Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
December 10, 2017
Hello All – Today, December 10th, is Human Rights Day. On December 10th, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of the leaders in crafting the Declaration was Eleanor Roosevelt. The background to the Declaration, of course, was the Hitler regime from 1933 to 1945, to which the Allies responded with "war aims" composed of the Four Freedoms – freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from want and fear.
How are we doing, in terms of human rights today? And does the Universal Declaration still speak to our needs, or do we need to supplement the Declaration with an enumeration of additional rights? Several of the good/useful essays and articles linked below give us stories of outrages against common sense justice, but which are only loosely linked to violations of human rights as defined by the Universal Declaration. More remains to be done.
For example, take the story told by Todd Miller in "The Era of Walls" ("Climate Breakdown"). Tens of millions of people, mostly from the Global South, are on the move, refugees from climate disaster in their homelands. Does the guarantee of "freedom from want and fear" give them any standing in the world community, or when they are on the doorstep of nations that might give them shelter? Do the obligations inherent in the Declaration of Rights point to the responsibility of richer nations to finance the costly transition to sustainable ways of life for peoples most at risk from climate chaos? And if so, how can these rights and obligations be enforced?
Similarly, what are the human rights of the people of Yemen? If they have the right to freedom from fear and want, does the world have the right to demand of the Saudis and their war-partners in the United States that the blockade that prevents food and medicine from entering Yemen be immediately lifted? And who will enforce this demand? Or take the people of Central America who are desperately seeking to enter – or to remain in – the United States. Does the historic role of the United States, with its neoliberal economic policies and its wars in the 1980s, mean that it has an obligation to relieve the suffering and grant shelter to those fleeing environments of want and fear?
Like any "Rights," human rights do not fall from the sky, but are created by hard experience and popular struggles that create new norms for how humans should be able to live. Just as the horrors of World War 2 led to the Four Freedoms and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, let us hope that by December 10th, 2018 – the 70th anniversary of the Declaration – that the world will be on its way to providing rights that give protection, status, and dignity to those displaced by war and climate breakdown.
News Notes
It has now been almost a year since the abortive military coup in Turkey led to a repressive crackdown against all dissent and massive firing of people suspected of opposition sentiments. Now the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor has indicted Turkish academics on terrorism charges for signing last January the "Academics for Peace Declaration." Almost 500 academics have lost their jobs, and more than 2,000 now face seven years in jail for "propagating propaganda for a terrorist organization." Read more about this outrage – and sign a petition – here.
Glenn Greenwald, of the Snowden papers and now The Intercept, has written many interesting/useful assessments of the mainstream media's failure to apply common sense and ordinary journalistic standards to allegations surrounding the exposure of the emails of the Democratic National Committee by Wikileaks prior to the 2016 election. The most recent media meltdown took place last week, when an apparent hoax, in the form of a "tip," sent CNN and its like into a speculative frenzy about manifold nefarious by Wikileaks, the Russians, and the Trump campaign. Greenwald's exposé is imo very interesting, and should serve as a warning against the many sensational exposes yet to come. And for those keeping score at home, according to this brief article Trump should utter his 2,000th lie as president sometime in January.
And speaking of our President, a German foundation's survey of German opinion finds the Trump presents a challenge to Germany greater than do North Korea, Russia, or the Syrian civil war.
The New Yorker's Jennifer Gonnerman has written some of the most outstanding in-depth journalism of our era. You may remember "Before the Law," the incredible story of Kalief Browder, the Bronx high-school sophomore who was arrested for stealing a backpack, and spent three years in jail before his case was dismissed and he was released. The New Yorker has put together a package of some of Gonnerman's best work, which you can read here.
Finally, with a hat tip to stalwart VM, we have the (satire alert) story, "Palestinians recognize Texas as part of Mexico," to keep President Airhead's Israel policy in perspective.
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Monday, December 11th – Let Yemen Live: Protest at the UN. Organized by the Catholic Worker, War Resisters League, Code Pink, etc. some (trained) participants will be performing nonviolent civil disobedience at the U.S. and Saudi missions to demand an end to US support and assistance to the Saudi-led war on Yemen. Meet at Ralph Bunche Park at 10:30AM, and then we will march towards the U.S. and Saudi missions at noon. Learn more on Facebook
Saturday, December 30th – CFOW holiday party at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 2 to 5 p.m. Everybody welcome; please join us!
This Newsletter
Articles linked in the CFOW newsletter are intended to illuminate some of the main action-issues about which we are concerned. Coming mostly from the "dissenting media," they provide an alternative to the perspectives of the mainstream media. In addition to the excellent "Featured Essays," I especially recommend the selection of articles about Trump & Jerusalem; the two articles on the aftermath of the election/coup in Honduras; the two articles on the food and medicine crisis in Yemen; Todd Miller's article on climate refugees; the set of articles on the Republicans' tax legislation; and of course the article ("Our History") on the life and times of Otis Redding.
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!
Stalwart readers who have made it this far deserve a rest and a brief diversion into Higher Culture. This week's rewards are ripped from today's headlines. Here the Great Dictator plots world domination, and in this scene his doppelganger, the Jewish barber, charts the true road to a better world. Enjoy!
Best Wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
The Racist Right Looks Left
By Donna Minkowitz, The Nation [December 9, 2017]
---- What the left needs to do in this moment of doubt and danger is to put out our vision of care for all, mutual aid for everyone, a true beloved community—a deep and nurturing vision most of us have not mentioned since Trump won. Instead of spending our last breath heaping scorn on our opponents on Twitter, we need to launch long-term, grassroots campaigns of education and conversation in the sectors in which white supremacists are organizing: in the tech world, among white male veterans, and with libertarians and organized atheists, as well as among poor whites. We need to use what even the right acknowledges are our superior skills in organizing to, well, organize: convince, convert, persuade, excite with the vision of what a loving and mutual society would be like. [Read More]
Honduras in Flames
By Aaron Schneider and Rafael R. Ioris, NACLA [North American Committee on Latin America] [December 7, 2017]
---- Ten days after Honduras' presidential elections, results have not been announced and Honduras is in flames. Thousands of demonstrators have been battling gas bombs and bullets in the streets of Tegucigalpa, leaving at least 11 dead. After initially taking the streets, the country's U.S.-trained and financed armed forces have refused to follow the president's orders to enforce a hastily imposed curfew. Despite the government's violence, students and members of various social movements continue to risk their lives demanding democracy, jeopardized by the current regime of president Juan Orlando Hernández of the right-wing National Party. The National Party has been in power since a coup removed former President Manuel Zelaya in 2009. … The events over the last ten days symptomize a growing consolidation of power by a new kind of right-wing alliance in Honduras and across Latin America: an alliance that brings together the power of the traditional landed elites and that of the financial elites who have benefited more recently from globalized neoliberalism. This alliance emerged amid the ashes of the Cold War and the dawn of the Washington Consensus—and can help explain some of the dynamics of the current electoral crisis in Honduras as well as recent events across the region. [Read More]. Also illuminating is "Honduras in turmoil after disputed presidential election," from The National Catholic Reporter [December 5, 2017] [Link]
---- Ten days after Honduras' presidential elections, results have not been announced and Honduras is in flames. Thousands of demonstrators have been battling gas bombs and bullets in the streets of Tegucigalpa, leaving at least 11 dead. After initially taking the streets, the country's U.S.-trained and financed armed forces have refused to follow the president's orders to enforce a hastily imposed curfew. Despite the government's violence, students and members of various social movements continue to risk their lives demanding democracy, jeopardized by the current regime of president Juan Orlando Hernández of the right-wing National Party. The National Party has been in power since a coup removed former President Manuel Zelaya in 2009. … The events over the last ten days symptomize a growing consolidation of power by a new kind of right-wing alliance in Honduras and across Latin America: an alliance that brings together the power of the traditional landed elites and that of the financial elites who have benefited more recently from globalized neoliberalism. This alliance emerged amid the ashes of the Cold War and the dawn of the Washington Consensus—and can help explain some of the dynamics of the current electoral crisis in Honduras as well as recent events across the region. [Read More]. Also illuminating is "Honduras in turmoil after disputed presidential election," from The National Catholic Reporter [December 5, 2017] [Link]
Hot Asian Babes and Nuclear War in East Asia
By Joseph Essertier, ZNet [December 7, 2017]
---- Assuming homo sapiens is still around, when "future generations" read about the history of the crisis on the Korean Peninsula that burst on the scene in 2017, what will they make of the eerily passive reaction of the general public and the mass media in the face of an ever increasingly likely thermonuclear war and the concomitant death knell of humanity? This week at least, media pundits are instead focusing on the seemingly endless list of household name TV personalities, politicians and movie directors who have for too long used their power to sexually abuse and intimidate women (and men) into being helpless, voiceless victims. Few would disagree that some of these sexual predators are now getting what they deserve, that light is finally being shone on this systemic social problem. … These two seemingly disjunct phenomena, the US threatening a tiny, impoverished country with an illegal, genocidal, preemptive nuclear strike and the problem of sexual violence against women may not appear to have much in common with each other, but it is time we considered how they are related, before it is too late. [Read More]
Trump and Jerusalem
Both Parties Pushed Trump Toward Reckless Action on Jerusalem
By Stephen Zunes, The Progressive [December 6, 2017]
---- President Trump announced on Wednesday that the United States will formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and that the U.S. embassy would be moved to that multi-ethnic and multi-faith city. No other government in the world formally recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital or has its embassy there, instead basing their diplomatic offices in Tel Aviv. Observers familiar with this volatile issue agree the decision further reduces the chances of Israeli-Palestinian peace, raises serious questions in relation to international law, and risks a violent and destabilizing reaction targeting U.S. interests globally.
The near-universal opposition to Trump's decision by much of the military, intelligence, and foreign policy establishment is not out of concern for the fate of the Palestinians or international law. Rather, they fear that effectively recognizing exclusive Israel control over the third holiest city in Islam will provoke a backlash throughout the Islamic world. … Support by Congressional Democrats and party leaders for moving the embassy is not due to demand from their constituents. A recent poll shows that 81 percent of Democrats oppose moving the embassy while only 15 percent approve. And polls show there is not strong support for such a move among American Jews, either. This is an extreme example of how the Democratic leadership and Congressional delegation diverge from their constituencies on major foreign policy issues. [Read More]
Trump's Jerusalem Decision: A Fatal and Fateful Blow
By James J. Zogby, LobeLog [December 10, 2017]
James J. Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute.
---- President Donald Trump's decision to formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital was irresponsible and dangerous for more reasons than I can count. Let me outline just a few of the principle concerns: While we have all grown weary of hearing the over-used mantra "this is the end of the peace process," Trump's decision may, in fact, be the nail in the coffin for any negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. … The unilateral American recognition of Jerusalem not only prejudges one of the conflicts most sensitive issues, it does so in Israel's favor. From the beginning of the modern "peace process," there have been two fatal flaws that have hampered the effort: the asymmetry of power in Israel's favor and the clear US bias in support of Israel. Trump's action has accented both flaws. … The decisions to recognize Jerusalem as the capital and to begin the process of relocating the US Embassy makes it clear that the US is not an "honest broker." In this context, the president's appeal to the parties to continue to focus on achieving peace simply doesn't pass the smell test. [Read More]
Also useful/interesting about Trump & Jerusalem – Raja Shehadeh, "Palestinians' Dashed Hopes for Jerusalem," [Link]; from Aljazeera, "Trump's Jerusalem move roundly condemned at UN," [December 8, 2017] [Link]; Julie Ingersoll, "Why Trump's evangelical supporters welcome his move on Jerusalem," The Conversation [December 7, 2017][Link]; Patrick Cockburn, "Donald Trump's decision on Israel will seriously harm US influence in the Muslim world," The Independent [UK] [December 7, 2017 [Link]; and "Poll: 44% of American Jews oppose moving US embassy to Jerusalem," Middle East Monitor [September 15, 2017] [Link].
WAR & PEACE
Starvation and Cholera in Yemen
By Adil E. Shamoo, Foreign Policy in Focus [December 7, 2017]
---- The current war in Yemen has had devastating consequences for the population. The indiscriminate Saudi bombing includes schools, water purification plants, hospitals, and electricity plants, leading to the death of over 10,000 and the wounding of 50,000 more. By the end of 2017, the International Red Cross has projected that over a million Yemenis will have suffered from cholera. So far, 900,000 people have been infected, and 2,000 have did, 1,200 of them children. Faced with no fuel for its water-treatment plant due to a Saudi blockade that relies on US military support, Yemen is starving, has little access to clean water. An outbreak of diphtheria has further complicated the crisis. … On November 6, the blockade began, creating more misery among a population already suffering from years of war, including atrocities committed by the Houthis. Americans, as Saudi-coalition allies, are providing an aircraft carrier, electronic intelligence, and guided aircraft to target bombing locations. Yet this war receives little attention, with few exceptions, from US media. Labeled a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, this conflict has come to the attention of Congress, where the House of Representatives passed a resolution calling US action "unauthorized" (compared to counterterrorism measures, which are authorized). [Read More]
---- The current war in Yemen has had devastating consequences for the population. The indiscriminate Saudi bombing includes schools, water purification plants, hospitals, and electricity plants, leading to the death of over 10,000 and the wounding of 50,000 more. By the end of 2017, the International Red Cross has projected that over a million Yemenis will have suffered from cholera. So far, 900,000 people have been infected, and 2,000 have did, 1,200 of them children. Faced with no fuel for its water-treatment plant due to a Saudi blockade that relies on US military support, Yemen is starving, has little access to clean water. An outbreak of diphtheria has further complicated the crisis. … On November 6, the blockade began, creating more misery among a population already suffering from years of war, including atrocities committed by the Houthis. Americans, as Saudi-coalition allies, are providing an aircraft carrier, electronic intelligence, and guided aircraft to target bombing locations. Yet this war receives little attention, with few exceptions, from US media. Labeled a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, this conflict has come to the attention of Congress, where the House of Representatives passed a resolution calling US action "unauthorized" (compared to counterterrorism measures, which are authorized). [Read More]
Saudi Blockade depriving Yemen Civilians of Food, Hospitals–UN should Sanction Riyadh
From Human Rights Watch [December 10, 2017]
---- The Saudi-led coalition's broad restrictions on aid and essential goods to Yemen's civilian population are worsening the country's humanitarian catastrophe, Human Rights Watch said today. Unless the coalition immediately stops blocking aid and commercial goods from reaching civilians in Houthi-controlled territory, the United Nations Security Council should impose travel bans and asset freezes on senior coalition leaders, including the Saudi crown prince and defense minister, Mohammed bin Salman. … The coalition has imposed a naval and air blockade on Yemen since the current conflict began in March 2015 that has severely restricted the flow of food, fuel, and medicine to civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law. The coalition closed all of Yemen's entry points in response to a missile strike on Saudi's Riyadh airport on November 4, 2017, by opposing Houthi-Saleh forces. While the coalition eased some restrictions in late November, it continues to prevent much aid and nearly all commercial imports from reaching Houthi-controlled ports, which has an unlawfully disproportionate impact on civilians' access to essential goods. Coalition military actions have violated laws-of-war prohibitions on restricting humanitarian assistance and on destroying objects essential to the survival of the civilian population. These violations, as well as the coalition's disregard for the reported suffering of the civilian population, suggest that the coalition may also be violating the prohibition against using starvation as a method of warfare, which is a war crime. The Security Council should urgently sanction Saudi and other coalition leaders responsible for blocking food, fuel, and medicine, causing hunger, sickness, and death. [Read More]
Endgame in Syria?
The US Just Announced It Will Stay in Syria Even After ISIS Is Defeated: Here's Why
By Darius Shahtahmasebi, Antimedia [December 6, 2017]
---- According to Newsweek, despite calls from Russia and Iran for the U.S. to abandon its illegal invasion of Syria, the Pentagon has just announced its intention to maintain its troop presence in the country even after ISIS is successfully defeated. … Even if these concerns regarding ISIS are genuine, one should wonder why the U.S. feels responsible for ensuring that ISIS cannot regenerate, reclaim lost ground, or plot further attacks. The premise completely undermines Syria's sovereignty and the competency of its allies, who are more than capable of defeating ISIS without external western intervention. … Who authorized this invasion of Syria? And who authorized American troops to be on the front lines in another war in a country that has branded American troops as invaders? But because the troops are fighting against ISIS, it doesn't matter, right? International law is worthless, as long as we are fighting ISIS (in a country that is already fighting them without our help). … No one is debating these developments in Congress or in the U.N., and these violations of international law are going unchallenged. If this isn't enough to wake up the average American, then perhaps the world needs to understand that the reason these troops will stay in Syria has nothing at all to do with ISIS, but is instead aimed at creating a buffer between Iran and the rest of the Middle East, which could lay the groundwork for an all-out confrontation with Iran and its allies. [Read More]
Mideast Peacemaking is No Longer Made-in-America
By December 8, 2017]
---- As 2017 comes to a close, the warring parties in Syria are moving towards reconciliation—but the U.S. is not among them. The Islamic State is all but defeated, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies are now closing in on the few remaining pockets occupied by other extremists, and Iranians, Russians, and Turks are mapping out the peace to come. Then there's America. Donald Trump may have hinted at changes up his sleeve, but he's treading the same tired path as his predecessor on Syria. Determined to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a means to weaken Iran and re-establish U.S. regional hegemony, Barack Obama's White House placed its bets on two pathways to this goal: 1) a military strategy to wrest control over Syria from the regime, and 2) a UN-sponsored and U.S.-backed mediation in Geneva to transition Assad out. Washington lost its military gamble when the Russian air force entered the battle in September 2015, providing both game-changing air cover and international clout to Assad's efforts. So the U.S. turned its hand to resuscitating a limp Geneva peace process that might have delivered a Syrian political settlement sans Assad. Instead, two years on, the tables have turned in this sphere, too. Today, it is the Iranians, Turks, and Russians leading reconciliation efforts in Syria through a process established in Astana and continued last week in Sochi—not Geneva. The three states have transformed the ground war by isolating key extremists, carving out ceasefire zones, and negotiating deals to keep the peace. [Read More]
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE BREAKDOWN
The Era of Walls
By Todd Miller, Tom Dispatch [December 7, 2017]
---- When I first talked to the three Honduran men in the train yard in the southern Mexican town of Tenosique, I had no idea that they were climate-change refugees. … When I asked why they were heading for the United States, one responded simply, "No hubo lluvia." ("There was no rain.") In their community, without rain, there had been neither crops, nor a harvest, nor food for their families, an increasingly common phenomenon in Central America. In 2015, for instance, 400,000 people living in what has become Honduras's "dry corridor" planted their seeds and waited for rain that never came. As in a number of other places on this planet in this century, what came instead was an extreme drought that stole their livelihoods. … According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, the "impact and threat of climate-related hazards" displaced an average of 21.5 million people annually between 2008 and 2015. The growing impact of the Anthropocene — of intensifying droughts, rising seas, and mega-storms — is already adding to a host of other factors, including poverty, war, and persecution, that in these years have unsettled record numbers of people. While many of the climate-displaced stay close to home, hoping to salvage both their lives and livelihoods, ever more are crossing international borders in what many are now calling a "refugee crisis." [Read More] And our climate breakdown is probably coming sooner than we thought. Read "Most Dire Climate Change Predictions, Warns New Study, Are Also the Most Accurate," Common Dreams [December 7, 2017] [Link].
---- When I first talked to the three Honduran men in the train yard in the southern Mexican town of Tenosique, I had no idea that they were climate-change refugees. … When I asked why they were heading for the United States, one responded simply, "No hubo lluvia." ("There was no rain.") In their community, without rain, there had been neither crops, nor a harvest, nor food for their families, an increasingly common phenomenon in Central America. In 2015, for instance, 400,000 people living in what has become Honduras's "dry corridor" planted their seeds and waited for rain that never came. As in a number of other places on this planet in this century, what came instead was an extreme drought that stole their livelihoods. … According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, the "impact and threat of climate-related hazards" displaced an average of 21.5 million people annually between 2008 and 2015. The growing impact of the Anthropocene — of intensifying droughts, rising seas, and mega-storms — is already adding to a host of other factors, including poverty, war, and persecution, that in these years have unsettled record numbers of people. While many of the climate-displaced stay close to home, hoping to salvage both their lives and livelihoods, ever more are crossing international borders in what many are now calling a "refugee crisis." [Read More] And our climate breakdown is probably coming sooner than we thought. Read "Most Dire Climate Change Predictions, Warns New Study, Are Also the Most Accurate," Common Dreams [December 7, 2017] [Link].
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Warring Visions of Puerto Rico's Future
By Harvey Wasserman, The Progressive [December 1, 2017]
---- Warring visions have now erupted over the energy and economic futures of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Will the islands become a cutting-edge green-powered solartopia for the benefit of their long-time residents? Or a fossil-fueled robber baron playground like Hong Kong or Singapore, set to operate for the profit of outside corporate investors? On the solartopian side, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have proposed a $146 billion green "Marshall Plan" to rebuild Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as a prosperous, self-sufficient home for the indigenous citizenry. The bill is co-sponsored by Democratic Senators Ed Markey, Richard Blumenthal and Democratic Representatives Nadia Velazquez and Darren Soto along with Democrat Stacey Plaskett, the Virgin Islands' non-voting Representative to Congress. … But not everyone shares the vision of a green-powered future. [Read More]. Also important is Frances Fobles, et al., "Official Toll in Puerto Rico: 62. Actual Deaths May Be 1,052.," [Link].
New DHS Numbers Show Trump Is Deporting Longtime U.S. Residents, Ripping Families Apart
By Alice Speri, The Intercept [
---- A review of this year's deportations published by Human Rights Watch on Tuesday reveal that many of those removed had long-established lives and deep family connections in the U.S. Some lived and worked here for decades. Many are married to American citizens and have American-born children. Human Rights Watch found that the number of people detained inside the U.S. rather than at the border — meaning that they were not new arrivals — increased by 42 percent over last year, while immigration arrests of people with no criminal convictions nearly tripled. … From Donald Trump's Inauguration Day to the end of this fiscal year, 110,568 people were arrested inside the U.S., compared to 77,806 during the same time period in 2016. Among those, 31,888 had no criminal convictions, compared with 11,500 during the same period in 2016. The Human Rights Watch review, confirmed by the figures released by the DHS on Tuesday, shows that the arrest and deportation of immigrants with deep ties to the U.S. and minor or no criminal history was not an exception — or a matter of "collateral apprehensions," as ICE has sometimes dubbed arrests of immigrants who are not targets of enforcement actions — but the norm. [Read More]. Indicative of the direction for US immigration policy under Trump is "U.S. Quits Migration Pact, Saying It Infringes on Sovereignty," New York Times [December 3, 2017] [Link].
The New Tax Bill
Donald Trump Is Just the Front Man for a Massive Heist
Republican elites are pushing through their agenda while the president acts a fool.
By Robert L. Borosage December 5, 2017
---- Virtually unified Republican caucuses in both the House and Senate are on the verge of passing a truly grotesque tax bill that would give more than 60 percent of its benefits to the richest 1 percent of Americans, while those making $75,000 or less will end up paying more in taxes. …The tax bill Republicans are trying to ramrod through the Congress provides a clear reminder of the real threat: the rabidly ideological Republican Party, which is looting the country just as it would have under a President Rubio or Romney. Trump had no clue about the policy and played little role in selling it. Trump has also turned his economic policy over to Goldman Sachs bankers who are propelling deregulation of finance and rollback of environmental and consumer protections. Trump's cabinet isn't a bunch of outsiders but made up for the most part 0f Republican politicians and donors eager for the assignment. [Read More]
The GOP Tax Plan Is Igniting a Movement for a Moral Economy
By
---- Republicans are using this prejudice against working people to justify a massive giveaway to wealthy political donors. While giving the rich and big corporations huge tax breaks, the Republican tax plan would raise taxes on 87 million middle-class families, throw 13 million people off health insurance, and cut Medicare by $400 billion. This moral abomination is already igniting a firestorm across the country. Over the past two weeks, protests have erupted at 50 universities and in least 100 cities, while nearly 50 people have been arrested on Capitol Hill. And whether or not President Trump achieves his goal of signing this tax deal into law by the end of the year, this fight is just beginning. On December 4, prominent faith leaders announced plans for one of the largest waves of civil disobedience in U.S. history. Dubbed the "Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival," this effort will mark the 50th anniversary of a similar initiative in 1968 that was undercut by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. [Read More] Anderson is also the lead author for the IPS report, "The Poor People's Campaign, 50 Years Later: Auditing America 50 Years After the Poor People's Campaign Challenged System Racism, Poverty, Militarism, and our National Morality" [Link].
Also useful/interesting on the Tax Bill – Benjamin J. Cohen, "How GOP Tax Bill's assault on Universities will Devastate US Economy," Informed Comment [December 3, 2017] [Link];and Michelle Goldberg, "No Wonder Millennials Hate Capitalism," New York Times i[December 4, 2017] [Link].
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Ehud Barak's Disappointing Peace Plan
---- Ehud Barak has "broken the silence". He has published an article in The New York Times attacking our prime minister in the most abrasive terms. In other words, he has done exactly the same as the group of ex-soldiers who call themselves "Breaking the Silence", who are accused of washing our dirty linen abroad. They expose war crimes to which they have been witnesses, or even participants. But apart from the attack on Binyamin Netanyahu, Barak has used the article to publish his Peace Plan. A former chief-of-staff of the Israeli army and a former prime minister, Barak is obviously planning a comeback, and his peace plan is part of the effort. There seems to be, anyhow, open season for Peace Plans in our region…. Donald Trump is not a genius like Barak, but he also has a Peace Plan. A group of right-wing Jews, including his son-in-law (also no genius, he) have been working on this for months. He has proposed it to Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's successor, to the new Saudi Crown Prince and other Arab princes. It seems to provide for a Palestinian State composed of several small isolated enclaves on the West Bank, without Jerusalem and without an army. This is sheer lunacy. Not one single Palestinian and not one single other Arab would accept this. Worse, anyone proposing such a caricature of a state betrays utter ignorance. That's where the real problem lies: it is much worse than just not knowing. It demonstrates abysmal contempt for the Palestinians and for Arabs in general, a basic belief that their feelings, if any, don't matter at all. This is a remnant of colonial times. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
George McGovern, Vietnam and the Democratic Crackup
Thomas J. Knock, New York Times [December 5, 2017]
---- McGovern actually asked his fellow citizens to think critically about their own country — in particular, about American military and economic interventionism in the Third World and about a nuclear arsenal of such size as to threaten human existence. While millions of Americans did not have enough to eat or a decent place to live, he argued, the Cold War squandered untold treasure that might have been far better spent on programs for economic and social reform; the United States could never fulfill its promise around the globe if it did not fulfill its promise at home. [Read More]
Five Magnificent Years [Otis Redding]
By Geoffrey O'Brien, New York Review of Books [September 28, 2017]
[FB – This is a review of Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life, by Jonathan Gould]
---- Into this larger picture [the author] introduces Otis Redding's grandmother Laura Fambro, born in 1877 to ex-slaves in Monroe County, and traces the pattern of her life, as far as it can be known or surmised, in the cotton counties of Georgia. "In the eyes of southern society," he notes, "the production of cotton was the only reason for people like the Reddings to exist." He details the exploitation of sharecroppers and the mechanisms of social control hemming them in because, however familiar it ought to be, this forms part of a story "that the great majority of Americans have always been determined to dismiss, forget, or ignore." The astonishment of Otis Redding's career cannot be grasped without a full sense of the ingrained, fear-driven, stifling forces intended to prevent such an emergence from ever happening. Gould takes time therefore to track the family as closely as possible, from well before Otis's birth, as the widowed Laura and her three sons, three daughters, and four grandchildren move about Georgia in response to changing economic conditions, finding themselves by 1930 in "a three-room cabin on a stretch of unpaved highway" in a corner of Terrell County (later known to civil rights workers, we are told, as "Terrible Terrell"). [Read More]
