Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
July 22, 2018
Hello All – With the US mainstream media fixated on the persona of President Trump, important events in the Other World go largely unnoticed. This is especially true of war and the threats of war, not a high priority for the US media under normal circumstances, but now usually buried in the back pages or reduced to news blips at the bottom of the screen. Two important illustrations of this problem are the cataclysmic war in Yemen and the near-catastrophe this week in Gaza. In both cases, the United States has some responsibility for the conflict; and in each case has the ability to head off the disaster. But without publicity there is no citizen outcry; and without public pressure for peace, war marches on.
In the case of Gaza, on Friday Israel launched its largest bombing attack on "Hamas installations" in Gaza since the 2014 war. In what the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz described as a last minute U-turn at the edge of a cliff, a shaky ceasefire has de-escalated the war. Whether this lasts remains to be seen: since 2008, three invasions by Israel, which killed thousands, have left Gaza's cities and towns in rubble. More than 2,300 Palestinians were killed in the war of 2014, which left 17,000 wounded.
Why are Palestinians protesting? Gaza is now fenced in on three sides by Israel and Egypt; the Israeli navy blockades Gaza by sea. Gaza, largely populated by refugee families from the war of 1948, is under total blockade. Gaza is an open-air prison. Because of the blockade, little can be imported or exported. Water, electricity, and sewage disposal systems are in crisis. Food and medicine are in short supply. The UN says that Gaza will soon be unable to sustain normal life. Yet our mainstream media seldom relate the protests in Gaza to the facts of the Israeli and Egyptian blockade, nor to the US support of the blockade, at the United Nations or in the Oval Office. This is a situation where strong US protests against Israeli action could make a life-or-death difference in the Middle East.
Similarly, in the case of Yemen, as documented in the superb reporting of PBS correspondent Jane Ferguson, linked below, US bombs and military support are enabling horrific killing in a war conducted largely against civilians. As noted in the excellent article by William Hartung linked below ("War & Peace"), the US Congress could take useful steps to help stop the world's largest cholera epidemic (more than a million people infected) and Yemen's impending famine. Once again, the absence of the Yemen story from the US mainstream media prevents public understanding and citizen dissent against US policy that supports Saudi Arabia's war. One study by the media watchdog FAIR found that MSNBC ran only one story about the war in Yemen in 2017, while mentioning "Russia" in more than 5,000 stories. US weapons sales to Yemen, about civilian casualties, the cholera epidemic, or US aerial refueling of Saudi bombers were not mentioned once.
There is little that citizens can do to persuade the mainstream media that a single-minded focus on President Trump is not in the nation's interest. And, indeed, why should the mainstream media care, if "Trump 24/7" attracts enough viewers to keep advertising revenue high? Thus peace & justice stalwarts must rely on – and support! – alternative media, such as that which is linked below – and in every issue of the CFOW newsletter.
News Notes
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) made public, for the first time, its "Coastal Storm Risk Management" Study (CSRM) for New York Harbor and the Hudson Valley. In a nutshell, the Army Engineers proposes six alternative ways to guard the Hudson River against storm surges. According to Riverkeeper, two of the six alternatives would spell absolute disaster for the Hudson River. As with the case of the Hudson River "anchorages" two years ago, the Army Corps is allowing only 30 days for public comment. And as with the "anchorages," a tsunami of adverse comments is needed to slow down this process and head off disaster. Please go here to read Riverkeeper's analysis of the Army Corps' proposals, and email your "comments" here.
Despite a court order, the Trump administration has failed to reunite all the children under five years old who were separated from their parents at the Mexican border. This Democracy Now! segment tells the story of a three-year old boy who was sent to Abbott House in Irvington, while his mother was jailed in Texas. Upon being reunited last week, the mother said that her son "showed signs of trauma and aggressive behavior." More than 2,000 children remain separated from their parents.
Next Thursday, July 26th, is the anniversary of the beginning of the Cuban Revolution (in 1953). Here is some great "newsreel" footage of the 1959 day of victory, with American tourists being airlifted "to safety."
Why does Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer get the "kid gloves" treatment from the NYC media? His continued failure to impede the Trump Agenda is scarcely noted. Check out this useful review and analysis of the Schumer media coverage.
So many vibrant and productive activists receive little notice in their lifetimes. We often learn about them only in their obituaries, and then often in the non-mainstream media. Check out this warm memoir by Ralph Nader about his friend Dr. Warner Slack – "Doctor of the People Forever."
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Ongoing – CFOW holds a vigil/rally each Saturday at the VFW Plaza in Hastings (Warburton and Spring) from 12 to 1 p.m. Everyone invited; please join us!
Friday, July 27th – On the 65th anniversary of the Armistice of the Korean War, the Korean-American organization Nodutdol for Korean Community Development invites us to a teach-in/forum on the United States and the Korean peninsula, and what peace activists need to do now. At the Nodutdol office, 112 W. 27th St., 6th floor, NYC, starting at 6:30 p.m.
Sunday, August 5th – The next CFOW monthly meeting will be held at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 7 to 9 p.m. Everyone is invited to these meetings. In addition to reviewing our work of the past month, current events, and plans for the next monthly, we can pause to remember the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings of August 6th & 9th, 1945.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Our leaflet and posters for our rallies are usually about war or climate change, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. We meet on the first Sunday of each month, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. If you would like to make a financial contribution to our work, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
This Newsletter
Articles linked in the CFOW newsletter are intended to illuminate some of the main action-issues about which we are concerned. Coming mostly from the "dissenting media," they provide an alternative to the perspectives of the mainstream media. In addition to the excellent "Featured Essays," I encourage you to the PBS videos about Yemen by reporter Jane Ferguson; historian Joel Beinen's assessment of the links between Israel/Palestine and the threat of war against Iran; a very good article by Kevin MacKay on the need to address the anti-democratic political system that underlies our climate chaos; the set of articles on the new threats to the safety of publisher Julian Assange; Thomas Edsall's insightful article about the racist/anti-civil-rights backlash that leads white people to vote "against their own interests"; and a pair of articles that address/analyze Israel's constitutional declaration this week that it is officially an apartheid state. Read on!
Rewards!
This week's rewards for Stalwart Readers are intended to offset the dismal news the fills the rest of this newsletter. The CFOW office intern was told to find the silliest video clips available that would still conform to the standards of a Family Publication. So here you have 'em: the Declaration of War from the Marx Brothers' film "Duck Soup"; the new sheriff pulls into town, from "Blazing Saddles; and the latest blast on the trumpet against President Trump, from Randy Rainbow. (h/t EZ) Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
'This Is Zero Hour': Youth-Led Marches Across the Globe Demand Immediate and Ambitious Climate Action
By
---- Declaring that climate change is "an issue of survival" that must be confronted with urgency, young activists across the globe on Saturday kicked off three days of marches and demonstrations to pressure elected officials to "reject the corrupting monetary influence of fossil fuel executives," ban all new dirty energy developments, and safeguard the planet for both its current inhabitants and future generations. "Climate change is our last chance to either fix colossal systems of inequality and emerge as a more efficient, better equipped society as a whole, or reach a chaotic state where your privilege ultimately decides if you live or die," said 16-year-old climate activist Ivy Jaguzny ahead of Saturday's events, which are expected to take place "in cities from Washington, D.C. to Butere, Kenya." … "This Is Zero Hour," the slogan and label of the worldwide marches, is aimed at clearly articulating the necessity of immediate and bold climate action as warming global temperatures continue to spark extreme weather events and wreak havoc, disproportionately inflicting irreversible harm on the poorest nations and most vulnerable communities. [Read More]
Is Intentional Starvation the Future of War?
By Jane Ferguson, The New Yorker [July 11, 2018]
---- In the room down the hallway, Mohammed Hatem stood over his baby, Shahab Adil, who is also ten months old. Shahab also suffered from malnutrition. Her body appeared much too small for her age. "It's happening everywhere in Yemen," Hatem told me. "Food prices were already high before the war, and since it started they went sky high." Back in his village, several hours' drive away, there were many more cases of malnutrition, he said. Few villagers can afford to take a taxi to the capital for treatment. For many, the cost of fuel puts even short bus rides beyond reach. The U.S.- and Saudi-backed war here has increased the price of food, cooking gas, and other fuel, but it is the disappearance of millions of jobs that has brought more than eight million people to the brink of starvation and turned Yemen into the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. There is sufficient food arriving in ports here, but endemic unemployment means that almost two-thirds of the population struggle to buy the food their families need. In this way, hunger here is entirely man-made: no drought or blight has caused it. [Read More]
Middle East Alliances, Old and New: Confronting "That Part of the World"
By Rebecca Gordon, Tom Dispatch [July 19, 2018]
By Rebecca Gordon, Tom Dispatch [July 19, 2018]
---- As a child in the 1950s, I absorbed the ambient belief that the state of Israel had been created after World War II as an apology gift from the rest of the world to European Jews who had survived the Holocaust. I was raised to think that if the worst were to happen and Jews were once again to become targets of genocidal rage, my family could always emigrate to Israel, where we would be safe. … It wasn't until I'd reached my thirties that I began to pay serious attention to the region that is variously known as the Middle East, the Arab world, or the Greater Middle East and North Africa. And when I did, I discovered how deep my ignorance (like that of so many fellow Americans) really was and how much history, geography, and politics there is to try to understand. What follows is my attempt to get a handle on how the Trump presidency has affected U.S. policy and actions in That Part of the World. [Read More]
Liberal Blind Spots Are Hiding the Truth About 'Trump Country'
By Sarah Smarsh, New York Times [July 19, 2018]
---- Is the white working class an angry, backward monolith — some 90 million white Americans without college degrees, all standing around in factories and fields thumping their dirty hands with baseball bats? You might think so after two years of media fixation on this version of the aggrieved laborer: male, Caucasian, conservative, racist, sexist. This account does white supremacy a great service in several ways: It ignores workers of color, along with humane, even progressive white workers. It allows college-educated white liberals to signal superior virtue while denying the sins of their own place and class. And it conceals well-informed, formally educated white conservatives — from middle-class suburbia to the highest ranks of influence — who voted for Donald Trump in legions. … Most struggling whites I know live lives of quiet desperation mad at their white bosses, not resentment of their co-workers or neighbors of color. My dad's previous three bosses were all white men he loathed for abuses of privilege and people. [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
18 Protesters Cut Into German Air Base to Protest US Nuclear Weapons Deployment
---- On Sunday, July 15, eighteen people — seven from the US, six from Germany, four from The Netherlands, and one from England – cut holes in fences in five different places in broad daylight and clamored inside Germany's Büchel Air Force Base, home to 20 US nuclear weapons known as "B61s." … In bright sunshine around 11:00 a.m., we cut through chain-link fencing and razor wire to gain entry to the nuclear weapons base, and all 18 went inside uninterrupted and walked around inside carrying banners, some for over an hour. … Along with the 18 who got on the base, dozens of supporters have been camped together a couple of hundred feet from the base's main gate. The group has been working together, preparing the "go-in" action for days, and Sunday's mass go-in was done under the clear blue sky and bright sunshine of high summer. In fact, the whole event was planned and conducted in open meetings to which the public was invited. [Read More]
From Gaza to Jerusalem to Iran
By Joel Beinin, LobeLog [July 14, 2018]
---- The Palestinian Great March of Return, which began on March 30, 2018 and continued into June, was a popular mobilization of people of the Gaza Strip initiated by politically unaligned young men and women. The campaign of unarmed marches towards the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel demonstrated popular support for a new Palestinian political direction. It contrasts sharply with both the diplomatic impasse over Israel/Palestine and the emerging reactionary political realignment of the Middle East. The administration of US President Donald Trump appears to be following the lead of Israel and the Sunni Arab regimes of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt in forging a regional axis of evil aimed at confronting Iran and its allies: Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Yemeni Houthis, which the Saudis simplistically label Iranian surrogates. The animators of this anti-Iranian strategy will need to relegate the Palestinians to collateral damage in order to succeed. [Read More]
The Elusive Pursuit of Peace by Afghanistan
---- The peace marchers from the Helmand province – the southern province of Afghanistan and one of the hardest hit places in terms of terrorism, civilian casualties, instability, Taliban infiltration, and violence – have further invigorated the pursuit of peace in the country. The marchers who demand an end to hostility and killings braved insecurity, physical strain, torching heat, and hunger and thirst as their march coincided with the month of Ramadan to reach capital Kabul. In Kabul, they proposed an agenda that includes "a ceasefire between the Taliban and government forces, peace talks between the two sides, the implementation of a law agreed upon by the government and the Taliban, and the withdrawal of foreign forces." … In the post-Taliban era, one of the core objectives of the Afghan government was to improve relations with Pakistan and dissuade it from interfering in its domestic affairs by cutting off funding and support to the Taliban – a fundamentalist and terrorist outfit. … However, the question that should be asked is: "why does Pakistan support the Taliban?" The answer to this question might help us grasp the complexities of bringing peace to Afghanistan. [Read More]
The War in Yemen
Congress Can Help Stave Off New Humanitarian Disaster in Yemen
By William D. Hartung, LobeLog [July 18, 2018]
---- The war in Yemen is a humanitarian disaster. The Saudi/UAE intervention that began in March of 2015 has resulted in thousands of civilian deaths through indiscriminate air strikes, put millions at risk of famine, and spurred the largest cholera outbreak in current memory. It's hard to imagine the situation getting much worse, but it could, and soon. Unless UN envoy Martin Griffiths can persuade the combatants to come up with a non-military solution, Yemeni militias, supported and directed by the UAE in the lead, are poised to resume their attack on the port of Hodeidah and surrounding civilian areas, which handles the bulk of the humanitarian aid destined for victims of the war. The uninterrupted operation of Hodeidah is essential to a country that depends on imports for roughly 80% of its basic necessities. The port is currently held by Houthi forces that have been fighting the coalition and the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi that the Saudis and the UAE have been supporting since the beginning of the war. Humanitarian aid groups and UN officials have asserted that any attempt to take the port is bound to disrupt vital imports. UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen Lise Grande has said that "in a prolonged worst case, we fear that as many as 250,000 people may lose everything—even their lives." [Read More]
A PBS "Undercover Report" on the Crisis in Yemen
[FB – PBS reporter Jane Ferguson got into Yemen last month and filmed this three-part story. Part 2, on the US role in facilitating the slaughter, is imo very important. A good introduction to Ferguson's reporting is found in this segment from Thursday's Democracy Now! program.]
(Video) Yemen's spiraling hunger crisis is a man-made disaster
From PBS [July 2, 2018] – 12 minutes [See the Program]
(Video) American-made bombs in Yemen are killing civilians, destroying infrastructure and fueling anger at the U.S.
From PBS [July 3, 2018] – 9 minutes [See the Program]
(Video) Houthis deny U.S., Saudi claim that they are Iran's puppets
From PBS [July 5, 2018] – 7 minutes [See the Program]
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHAOS
Climate Change is Proving Worse Than We Imagined, So Why Aren't We Confronting its Root Cause?
---- June 23 marked the 30th year anniversary of NASA climate scientist James Hansen's presentation on global warming to the U.S. Congress. In his address Hansen argued that climate change – long predicted by scientists, was now here, and that it would get steadily worse. Since Hansen's testimony, study after study has proven that climate change has become an imminent threat to our biosphere – leading to accelerated loss of Arctic and Antarctic ice, rising water levels, and the toxic acidification of our oceans. However, the sobering truth is that global warming is only one threat among many. Everywhere we look science is affirming that the ecosystems we depend on for survival are breaking down. In the face of these mounting challenges, some scientists argue that the collapse of industrial society is not only possible, but even likely. … Focusing on the immediate causes of global warming and other ecological challenges can obscure a more fundamental driver of industrial civilization's crisis. Upon closer examination, it is our society's decision-making processes that are ultimately speeding us toward collapse. Unless we enact radical changes to these processes, no amount of awareness-raising, alterations to individual behavior, or technological innovation will be enough to avert catastrophe. [Read More]
Indigenous and environmental water protectors fight to block Louisiana pipeline
By Sheehan Moore, Waging Nonviolence [July 16, 2018]
--- The Bayou Bridge pipeline, or BBP, is one of a handful of pipelines currently under construction by Energy Transfer Partners, or ETP, a Dallas-based oil and gas company with tens of thousands of miles of lines already operational. Further upstream from the BBP, the ETP network includes its Dakota Access pipeline, which draws sweet crude from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and passes through the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on its way to Patoka, Illinois. From there, another ETP line takes the oil south to Nederland, Texas, where the first phase of the Bayou Bridge to Lake Charles has already been completed. "This pipeline that's going through our region here is the tail end of the Dakota Access pipeline," Foytlin told a crowd of around 50 Louisianans gathered outside the capitol in Baton Rouge for a Moral Monday protest on June 4. "The exact same company that hit people with water hoses and freezing water, that sent dogs to bite people, those are the exact same people who are down here trying to push a pipeline through 700 bodies of our water." [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
The War on Assange Is a War on Press Freedom
By Chris Hedges, Truth Dig [July 15, 2018]
---- The failure on the part of establishment media to defend Julian Assange, who has been trapped in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012, has been denied communication with the outside world since March and appears to be facing imminent expulsion and arrest, is astonishing. The extradition of the publisher—the maniacal goal of the U.S. government—would set a legal precedent that would criminalize any journalistic oversight or investigation of the corporate state. It would turn leaks and whistleblowing into treason. It would shroud in total secrecy the actions of the ruling global elites. If Assange is extradited to the United States and sentenced, The New York Times, The Washington Post and every other media organization, no matter how tepid their coverage of the corporate state, would be subject to the same draconian censorship. Under the precedent set, Donald Trump's Supreme Court would enthusiastically uphold the arrest and imprisonment of any publisher, editor or reporter in the name of national security. There are growing signs that the Ecuadorean government of Lenín Moreno is preparing to evict Assange and turn him over to British police. Moreno and his foreign minister, José Valencia, have confirmed they are in negotiations with the British government to "resolve" the fate of Assange. Moreno, who will visit Britain in a few weeks, calls Assange an "inherited problem" and "a stone in the shoe" and has referred to him as a "hacker." It appears that under a Moreno government Assange is no longer welcome in Ecuador. His only hope now is safe passage to his native Australia or another country willing to give him asylum. [Read More]
For more on the Assange story – Glenn Greenwald, "Ecuador Will Imminently Withdraw Asylum for Julian Assange and Hand Him Over to the UK. What Comes Next?" The Intercept [July 21, 2018]
[Link]; and Stefania Maurizi, "Inside WikiLeaks: Working With the Publisher That Changed the World," [Link].
THE STATE OF THE UNION
How the Trump Administration Is Normalizing Immigrant Internment Camps
By Laila Lalami, The Nation [July 20, 2018]
---- This is where we stand: A few months ago, a president who lost the popular vote introduced a "zero tolerance" policy on undocumented immigrants. In order to implement it, his attorney general—a man with a known history of racism—began detaining and prosecuting all immigrants and asylum-seekers who unlawfully crossed the southwestern border. Armed agents forcibly separated immigrant parents from their children, some as young as 3 months old, and redesignated them as unaccompanied minors. The children were put in chain-link cages, foster homes, tent camps, and detention centers. Some of the parents were deported without their kids. Others were pressured to give up their asylum claims in exchange for getting their children back. At least one asylum-seeking father committed suicide. The administration did not keep proper records about the children it took away and, in some cases, even destroyed records that could make family reunification possible. And the worst part? This is just a trial run. … The administration has already asked the Pentagon to prepare housing at military bases for 32,000 migrants, of whom 20,000 would be children. That immigrant internment is immoral is quite clear. That it is hugely costly and likely ineffectual will be revealed soon enough. But that it is even being discussed suggests a disregard for nonwhite life that is not foreign to this country's bloody history, nor even its recent past. [Read More]
Despite Trump's Asylum Crackdown, Migrants Fleeing Violence in El Salvador Still Plan for the U.S.
By Emily Green and Alicia Vera, The Intercept [July 22, 2018]
---- "It's peaceful where I live," said 21-year-old Iris Tobar Rodríguez of her hometown Jutiapa, an isolated rural area in El Salvador where her family resides on a dirt road inaccessible to cars. She paused. "Except two days ago they killed a person." … Whatever their diminished chances under Trump's crackdown, many Salvadorans are still planning to make the journey. The violence that has spurred an exodus of refugees from El Salvador and neighboring Guatemala and Honduras – the work of gangs like MS-13 and Barrio 18, but also the result of heavy-handed repression by state security forces, trained and funded by the U.S. government – has not subsided, and poverty and climate factors are also pushing people out. "We are looking to find solutions so migrating doesn't feel like the only alternative and young people can have a dignified life in El Salvador," said Kay Andrade-Eekhoff, regional adviser on youth employability for Catholic Relief Services in El Salvador. But for now, she said, "for many Salvadorans, migration is less a decision and more a final resort after having exhausted all other options." [Read More]
Why Don't We Always Vote in Our Own Self-Interest?
By Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times [July 19, 2018]
---- Over the past half century, residents of Kentucky have become steadily more reliant on the federal government. In the 1970s, federal programs provided slightly under 10 percent of personal income for Kentucky residents; by 2015, money from programs ranging from welfare and Medicaid to Social Security and Medicare more than doubled to 23 percent as a share of Kentuckians' personal income. … But as their claims on federal dollars rose, the state's voters became increasingly conservative. In the 1990s, they began to elect hard right, anti-government politicians determined to cut the programs their constituents were coming to lean on. … The broader reality is that the Civil Rights revolution of the 1960s unleashed both progress and a backlash that continues to resonate in American politics five decades later. This backlash is in many ways more insidious than the blatant discrimination of the past and potentially more dangerous. It is an object of constant political anxiety for the left and continuous, concerted, calculated manipulation by the right, made more overt by the president of the United States, who has dispensed with the dog whistle and picked up a bullhorn. [Read More]
Kavanaugh Scorns International Law and Loves Executive Power
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout [July 18, 2018]
---- Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has nothing but contempt for international law. But he has shown uncritical deference to executive power, particularly in the so-called war on terror cases. The two primary sources of international law are treaties and what's known as "customary international law." Ratified treaties are part of domestic US law under the supremacy clause of the Constitution, which says treaties "shall be the supreme law of the land." Furthermore, it has long been established that customary international law, which arises from the consistent and general practice of nations, is part of US law. Although he professes to interpret the Constitution as written by the founders, Kavanaugh has apparently overlooked the supremacy clause and simply scorns customary international law. … For 12 years, while serving as a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Kavanaugh had the opportunity to rule on several cases stemming from the "war on terror." In nearly all of them, he demonstrated nothing but disdain for international law and an uncritical deference to executive power. [Read More]
Bernie Sanders on Labor's Future and Why Democratic Socialists Keep Winning
By Miles Kampf-Lassin, In These Times [July 17, 2018]
----When I ask Bernie Sanders about the surge of teachers' strikes that swept the country earlier this year, he perks up, applauding the teachers' display of working-class power. "The teachers may be the tip of the spear here," he declares in his heavy Brooklyn accent. In many ways, the strikes illustrate Sanders' theory of political change. He has long insisted that the key to moving the country in a more progressive direction is to make ambitious demands and build movements capable of achieving them. Striking teachers in states from West Virginia to Arizona bucked the traditional tried-and-failed mechanisms for obtaining better pay and working conditions, and joined together by the tens of thousands to act. By withholding their labor, they won key demands. … In a sprawling interview with In These Times, Sanders discusses how unions can respond to Janus, the fight to move the Democratic Party left, the recent victories of democratic socialist candidates and why he believes the 2018 midterms are the most important of his lifetime. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
With Nationality Law, Israel openly Declares Apartheid and Racial Supremacy
---- Israel has for decades been running the occupied territories of Palestine–Gaza and the West Bank– with Apartheid tactics. As with black South Africans under Apartheid, most Palestinians have been deprived of citizenship in a real, recognized state. Their villages have been isolated by a network of what often amount to Jewish-only highways. They have trouble getting to hospital through checkpoints. Their territory in the West Bank is patrolled by the Israeli army, and the Israeli state is actively depriving them of their property and giving it to white squatters. … Now the Israeli parliament or Knesset has passed a law openly declaring Palestinians to be second-class citizens. Building squatter settlements on Palestinian land is made the official policy of the state (well, it has been for decades de facto, but now it is de jure). Arabic is demoted from being an official language. It would be as though the US passed a law designating America as a state for white Christians, excluding African-Americans and Latinos, and making English the only official language. [Read More] Please also read the statement from the Palestinian BDS National Committee, "Israel declares itself apartheid state, and gov'ts must hold it accountable" [July 19, 2018] [Link].
Global Jewish Organizations Affirm the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement
From Jewish Voice for Peace [July 17, 2018]
---- As social justice organizations from around the world, we write this letter with growing alarm regarding the targeting of organizations that support Palestinian rights in general and the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in particular. These attacks too often take the form of cynical and false accusations of antisemitism that dangerously conflate anti-Jewish racism with opposition to Israel's policies and system of occupation and apartheid. We live in a frightening era, with growing numbers of authoritarian and xenophobic regimes worldwide, foremost among them the Trump administration, allying themselves with Israel's far right government while making common cause with deeply antisemitic and racist white supremacist groups and parties. From our own histories we are all too aware of the dangers of increasingly fascistic and openly racist governments and political parties. The rise in antisemitic discourse and attacks worldwide is part of that broader trend. At times like this, it is more important than ever to distinguish between the hostility to or prejudice against Jews on the one hand and legitimate critiques of Israeli policies and system of injustice on the other. [Read More] Also of interest is the recent statement of the governing body of the US Episcopalians, "US Episcopalians Will Boycott Israeli Firms involved in West Bank Rights Abuses," [July 18, 2018] [Link].
OUR HISTORY
Remembering Haitian Internment in Trump's America
By Miriam Pensack, NACLA [North American Congress on Latin America] [July 19, 2018]
---- While the U.S. body politic flounders to tease out the exceptional from the troublingly normal in Trump's America, those inclined to even the most critical forms of pre-2016 nostalgia might forget that for countless historically marginalized groups, the United States has long functioned more or less the same way. The flagrant racism undergirding Trump's dismissal of Haitian refugees as hailing from a "shit-hole country," where people "all have AIDS" demonstrates a willingness to voice the bigoted positions that U.S. empire typically holds silently.For Haitian refugees, Trump is not a new abomination, or even a reincarnation of former Haitian exclusion, but rather a continuation of persecution against Haitians fleeing instability that U.S. empire has itself contributed to over the course of the twentieth century. From a 19-year military occupation beginning in 1915 that all but forced the island nation to accrue massive amounts of American debt to its financial support of the regimes of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son and successor Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier who surveilled, extorted, and disappeared tens of thousands of Haitians, the United States has long played a role in creating the conditions in Haiti that produce the waves of immigrants it then aggressively seeks to exclude. [Read More]
