Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
January 21, 2019
Hello All - Last Tuesday, January 15th, was the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Born in 1929, had he not been killed in 1968, he would now be 90 years old. Remembered now as a civil rights leader and an advocate of nonviolence, in his last years King also became an outspoken opponent of war and a crusader for economic justice.
What would Martin Luther King, Jr. have to say today about Trump's America, about our many wars, about global warming, or about the cruelty practiced against our immigrant neighbors? He might have repeated the words he spoke at Riverside Church in NYC just a year before his death; he said:
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
Today we are confronted with the civilization-destroying disaster of global warming. In Yemen, some 14 million people are poised on the brink of starvation because of a war supported by our government. Yet we as a people have not been able to act effectively to turn the tide of disaster. – King addressed a similar dilemma of his own time, our failure to stop the war in Vietnam, which would eventually kill millions of people. In 1967, King said:
If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve...The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways.
Finally, Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaimed that justice delayed was justice denied, and that peace delayed meant the ending of thousands or millions more human lives. He said:
We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late."
On this, the 90th birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., let us honor his memory by renewing our resolve to do all we can to work for peace and justice.
News Notes
Last week The New York Times reported that many (thousands!) more immigrant/refugee children had been separated from their parents at our southern border than has been previously disclosed. To help us visualize what this means for actual children and parents, I recommend this short animated video from The Guardian [UK]. Meanwhile, it appears that the head of Homeland Security perjured herself during testimony to Congress, claiming that her department "never had a policy for family separation" at the US-Mexican border (they did).
After weeks of media-driven controversy about Saturday's Women's March(es), media coverage of the actual events was almost nonexistent. Here is a link to the Facebook page of the Women's Unity rally in Foley Square, and here is a link to the Facebook page of the Washington, DC march. Both pages have lots of pictures and some video.
Aljazeera has put up an excellent short video about what's happening with the anti-BDS legislation now in Congress, and the dangers that will follow if this legislation is passed. Schumer, Engel, and Lowey are all supporters of these laws.
Many good/interesting things are happening in the New York State legislature, now that the Democrats run both the Assembly and the Senate. A good way to keep up to date is via the Facebook page of our friends at Indivisible Rivertowns.
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Sunday, February 3rd – Please join us at the next monthly meeting of CFOW. We meet at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 7 to 9 PM. Everyone is welcome at these meetings, where we review our work of the past month and make plans for the month to come.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Our leaflet and posters for our rallies are usually about war or climate change, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. We (usually) meet on the first Sunday of each month, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.
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 and the essays on Dr. King and his legacy, I especially recommend the sets of articles on the Los Angeles teachers strike and on the threat of a US-backed/instigated coup in Venezuela; David Swanson's article on "Ten Reasons Not to Love NATO"; an interesting article advocating a federal workers' strike in response to the government shutdown; and – on the 100th anniversary of their murders – a reminder of the life and legacies of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Read on!
Rewards!
Newsletter "Rewards!" are intended as a watering hole for the brain before embarking on the arid and depressing news from the past week. Newsletter Comix editor JayG recently forwarded a new Doonesbury; an historical perspective on a problem for many of us; and a news analysis from Tom Tomorrow. Thanks, Jay! And bringing another smile to our face is the now-ubiquitous video of the floor program of gymnast Katelyn Ohashi. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
HIS LEGACY LIVES ON: MARTIN LUTHER KING ON HIS 90TH BIRTHDAY
(Video) MLK Day Special: Rediscovered 1964 King Speech on Civil Rights, Segregation & Apartheid South Africa
From Democracy Now! [[January 21, 2019]
---- As the nation marks 90 years since the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we air a rediscovered speech he delivered on December 7, 1964, days before he received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. In a major address in London, King spoke about segregation, the fight for civil rights and his support for Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. [See the Program]
MLK Warned Us of the Well-Intentioned Liberal
By Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, The Nation [January 19, 2019]
---- King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," perhaps his most famous written work, was penned in response to seven Christian ministers and a rabbi in Alabama. In the opening lines of their "Good Friday Statement," sent to Dr. King April 12, 1963, the ministers note that they had already written "An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense," a statement sent to him January 16, 1963. They do not try to defend white supremacy; in fact, they acknowledge the existence of "various problems that cause racial friction and unrest." But they object staunchly to the way in which Dr. King and the civil-rights movement have confronted Jim Crow laws, demanding change through nonviolent direct action. Such demands, these religious leaders insist, should be "pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets." … Dr. King objected—and his polemical response is what we remember half a century later. But the fact that the ecumenical leadership of the faith community in Alabama at the time felt self-assured in making this statement is a testimony to how prevalent their political "realism" was across theological traditions. [Read More] Also very illuminating about King and well-wishing "moderates" is "What King Said About Northern Liberalism" by Jeanne Theoharis, New York Times [January 20, 2019]
Time to Break the Silence on Palestine
By Michelle Alexander, New York Times [January 19, 2019]
---- On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped up to the lectern at the Riverside Church in Manhattan. The United States had been in active combat in Vietnam for two years and tens of thousands of people had been killed, including some 10,000 American troops. The political establishment — from left to right — backed the war, and more than 400,000 American service members were in Vietnam, their lives on the line. Many of King's strongest allies urged him to remain silent about the war or at least to soft-pedal any criticism. They knew that if he told the whole truth about the unjust and disastrous war he would be falsely labeled a Communist, suffer retaliation and severe backlash, alienate supporters and threaten the fragile progress of the civil rights movement. … It was a lonely, moral stance. And it cost him. But it set an example of what is required of us if we are to honor our deepest values in times of crisis, even when silence would better serve our personal interests or the communities and causes we hold most dear. It's what I think about when I go over the excuses and rationalizations that have kept me largely silent on one of the great moral challenges of our time: the crisis in Israel-Palestine. [Read More] BTW, the NYT "comments" section on this essay is instructive for the strong opposition to what Alexander has to say. For some more interesting comments on this essay, read "Michelle Alexander explodes an open secret in the 'NYT': progressives keep quiet about Palestine out of fear for their careers," by Philip Weiss and James North, Mondoweiss [January 20, 2019] [Link].
FEATURED ESSAYS
Turning the Women's March Into a Mass Movement Was Never Going to Be Simple
By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, The Nation [January 18, 2019]
---- For the last two years, come the middle of January, between 3 and 4 million people have massed in the streets of the United States in an outpouring of raw anger and disgust with the Trump administration. They've marched in Chicago and Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Dallas, New York and Charlotte, and hundreds of cities in between, creating a shared feeling that, together, it is possible to beat back the Trump threat. Still, from its earliest, explosive expression, it's been unclear what would become of the Women's March. While the euphoria of resisting Trump raised the expectations of the millions who participated—for the first time in years, it seemed that a new women's movement was possible—large questions loomed. The largest of these: How to transform the massive mobilizations of 2017 and 2018 into a social movement that could connect local activists to one another while melding them into national networks that could respond to the attacks flowing from the Trump White House? And how also to move beyond declarations of resistance to map a shared path forward—and to do so in a way that is both inclusive and democratic? [Read More]
Also insightful on the issues surrounding the Women's March – "A Vital, Vulnerable Conversation With the Leaders of the Women's March," by Nylah Burton, The Nation [January 18, 2019] [Link]; and "There's a Good Reason Many Jewish Women Will Be Joining the Women's March," by Sarah Seltzer, The Nation [January 17, 2019] [Link].
---- In October 2018, the world's leading climate scientists authored a report for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warning us that we have just a dozen years left to limit the catastrophic impacts of climate change. The gist of it is this: we've already warmed the planet one degree Celsius. If we fail to limit that warming process to 1.5 degrees, even a half-degree more than that will significantly worsen extreme heat, flooding, widespread droughts, and sea level increases, among other grim phenomena. The report has become a key talking point of political progressives in the U.S., who, like journalist and activist Naomi Klein, are now speaking of "a terrifying 12 years" left in which to cut fossil fuel emissions. There is, however, a problem with even this approach. It assumes that the scientific conclusions in the IPCC report are completely sound…. In addition, new data suggest that the possibility of political will coalescing across the planet to shift the global economy completely off fossil fuels in the reasonably near future is essentially a fantasy. [Read More]
Our Approach to Zionism
By Jewish Voice for Peace [January 2019]
---- Jewish Voice for Peace is guided by a vision of justice, equality and freedom for all people. We unequivocally oppose Zionism because it is counter to those ideals. We know that opposing Zionism, or even discussing it, can be painful, can strike at the deepest trauma and greatest fears of many of us. Zionism is a nineteenth-century political ideology that emerged in a moment where Jews were defined as irrevocably outside of a Christian Europe. European antisemitism threatened and ended millions of Jewish lives — in pogroms, in exile, and in the Holocaust. Through study and action, through deep relationship with Palestinians fighting for their own liberation, and through our own understanding of Jewish safety and self determination, we have come to see that Zionism was a false and failed answer to the desperately real question many of our ancestors faced of how to protect Jewish lives from murderous antisemitism in Europe. While it had many strains historically, the Zionism that took hold and stands today is a settler-colonial movement, establishing an apartheid state where Jews have more rights than others. … Because the founding of the state of Israel was based on the idea of a "land without people," Palestinian existence itself is resistance. We are all the more humbled by the vibrance, resilience, and steadfastness of Palestinian life, culture, and organizing, as it is a deep refusal of a political ideology founded on erasure. [Read More]
The Los Angeles Teachers' Strike
'This Model of Education Is Not Sustainable'
By Sarah Jaffe, The Nation [January 15, 2019]
---- The Los Angeles teachers are on strike for the first time since 1989, demanding a change to conditions that have become intolerable. They're demanding reduced class sizes; more counselors, nurses, and psychologists; less testing; a cap on charter schools; and an increase in statewide, per-student funding to raise California from its current, dismal rank of 43rd in the nation for such spending. Before voting to strike, they spent 20 months bargaining with the superintendent, Austin Beutner, who was chosen by LA's elected school board, only to hit a stalemate on the major demands. A few months earlier, Beutner had accused the union of bargaining in bad faith, but to talk to the teachers—about the experience each day of teaching in LA's schools, about their reasons for striking—was to understand that they had put their faith in a school system that continued to fail them. [Read More]
Billionaires vs. LA Schools [Democracy Now]
By Eric Blanc, Jacobin Magazine [January 2019]
---- The Los Angeles teachers' strike isn't all about wages. At its core, the strike is a fight against a hostile takeover of public schools by the superrich. Unlike many labor actions, the Los Angeles teachers' strike is not really about wages or benefits. At its core, this is a struggle to defend public schools against the privatizing drive of a small-but-powerful group of billionaires. The plan of these business leaders is simple: break-up the school district into thirty-two competing "portfolio" networks, in order to replace public schools with privately run charters. As firm believers in the dogmas of market fundamentalism, these influential downsizers truly believe that it's possible to improve education by running it like a private business. Not coincidentally, privatization would also open up huge avenues for profit-making — and deal a potentially fatal blow to one of the most well-organized and militant unions in the country, the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA). As union leader Arlene Inouye explains, "This is a struggle to save public education; the existence of public education in our city is on the line." [Read More]
For more useful reading on the LA teachers strike – "The Radical Worker Politics of the Los Angeles Teacher Strike," by Jared Sacks, Roar Magazine [January 20, 2019] [Link]; "What LA Teachers Have Already Won," by Lois Weiner, Jacobin Magazine [January 2019] [Link]; "Here's Why Los Angeles Parents Are Standing with Striking Teachers against Billionaire-Backed Charters," by Chris Brooks, Labor Notes [January 16, 2019] [Link]; and "The LA Teachers Strike: "Don't Make Us Go West Virginia on You," by Richard Ojeda, The Intercept [[Link].
WAR & PEACE
, Counterpunch [January 18, 2019]
---- The New York Times loves NATO, but should you? Judging by comments in social media and the real world, millions of people in the United States have gone from having little or no opinion on NATO, or from opposing NATO as the world's biggest military force responsible for disastrous wars in places like Afghanistan (for Democrats) or Libya (for Republicans), to believing NATO to be a tremendous force for good in the world. I believe this notion to be propped up by a series of misconceptions that stand in dire need of correction. … War is a leading contributor to the growing global refugee and climate crises, the basis for the militarization of the police, a top cause of the erosion of civil liberties, and a catalyst for racism and bigotry. A growing coalition is calling for the abolition of NATO, the promotion of peace, the redirection of resources to human and environmental needs, and the demilitarization of our cultures. Instead of celebrating NATO's 70thanniversary, we're celebrating peace on April 4, in commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech against war on April 4, 1967, as well as his assassination on April 4, 1968. [Read More]
Star Wars Revisited: One More Nightmare From Trump
---- Donald Trump and his "war cabinet" have struck again. In the wake of record defense spending; the creation of a Space Force that would violate the Outer Space Treaty agreed to fifty years ago; the abrogation of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty from thirty years ago; and the chaos of random decision making for use of force, the Trump administration is returning to the madness of President Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" idea with costly and ineffective ideas regarding missile-defense technologies. Trump's Pentagon is reviving ideas that were abandoned after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, including weapons that can shoot down missiles from space and high energy lasers that can destroy missiles shortly after they are launched, the so-called boost phase. Trump plans to go further than Reagan by deploying missile defense in Europe and Asia to protect U.S. forces and regional allies. Congress was skeptical of Reagan's "Star Wars" in the 1980s, but the current Congress has been unwilling to challenge the outrageous national security policies of the Trump administration. [Read More]
Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy
By Stephen F. Cohen, The Nation [January 15, 2019]
---- Why the frenzy now? Perhaps because Russiagate promoters in high places are concerned that special counsel Robert Mueller will not produce the hoped-for "bombshell" to end Trump's presidency. … Perhaps to incite Democrats who have now taken control of House investigative committees. Perhaps simply because Russiagate has become a political-media cult that no facts, or any lack of evidence, can dissuade or diminish. … Congressional zealots are now threatening to subpoena the American translator who was present during Trump's meetings with Putin. If this recklessness prevails, it will be the end of the nuclear-superpower summit diplomacy that has helped to keep America and the world safe from catastrophic war for nearly 70 years—and as a new, more perilous nuclear arms race between the two countries is unfolding. It will amply confirm a thesis set out in my book War with Russia?—that anti-Trump Russiagate allegations have become the gravest threat to our security. [Read More] For lots of reasons why the "Russiagate" investigation is flawed, read "Russia-gate Evidence, Please," b [Link]. For some examples of the role of the mainstream media is (mis)reporting Russia-gate, read "Beyond BuzzFeed: The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump/Russia Story," by Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept [[Link].
The War in Syria
No, US Troop Deaths in Syria don't Contradict Defeat of ISIL
---- A powerful blast in the streets of Manbij killed 2 US troops and 2 American civilians and wounded 3 other Americans. Syrian civilians were also killed and others wounded by the suicide bombing at a restaurant on Wednesday. Up until yesterday, 4 US troops had been killed in Syria since the US went in in 2015. It is a terrible incident, but not unusual in Syria in any other way than that US troops were in the vicinity of the bomb–otherwise bombings have killed tens of thousands of people there in the past eight years. … So here is the point: There is no defeat of ISIL so total that it could have stopped a guy from blowing himself up in Manbij. That they were able to do this proves nothing about the vitality of their movement or whether it has been militarily defeated. The explosion also has no bearing at all on whether the US troops should stay or leave. A small cell could set off a suicide bomb belt from time to time, either way, at any time. [Read More]
Also useful/interesting on the war in Syria – "The Memo That Helped Kill a Half Million People in Syria," by Daniel Lazare, Consortium News [January 13, 2019] [Link]; and "How Trump Thwarted Calculated Israeli Effort to Keep U.S. in Syria," by Gareth Porter, The American Conservative [January 14, 2019] [Link].
A US Supported Coup in Venezuela?
Trump Administration Backs Slow-Motion Right-Wing Coup In Venezuela
By Kevin Gosztola, Shadowproof.com [January 19, 2019]
---- A slow-motion coup by right-wing opposition forces is underway in Venezuela. It has the support of President Donald Trump's administration, and if successful, President Nicolas Maduro will be undemocratically removed from power though he was re-elected last May. …. On January 15, the National Assembly called Maduro's presidency "illegitimate" and passed a resolution indicating the body no longer believes he has any legal authority. Trump administration officials immediately voiced their support. … Maduro took the oath of office on January 10. A presidential election took place on May 20, and Maduro was re-elected. But before votes were tallied, the Trump administration refused to acknowledge the outcome and threatened further sanctions against the Maduro government. [Read More]
Also useful/illuminating on this "slow-motion coup" - "The U.S. Has Venezuela In Its Crosshairs," by Vijay Prashad, Popular Resistance [January 19, 2019] [Link]; and "Venezuela: Trump Considers 'Recognizing' Opposition Leader as President, Government Denounces 'Coup Attempt'," by Ricardo Vaz, Venezuelanalysis [January 17, 2019] [Link]. The media analysis program "Counterspin" interviewed Alexander Main on the topic "US Administrations Have Been Intervening in Venezuela Since at Least the Early 2000s,'" [January 16, 2019] [Liink].
CIVIL LIBERTIES/ "THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
Silence of the Lambs: The Case of Marzieh Hashemi
By Rannie Amiri, Antiwar.com [January 21, 2019]
----In the wake of the outcry after the abduction and murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi – in a foreign country and under the directive of a rogue Crown Prince – one would think the threshold to condemn the detention of an American journalist in the United States without charge or trial would be quite low. Unfortunately, it has proven to be nearly insurmountable. It has now been one week since Marzieh Hashemi, a US citizen and anchorwoman of Iran's English-language news station, PressTV, has been held under these circumstances shortly after her arrival to St. Louis Lambert International Airport Jan. 12 to work on a documentary on the Black Lives Matter movement. Hashemi is purportedly an alleged material witness in an as-yet unspecified investigation. She was reportedly forced to remove her headscarf and offered pork to eat, both against the tenets of her religion, before being transferred to Washington, D.C. to an unknown location. As such, the muted response of those organizations whose primary purpose is to stand for press freedoms and human rights and against religious intolerance is rather remarkable. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
It's Time for T.S.A. Workers to Strike: The shutdown is painful, but it is also an opportunity for labor to take a stand.
By Barbara Ehrenreich and Gary Stevenson, New York Times [January. 14, 2019]
---- Last week, in a meeting with Democratic leaders, President Trump called the government shutdown a "strike." This was an enigmatic use of a hallowed term, although it might have simply been Mr. Trump's confusion about the "blue flu" epidemic afflicting employees of the Transportation Security Administration, who are working without pay and registering their protest by calling in sick, and in some cases quitting outright. … The question is what comes next. With no end in sight for the shutdown, should the T.S.A. workers continue this passive-aggressive form of protest? Or is there something more they can do, something that would turn their plight into a stand not just against the shutdown but also against the arbitrary and insulting way American workers are so often treated in general? T.S.A. workers should use last year's teachers' strikes as a model. They were called not by the leadership of the teachers' unions but by the rank and file. It was a new kind of labor activism, starting at the bottom and depending heavily on community support. By sticking together and creating their own communication system, the teachers succeeded in sending a powerful message of solidarity and strength. [Read More] Last week Barbara Ehrenreich discussed this essay on Democracy Now! See the program here.
William Barr Will Be a Loyal Foot Soldier in King Trump's Army
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout [January 18, 2019]
---- Barr likely came to Trump's attention after writing an unsolicited 19-page memo in June 2018, criticizing the Mueller probe and claiming the president has total control over the executive branch. In it, Barr maintained the president has authority over all law enforcement, including matters involving his own conduct and those in which he has a personal stake. That theory likely endeared Barr to Trump, who fired former Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. Trump wants an attorney general who will have his back. … The Senate should reject Barr's nomination for attorney general. His long-standing commitment to the dangerous unitary executive theory may well lead him to support unfettered power by Trump. That is intolerable. [Read More] And if Trump was looking for an Attorney General who knew how to do "pardons," Barr's the man. Read "Triumph of Conventional Wisdom: AP Expunges Iran/Contra Pardons from Barr's Record," by Sam Husseini, Antiwar.com [January 16, 2019] [Link].
The Democrats
Bernie Sanders, Israel and the Middle East
---- Sanders' campaign is not just going to be about economics or the futility of Mexican walls. It might well be about Iran. It's going to raise a lot of questions among the Christian fundamentalists. But, most importantly of all, it's going to be about Israel. And, if this liberal intellectual is going to be a serious candidate for 2020, he's going to meet plenty of latent anti-Semitism in the United States. … But let's remember a few more things about Sanders. He's always supported the "right of Israel to exist" and its right to self-defence, and he's always condemned Palestinian attacks on Israelis. But he's also kept away from pro-Israeli Jewish lobby groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and he didn't restrain himself when he chose to condemn Israel for its illegal colonial project of building homes for Jews and Jews only in the occupied West Bank, nor when Israel has blatantly interfered in US domestic or electoral politics. -[Read More]
And for some discussion about what the presidential candidates are saying – "Here's How Democratic Presidential Contenders Should (Not) Talk About Russia," by David S. Foglesong, The Nation [January 17, 2019] [Link]; and "Many 2020 Dems Silent On Trump's Afghanistan, Syria Withdrawals," by Nick Robins-Early, Huffington Post [January 20, 2019] [Link].
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
War on BDS: How AIPAC-Israel agenda became US priority
By Ramzy Baroud, Middle East Monitor [January 17, 2019]
---- Cheered on by American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other pro-Israel lobbies, the US Congress is now leading the Israeli war on Palestinians and their supporters. In the process, they are attempting to demolish the very core of American democratic values. The build-up to this particular battle, which will certainly be accentuated in 2019, began when AIPAC declared in its "2017 Lobbying Agenda" that criminalizing the boycott of Israel is a top priority. The US Congress, which has historically proven subservient to the Israeli government and its lobbies, enthusiastically embraced AIPAC's efforts. This resulted in the Senate Bill S.720, also known as the "Anti-Israel Boycott Act", which aimed to ban the boycott of Israel and its illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. The bill almost immediately gained the support of 48 Senators and 234 House members. Unsurprisingly, it was drafted mostly by AIPAC itself. [Read More]
For more on the politics of BDS legislation – "Criminalizing BDS Trashes Free Speech & Association, b January 16, 2019] [Link]; and "Anti-BDS bill: For Israel, the terrain is shifting unfavorably," by Ben White, Middle East Eye [January 15, 2019] [Link].
OUR HISTORY
Red Flowers for Rosa and Karl
, Counterpunch [January 18, 2019]
---- Red flags everywhere, hundreds, more hundreds, thousands marched along through the drizzly weather and puddled streets. Many bent figures hobbled with canes, some were in wheelchairs next to a younger set sitting proudly on their fathers' shoulders or in strollers. Then another big group of young people arrived, some singing or chanting leftist demands. Most spoke German but much Turkish, English and a dozen other languages mixed in. They all moved past the rows of political and snack booths, a majority had red carnations for a ring of graves and, in a brick semicircle, urns with names which once resounded well beyond Germany from 1900 to 1990. One section is for those who fought and died in Spain. But the masses of red flowers for Karl Liebknecht and, even more for Rosa Luxemburg, was higher than I have ever seen them. Both were murdered one hundred years ago. [Read More] For another perspective, read "Germany remembers Rosa Luxemburg 100 years after her murder," by Josie Le Blond, The Guardian [Link].
The Forgotten Lessons of Nagasaki
By Susan Southard, The Nation [January 17, 2019]
---- Despite the history most Americans have learned — that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military necessities that ended World War II and saved a million American lives by obviating the need for an invasion of Japan's home islands — there is no historical evidence that the Nagasaki bombing had any impact on Japan's decision to surrender. What we aren't taught are the political and military complexities of the last few months of the war or how, in the post-war years, our government crafted this end-of-war narrative to silence public opposition to the atomic bombings and build support for America's fast-expanding nuclear weapons program. What many don't realize is that this misleading version of history allows us to turn away from what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and continue to support the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons without ever having to think about what those weapons do. [Read More]
