonstrators picked up a stone – no lack of stones in an Arab village – and threw it at the soldiers. The stones fell far short, causing no harm. But – and here the adult man grew ecstatic – what a wonderful feeling! For the first time in his life the boy felt that he was hitting back! He was no longer a despised, helpless Palestinian! He was upholding the dignity of his people! The old leaders may be subservient! Not he, not his friends! For the first time in his life he was proud, proud to be a Palestinian, proud to be a courageous human being. What a wonderful feeling! For this feeling he was ready to risk his life, again and again, ready to become a Shaheed, a witness, a martyr. There are many thousands like him. [Read More]
