Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
February 5, 2018
Hello All – People get ready. Our slow-motion political crisis is becoming a perfect storm. On our front-burners we have:
● A stock market that may be in the first stages of a serious collapse. While the Republican political elite are justifiably concerned about their chances for re-election and/or control of Congress after 2018, the Republican economic elite have had a good year. According to a report by Oxfam, for example, the richest one percent cornered 82 percent of the wealth created last year. If the Republican rich join the Republican political elite in viewing Trump as a problem, not a solution, there may be a mutiny in the works.
● An emerging Constitutional crisis, now centered on the Mueller investigation and the congressional "Memos" about the legitimacy of the FBI's FISA warrants, but capable of engulfing much more. As with the downfall of Nixon over a "two-bit burglary," the actual crimes involved in the Trump investigations may be relatively insignificant ("collusion"?), but the cover-ups and obstructions of justice are piling up. As this very useful Democracy Now! interview with investigative reporter Marcy Wheeler makes clear, Trump and his supporters keep digging their hole deeper, just like Tricky Dick.
● A government funding crisis that must be resolved by Friday, joined at the hip with demands that the immigrants in the DACA program (and as many more as possible) be protected from deportation. Trump has proposed a "grand bargain" that would save the DACA people plus a million more immigrants, in exchange for a congressional program of $25 million to build The Wall and legislation reducing future immigration possibilities. When the Godfather proposed this deal-that-couldn't-be-refused last week, New York Times analyst Thomas Edsall (linked below) thought that Trump had put the Democrats in a trap. With the chaos now engulfing Washington, this may no longer be true.
To this we can reasonably add great distress and anger at Trump from thousands of federal civil servants, from the State Department to the regulatory agencies, whose jobs have been rendered miserable and/or meaningless, and from the FBI and the intelligence agencies (CIA, etc.), now with serious grievances against Trump.
As the White House wagons circle, people with peace/not war on their minds naturally think about the possibility of war. Recent presidents have benefited from wars to revive sagging popularity ratings. This strategy has been enshrined in American popular culture thanks to the film "Wag the Dog," in which a fictional president engages a Hollywood producer to stage a fake war ("a pageant") when scandal threatens to bring him down. The groundwork for such a diversion has been laid by White House and Pentagon banter about giving North Korea "a bloody nose," and just this week The New York Times reported that the "White House Wants Pentagon to Offer More Options on North Korea." No doubt there are other theaters of war that could be called into play to give Trump his "Wag the Dog" scenario; but with the frustration of US plans to attack North Korea, now that the devilishly clever communists have contrived a peace offensive in collaboration with wavering US ally South Korea, the gloves may come off. So people get ready.
News Notes
At long last, today is the day that the New START Treaty, which reduces the number of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the United States and Russia, comes into effect. Among other things, the Treaty places "limits on strategic arms (700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles [ICBMs], deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles [SLBMs], and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments; 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments; and 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments)."
Gene Sharp, the great champion of nonviolent resistance to war and oppression, died last week at the age of 90. In 2010 he was interviewed about his life and work. You can read his New York Times obituary here.
An important ruling by the District of Columbia Circuit Court may shut down a major gas pipeline and provide an important legal weapon to stop other pipeline projects. In a nutshell, the Sierra Club and other plaintiffs prevailed in arguing that the regulatory agency FERC had to take the impact of burning the gas – not just digging in the dirt and laying down pipe - into account when evaluating the environmental impact of the project. Read more here.
Close readers of the CFOW newsletter and other dissenting publications will recognize the name Robert Parry as that of an outstanding journalist. Among other things, Parry – who died suddenly this week at the age of 68 – was responsible for discovering what was happening in Nicaragua in 1986 in what became known as the "Iran-Contra Scandal." An extensive and interesting appreciation of Parry's work was published in The Intercept and can be read here.
Last week was the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive, the military offensive against the American occupying troops that turned the tide of the Vietnam War. As former CIA analyst Paul Pillar writes, "By most strictly military measures, the offensive was a defeat for the communists and a victory for the United States and its allies. But the military outcome was not what mattered most, either in the immediate aftermath of the offensive or ultimately. The political, perceptual, and emotional outcomes were what mattered." President Johnson rejected General Westmoreland's request for an additional 200,000 troops and announced that he would not seek reelection. While the world had to endure seven more years of the war under first Nixon and then Ford, the Tet Offensive marked the beginning of the end. Read "Lessons from the Tet Offensive, 50 Years Later" here.
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Ongoing – Concerned Families of Westchester holds a rally/vigil each Saturday in Hastings, at the VFW Plaza, from 12 to 1. Please join us.
Tuesday, February 6th – Did you know that more than 1,000 Westchester residents are jailed each day? Or that more than 25,000 New Yorkers are in jail? Our friends at Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) invite us to a dinner and "Westchester Town Hall" sponsored by the #Freenewyork campaign. The event is free and starts at 5:30 p.m. at the Yonkers Public Library. To RSVP and get more information, go here.
Sunday, February 10th – Our friends at the South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs invite us to a Teen Benefit for Puerto Rico. Dinner starts at 6 p.m., followed by music by live teenagers! Tickets are $10 for teens and $25 for adults. For reservations and more information, go here.
Thursday, February 15th - Kathy Kelly (Voices of Creative Nonviolence) will be the featured speaker at a community forum about the war in Yemen at the Stony Point Center, 17 Cricketown Road in Stony Point. The program begins at 7 p.m. and is sponsored by the Community of Living Traditions, WESPAC, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Also among the speakers will be CFOW stalwart Nick Mottern. For more information, or to RSVP, email ssmith@stonypointcenter.org. ($10 donation requested, but no one turned away.)
Monday, February 26 - Port Chester Immigration Defense and Make the Road (Westchester Hispanic Coalition) will be hosting a Free Legal Advice and Training for Immigrants and those who serve them. The program begins at 7 p.m. At St. Peter's Episcoopal Church, 19 Smith St. in Portchester.
Sunday, March 4th – CFOW's monthly meeting will be at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 7 to 9 p.m. At these meetings we review our work of the past month and lay plans for the coming weeks. Everyone is welcome at these meetings; please join us!
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 tax cut legislation 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!
Rewards!
Newsletter rewards are for stalwart readers who have made it through the first few pages. This week's rewards are two of my favorites from Phil Ochs, whose inspiration to fight the good fight lives on. First up is his "Power and Glory." And next up is "When I'm Gone." Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
The Walls of this Church Are the Only Thing Standing Between Amanda Morales and Deportation
By Laura Gottesdiener, Malav Kanuga and Cinthya Santos Briones, The Nation [January 30, 2018]
---- On a brisk evening in early December, Amanda Morales's oldest daughter is perched at the edge of a bunk bed inside a cavernous century-old Gothic Revival church in upper Manhattan. She is just 10 years old, round-faced and shy, and she is writing her life story. "Once upon a time there was a girl named Dulce. She had a mom who was going to be deported," the fifth-grader types haltingly in Script MT bold font. "Because of Mr. Trump," she adds. Dulce briefly sets aside the family's laptop—donated only hours earlier—to retrieve a toy ball from her younger sister, Daniela, and return it to their teary-eyed baby brother, David, who had been squirming at Dulce's side. The small room, which is technically the church's library, is strewn with children's clothes and toys. Too absorbed in her story to hear her mother, Dulce keeps typing. "So on August 17," she continues writing, "the mom was going to go to New York City to go to the court. But she didn't go because she was going to get sent to Guatemala. So she decided to go to a church." … It has been more than five months since Amanda Morales and her three children left behind their home on Long Island to take sanctuary in Holyrood Church in Washington Heights. The move happened quickly, in a matter of days, after Amanda learned that she would be deported to Guatemala. As she and her kids set about uprooting their lives—packing up their clothes, toys, and the pet fish—they got help from the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City, an interfaith network of congregations and activists helping immigrants resist detention and deportation. The coalition searched out a church where the family could live. They procured sleeping bag and other necessities. They connected Amanda with lawyers, who filed for a stay of removal and a petition to open an asylum case (both were denied and are now being appealed). [Read More]
Exceptional Victims
By Christian Appy, Boston Review [February 1, 2018]
---- Exactly a year before he was murdered, Martin Luther King, Jr., gave one of the greatest speeches of his life, a piercing critique of the war in Vietnam. Two thousand people jammed into New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, to hear King shred the historical, political, and moral claims that U.S. leaders had invoked since the end of World War II to justify their counterrevolutionary foreign policy. The United States had not supported Vietnamese independence and democracy, King argued, but had repeatedly opposed it; the United States had not defended the people of South Vietnam from external communist aggression, but was itself the foreign aggressor—burning and bombing villages, forcing peasants off their ancestral land, and killing, by then, as many as one million Vietnamese. "We are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure," King said, "while we create a hell for the poor." … The Vietnam War undermined public faith in U.S. exceptionalism like no other event in our history. Never before had such a wide range of citizens, cutting across lines of class, race, gender, and religion, rejected the claim that the United States was a unique and invincible force for good. As King made clear, the Vietnam War blatantly contradicted every assumption of moral superiority, and even pro-war hawks were left to wonder how the greatest military power in world history had been unable to prevail against a nation of rice farmers. To understand our current political moment, we must understand how political and media forces, especially on the right, responded to this embarrassment and to criticisms such as King's. [Read More]
---- Exactly a year before he was murdered, Martin Luther King, Jr., gave one of the greatest speeches of his life, a piercing critique of the war in Vietnam. Two thousand people jammed into New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, to hear King shred the historical, political, and moral claims that U.S. leaders had invoked since the end of World War II to justify their counterrevolutionary foreign policy. The United States had not supported Vietnamese independence and democracy, King argued, but had repeatedly opposed it; the United States had not defended the people of South Vietnam from external communist aggression, but was itself the foreign aggressor—burning and bombing villages, forcing peasants off their ancestral land, and killing, by then, as many as one million Vietnamese. "We are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure," King said, "while we create a hell for the poor." … The Vietnam War undermined public faith in U.S. exceptionalism like no other event in our history. Never before had such a wide range of citizens, cutting across lines of class, race, gender, and religion, rejected the claim that the United States was a unique and invincible force for good. As King made clear, the Vietnam War blatantly contradicted every assumption of moral superiority, and even pro-war hawks were left to wonder how the greatest military power in world history had been unable to prevail against a nation of rice farmers. To understand our current political moment, we must understand how political and media forces, especially on the right, responded to this embarrassment and to criticisms such as King's. [Read More]
Accompanying Honduras
---- We came to this country at the urgent request of SHARE El Salvador, a humanitarian aid organization with a long history of solidarity work in Central America. Police and military repression in Honduras since the overtly fraudulent elections in November 2017 has been getting worse, with over thirty people killed and more than one thousand in jails. Death threats aimed at those who are raising their voices the loudest are getting more overt and intense. In particular, the life of Jesuit priest and native Honduran Father Ismael Moreno, known as Padre Melo, is in danger. … The organizers of our delegation had originally hoped that a handful of faith leaders could come on very short notice to accompany and protect Padre Melo, as well as others, and to witness and report on what is happening on the ground as the cycles of demonstrations and police repression escalate. Surprisingly, fifty people – mostly clergy – got on a plane and arrived on January 24 to spend a week meeting with Radio Progreso staff and grass roots activists, listen to stories from family members of victims of the repression, attend street demonstrations, marches, and vigils as observers, take part in religious ceremonies, and generally listen and observe. [Read More]
The People Who Made a Nuclear-Weapons-Prohibition Treaty Possible
By Ari Beser, The Nation [February 2, 2018]
---- From the indigenous communities exposed by remote nuclear tests, to activists living in bustling cities across the globe—a new resistance is growing. Peace Organizations worldwide have joined together to stand up to the nine nuclear-armed states in the form of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, known commonly as ICAN. While many have hailed them for revitalizing the nuclear-disarmament movement, their greatest achievement to date is their influence on the creation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This bold new step in disarmament stands out from previous anti-nuclear movements, because it went after a comprehensive ban. While it won't as of yet directly eliminate a single nuclear weapon, as none of the current signatories have them, many believe it will significantly alter the nuclear-weapons industry. … There are too many people in ICAN to profile in one article, so I dug through to find different representatives from different corners of the earth. Each brought their own backgrounds, medical, legal, social, and all came together over a decade ago to lobby for the ban. [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
Our Enemy, Ourselves: Ten Commonsense Suggestions for Making Peace, Not War
By William J. Astore, TomDispatch [February 3, 2018]
By William J. Astore, TomDispatch [February 3, 2018]
---- Whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere in the war on terror, the U.S. is now engaged in generational conflicts that are costing us trillions of dollars, driving up the national debt while weakening the underpinnings of our democracy. They have led to foreign casualties by the hundreds of thousands and created refugees in the millions, while turning cities like Iraq's Mosul into wastelands. In today's climate of budget-busting "defense" appropriations, isn't it finally time for Americans to apply a little commonsense to our disastrous pattern of war-making? To prime the pump for such a conversation, here are 10 suggestions for ways to focus on, limit, or possibly change Washington's now eternal war-making and profligate war spending: (1) Abandon the notion of perfect security. You can't have it. It doesn't exist. And abandon as well the idea that a huge military establishment translates into national safety. James Madison didn't think so and neither did Dwight D. Eisenhower. (2) Who could have anything against calling the Pentagon a "defense" department, if defense were truly its focus? But let's face it: the Pentagon is actually a war department. So let's label it what it really is. After all, how can you deal with a problem if you can't even name it accurately? [Read More]
Why We Should Fear the 'Washington Establishment' Figures Who are Pulling the Strings in the Trump Administration
---- Reports from Washington suggest that the decision to get more fully engaged in the Syrian civil war was contrary to what Trump himself wanted. By this account, he would have preferred to use his State of the Union address to announce that the US mission in Syria had ended in triumph with the defeat of Isis and that he was withdrawing US ground forces. Instead, the decision went the other way as McMaster and Mattis supported by Tillerson successfully argued for keeping US ground forces in Syria and Iraq. These senior officials were only advocating the consensus opinion of the US foreign policy establishment, as was swiftly illustrated by media commentators. Even as Turkish tanks were rolling into Syria, an editorial in The Washington Post was applauding Tillerson for having "bluntly recognised a truth that both President Trump and President Barack Obama attempted to dodge" – which is that the US needs a political and military presence in Syria. [Read More]
Huge Military Budgets Make Us Broke, Not Safe
By Miriam Pemberton, Otherwords.org [February 4, 2018]
---- We're now spending more on the military, adjusted for inflation, than at any time since World War II — including during the Reagan and George W. Bush buildups. We spend more than the next eight countries put together. Worse still, the military can't even say what it's actually spending — it's still the only federal agency that can't pass an audit. The brass says they'll really try this year, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Trusting the Pentagon to rein in its own waste hasn't worked. Back in 2015, the Pentagon's own commissioned report found $125 billion in administrative waste that could be cut over five years. But then they simply buried the report. Here's what we really need to feel safer: Leaders who are working to reduce nuclear tensions rather than rev them up. [Read More]
The Slightly New War in Syria
[FB – A few years ago, the war in Syria resembled Russian nesting dolls: there were local conflicts, enclosed in a national conflict (Syria), enclosed in a regional conflict (Iran and Saudi Arabia), enclosed in a Great Power conflict (Russia and the USA). And then there was ISIS. Now, with the defeat of ISIS and (largely) the defeat of the Syrian insurgency against the Assad government, we have … havoc. The United States seems to be in Syria for an indefinite duration; ditto Iran and Russia; and now we have an invasion of a sliver of Syria by Turkey, aimed at eliminating an enclave controlled by Turkey's main enemy, the Kurds. And several dozen miles to the east of Turkey's target du jour lies another Kurdish enclave, the host to 2,000 US troops. What could go wrong? Below I've linked a few perspectives on the "new" war in Syria; to keep up to date, the best source imo is "Syria Comment," hosted by Prof. Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma.]
Turkey's huge crackdown is destroying civil society
, Amnesty International [January 30, 2018]
---- Turkey's military offensive in Afrin looks set to dominate news coverage of the region for weeks to come. Which is no surprise. But back across the border in Turkey, one underreported aspect of the Afrin offensive is yet another domestic crackdown. In the past week more than 150 people, including at least four journalists, have been detained in various locations in Turkey on the grounds that they had criticised the Afrin operation in social media posts. They're being investigated for "making propaganda for a [terrorist] organisation". This is the new normal in Turkey. Almost any criticism of government officials or policy is quickly recharacterised as a "threat to national security", "terrorist propaganda", an "insult" or similar. … It's no exaggeration to say Turkey's entire civil society has come under attack. Toward the end of 2016, some 375 non-government organisations (NGOs) – some of which were providing care for the massive numbers of Syrian refugees and people internally displaced in the country – were forcibly shut down under a draconian executive decree. [Read More] For more on Turkey's attack on war-dissenters, read "Turkey arrests scores for 'terror propaganda' as it presses Afrin assault," Middle East Eye [Link].
A Sustainable US Policy for North Syria, the Kurds, Turkey, and Damascus
By Joshua Landis and Matthew Barber, LobeLog [January 31, 2018]
---- This article is a "part-two" to the previous article "U.S. Policy Toward the Levant, Kurds, and Turkey," which warned that the United State's decision to back Kurdish nationalism in Northern Syria in an uncompromising fashion would provoke negative consequences. The push-back against this policy has begun. Turkey's invasion of Afrin and campaign against the YPG—the U.S. backed Kurdish militia in Syria—is being launched to counter Washington's decision to stay in Syria and arm and train a Border Guard for the emerging North Syrian state that the U.S. is sponsoring. … Trying to play the game of making the Kurds into an obstacle to Iranian influence, the U.S. has now had to sacrifice Afrin in order to assuage Turkey's ire; simultaneously, it has to convince the Kurds to exercise restraint and not to allow Turkey to provoke them into a strong reaction. If Kurds fight with Turkey in Afrin, it will give Turkey a pretext to attack and invade Kurdish areas further east; this may very well be what Turkey hopes will happen. The PYD will probably get a message from the U.S. urging them not to resist much in Afrin, but the problem facing the U.S. is not over, as Afrin may not be where Turkey stops. [Read More] Also useful for Turkey's new military offensive is "The politics behind Turkey's Afrin operation," from Middle East Eye [Link].
CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
Trump's travel ban is just one of many US policies that legalize discrimination against Muslims
By Basima Sisemore, The Conversation [January 29, 2018]
---- On Jan. 19, a year after President Donald Trump's first travel ban was issued, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments against the latest third version signed by Trump on Sept. 24, 2017. This version remains in full effect. Under the ban, nationals from eight countries are subject to travel restrictions, varying in severity by country. Venezuela and North Korea are on the list, but the ban overwhelmingly targets Muslim-majority countries: Chad, Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Thus, what the American Civil Liberties Union has called a "Muslim ban" will have tremendous consequences on 150 million people, the majority of whom are Muslim. This policy did not emerge in a vacuum. In fact, findings from our recently published research expose 15 federal measures and 194 state bills that impact Muslims directly. Here's a brief overview of some of the most critical yet overlooked measures. [Read More]
Spying on the Wrong People: The Hypocrisy of the Nunes Memo & FISA
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment [February 2, 2018]
---- The frenzy over the Nunes memo, likely to be released later today by the Trump administration, contains a profound hypocrisy at its core, one that points to the rot at the core of the American government. The Republican conspiracy theory promoted by Nunes is that the Federal government over-reached in spying on the Trump campaign. … anuary 18, Republican-dominated the Senate passed a law extending National Security Agency and other agencies' prerogative of warrantless spying on Americans for another six years. The unconstitutional and illegal practices of Federal agencies had been exposed by Ed Snowden, who may as well not have bothered… The law turns Federal agents into criminals. Who voted for warrantless surveillance of Americans? Devin Nunes and his whole committee. Almost the whole of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate, with the exception of Libertarians like Rand Paul. Not to mention Democratic stalwarts Diane Feinstein, Mark Warner, and Claire McCaskill. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
The dangers of focusing all our attention on Donald Trump
By Jerome Roos, Roar Magazine [January 21, 2018]
---- It's been a year since Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States of America — and we're already exhausted. … Exhausted, frankly, by the very realization — recurring on a daily basis — that this man-child's maniacal delusions have actually been confirmed, insofar as he himself is concerned, by his election to the most powerful office in the world. Nevertheless, amidst the storm of chaos that Donald Trump has unleashed upon the world, it becomes ever more necessary to take some distance from the headlines and reflect upon the broader meaning of the past year in American and global politics. For me personally, three observations stand out. [Read More]
Trump's Financial Arsonists: The Next Financial Crisis -- Not If, But When
By Nomi Prins February 1, 2018
By Nomi Prins February 1, 2018
---- Amid a roaring stock market and a planet of upbeat CEOs, few are even thinking about the havoc that a multi-trillion-dollar financial system gone rogue could inflict upon global stability. But watch out. Even in the seemingly best of times, neglecting Wall Street is a dangerous idea. With a rag-tag Trumpian crew of ex-bankers and Goldman Sachs alumni as the only watchdogs in town, it's time to focus, because one thing is clear: Donald Trump's economic team is in the process of making the financial system combustible again. … Nearly every regulatory institution in Trumpville tasked with monitoring the financial system is now run by someone who once profited from bending or breaking its rules. Historically, severe financial crises tend to erupt after periods of lax oversight and loose banking regulations. By filling America's key institutions with representatives of just such negligence, Trump has effectively hired a team of financial arsonists. [Read More]
Trump Has Got Democrats Right Where He Wants Them
By Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times [February 1, 2018]
---- President Trump's immigration proposal has put Democrats in a bind; they know it and he knows it. Trump's immigration "framework" — first outlined on Jan. 25 — represents an unusually sophisticated strategy. He proposes to more than double the number of Dreamers granted a path to citizenship, a significant concession to Democrats. In return, he seeks approval of a set of policies strongly opposed by the left, each of which is designed to stem what Trump sees as a threatening increase in the nonwhite population of the United States. … Trump, acutely aware of the importance of DACA to Democrats, deliberately turned the status of Dreamers into a crisis on Sept. 5 when he ended the Dreamers program. Since then, DACA has been the subject of constant debate and negotiation. Democrats have continued to threaten to shut down the government, when the Treasury runs out of money on Feb. 8, if no favorable agreement can be reached. Trump's proposal more than meets Democratic demands on DACA. But in return Trump wants Democrats to swallow three proposals of varying unpalatability. [Read More]
Also useful/interesting for "the State of the Union" – Kate Aronoff, "Hedge Fund-Driven Austerity Could Come Back to Bite the Hedge Funds Driving it in Puerto Rico," The Intercept [
[Link]; Russ Feingold, "The Crosscheck Voter Database Is a Security Threat," The Nation [February 2, 2018] [Link]; and Elisabeth Rosenthal, "A Good Health Care Deal, but Only for Some," [Link].
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
No Exceptions [Esther Koontz and BDS]
By Radhika Sainath, Jacobin Magazine [February 2018]
---- After attending several presentations about Israel's treatment of Palestinians, Kansas math teacher Esther Koontz decided she wouldn't buy products from SodaStream, an Israeli company. She was pleased when her church agreed: in July 2017, Mennonite Church USA passed a resolution urging its members to "avoid the purchase of products associated with acts of violence or policies of military occupation, including items produced in the settlements." Esther's life continued more or less the same; she just didn't carbonate her water at home or buy certain brands of hummus. She completed a train-the-trainers program for public school math teachers and was looking forward to the career benefits and extra pay ($600 per training, plus travel expenses). Then she received an email from the Kansas State Department of Education stating that she needed to sign a certification that she was not engaging in a boycott of Israel before giving three scheduled trainings. Esther considered her response. … This week, in a groundbreaking — but not surprising — decision, a federal court stopped Kansas from enforcing this law, which required people like Esther to swear they are not engaged in boycotts for Palestinian rights before contracting with the state. [Read More]
For more on this important court ruling – Editorial, Kansas City Star, "No, Kansas, you can't ban contractors from boycotting Israel," [January 31, 2018] [Link]; and Glenn Greenwald, "In a Major Free Speech Victory, a Federal Court Strikes Down a Law that Punishes Supporters of Israel Boycott," [Link].
(Video) Norman Finkelstein on Gaza's Martyrdom [First of four episodes, about 25 minutes each]
From The Real News Network [February 2018]
---- In his groundbreaking new book "Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom," Norman Finkelstein argues that Israel, with U.S. backing, has caused a "humanitarian disaster" in Gaza, and that international human rights groups have failed to uphold justice for its besieged people. [See the Programs]
A Comment on the UN's Alleged Anti-Israel Bias
---- The theme that the UN singles out Israel has been a recurring one that pro-Israel organizations have propagated for some time in order to delegitimize the UN as a biased institution and therefore deflect attention from its systematic human rights abuses. Notably, the South African Apartheid regime exacted a very similar strategy throughout the 1960s and 1970s when the UN highlighted its discriminatory regime and denial of self-determination to South West Africa (Namibia) and South Africa. These tactics are not new. That the UN pays disproportionate attention to the Question of Palestine is true - but this is not indicative of bias. Rather it reflects the fact that of all cases of colonialism that have occupied the attention of the League of Nations since 1920 and the UN since its establishment in 1945, Palestine is the single outstanding case to actually not achieve its self-determination. … So for the UN, the inability to achieve Palestinian independence -largely due to US obstructionism- is a sore an outstanding cause for the majority of the world, or the global south nations that were former colonies of Europe. The only way to stand by a statement that the UN is biased against Israel is to occlude this history and elide the fact that Israel is a colonial power that today singles itself out by its insistence that it remains above the law and an exception to the norm of decolonization and independence. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
The 'Slave Power' Behind Florida's Felon Disenfranchisement
By Garrett Epps, The Atlantic [February 5, 2018]
---- In November 1865—barely six months after Appomattox, and three weeks before the official ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment—the New York Tribune's front page bore a provocative headline: "South Carolina Re-establishing Slavery." The story laid out the new system being put into place in most of the former Confederacy—"Black Codes," criminal laws targeting black citizens, coupling a long list of minor offenses with a schedule of prohibitive fines. If a black defendant could not pay the fine, he or she was to be "contracted out" to work off the "debt" for some white employer. … This history—the ardent and persistent embrace by Southern racists of the criminal justice system as a means of racial domination—gives me a somewhat jaundiced view of state laws barring convicted felons from voting. They are a heritage of the old slave-power mindset, and have no business marring politics in a 21st century democracy. [Read More]
---- In November 1865—barely six months after Appomattox, and three weeks before the official ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment—the New York Tribune's front page bore a provocative headline: "South Carolina Re-establishing Slavery." The story laid out the new system being put into place in most of the former Confederacy—"Black Codes," criminal laws targeting black citizens, coupling a long list of minor offenses with a schedule of prohibitive fines. If a black defendant could not pay the fine, he or she was to be "contracted out" to work off the "debt" for some white employer. … This history—the ardent and persistent embrace by Southern racists of the criminal justice system as a means of racial domination—gives me a somewhat jaundiced view of state laws barring convicted felons from voting. They are a heritage of the old slave-power mindset, and have no business marring politics in a 21st century democracy. [Read More]
(Video) Blowback: How a CIA-Backed Coup Led to the Rise of Iran's Ayatollahs
By Mehdi Hasan, The Intecept [
---- Why can't Iran have a secular, democratic government? It's a question Americans often ask of their longstanding Middle East adversary — especially when they see images of anti-regime protesters taking to the streets of major Iranian cities and towns to demand greater freedom. Unlike citizens of the Islamic Republic, however, citizens of the United States tend to have short memories. The historical reality is that Iran did have a secular, democratic government, led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh between 1951 and 1953 — but Mossadegh was removed from power in a coup organized and funded by the CIA and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6. [See the Program] Another episode in this series is also interesting: "Blowback: How ISIS Was Created by the U.S. Invasion of Iraq" [Link].
The Untold Story of the Pentagon Papers Co-Conspirators
By Eric Lichtblau, The New Yorker [January 29, 2018]
---- In June of 1971, Gar Alperovitz, a thirty-five-year-old historian, sped through suburban Boston, looking for an out-of-the-way pay phone to use to call a reporter. Alperovitz had never considered himself much of a risk-taker. The father of two ran a small economic think tank focused on community-building. He had participated in demonstrations against the Vietnam War and rung doorbells with Martin Luther King, Jr., in Boston, as part of an antiwar campaign. But what he was doing on this day, propelled by his desire to end the conflict, could lead to federal prison. He pulled his old Saab up to a phone booth on the outskirts of Harvard Square, and rang a hotel room nearby. When the reporter picked up, Alperovitz identified himself with the alias he had adopted: "It's Mr. Boston." Alperovitz told the journalist to open the door. Waiting in the hallway was a cardboard box, left minutes before by a runner working with Alperovitz. Inside were several hundred pages of the most sought-after documents in the United States—the top-secret Vietnam history known as the Pentagon Papers. [Read More]. NB Gar Alperovitz is the author of the essential, mind-blowing book, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of An American Myth.
