Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
April 15, 2019
Hello All – Today is tax day. It's a good day to think about how the federal government spends our money, and how it might be spent otherwise. Too often we let politicians say we can't do this or we can't do that because we have no money; and yet there is little discussion of just how much money the USA spends on its war machine, and whether all these billions are necessary to "defend" us from …. whatever. So let's take a few minutes on this tax day to think about military spending.
The go-to starting place for learning about the federal budget and military spending is the National Priorities Project. The NPP breaks down federal budgets into different categories of expenditures and different sources of revenue. When we lump together categories such as Pentagon spending, "Overseas Contingencies," nuclear weapons, Veterans Affairs, and other war-related spending, it turns out that about two-thirds of "discretionary spending" goes to the military. ("Discretionary spending" is what Congress votes on, unlike things such as Social Security and Medicare that are fixed in law and have a separate tax-money stream.)
According to the National Priorities Project, the cost of all US wars since 9/11 is about $4.8 trillion. That is, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc. have cost us about $32 million dollars an hour. Looked at another way, since 9/11, our wars have cost taxpayers in ….
- Westchester - $49.6 billion
- Yonkers - $3.8 billion
- Hastings - $451 million
- Dobbs Ferry - $456 million
- Irvington - $670 million
- Ardsley - $234 million
How much is this for each person? The cost of war since 9/11 for each of the 8,008 people in Hastings has been about $56,000. The cost of war for the 11,147 people living in Dobbs Ferry has been about $41,000. Etc. That is, about $2,500 to $3,000 per person per year.
As President Eisenhower said in his famous "Farewell Address," money given to the military is taken from civilian use or alternative government expenditures. For example, and again using numbers from the National Priorities Project, in 2017 the taxpayers in Hastings or Dobbs Ferry paid about $61 million for military expenditures. If the military budget were cut just 10 percent, according to the National Priorities Project, the money saved would pay for 60 elementary school teachers or 200 4-year college scholarships. Or think of the bigger picture. "Climate Change" is the biggest threat to humans, to our "national security" and to our survival. To stop total disaster, we can't wait another minute. The Green New Deal is the best idea on the table. But can we afford it? Once again, if we cut our 2017 military budget of $647 billion by 10 percent, we could pay for a million clean-energy jobs or a million infrastructure jobs without increasing taxes.
There are other reasons for cutting the military budget. Over the years, there have been several efforts to figure out what we would need pay if our military were confined to "defending us," rather than ruling the globe. For example, is the more than a trillion-dollar "nuclear modernization program" really necessary to defend us? Do we need 800 overseas military bases? Check out an article published just today that argues that "A $350 Billion Defense Department Would Keep Us Safer Than a $700 Billion War Machine." If two-thirds of the money we pay in taxes goes to the military, and half of that money is not needed for our defense, but gets into wars all over the world, we have a serious problem and need to get informed and speak up.
News Notes
One of the great stalwarts for justice died this week. Blase Bonpane, whose work with and for the people of Central America was exemplary, passed at the age of 89. Democracy Now!, on which he often appeared, has put up a good memorial. Read it here.
In a speech this week, President Trump justified his attempt to exclude refugees from Central America by saying that the United States "is full." This prompted The New York Times to publish an interesting county-by-county map of the USA indicating which counties had seen a decline in the working-age population over the last decade. There are lots and lots. See the map here.
We should worry about the safety of Rep. Ilhan Omar. President Trump's twitter attack against her on Friday is just the latest in a string of attacks on Omar from both Republicans and Democrats. More than one shooter has acknowledged inspiration from Trump. Many Democrats rallied to Omar's support over the weekend, but I was unable to find any statements by Reps. Lowey or Engel, who have bitterly criticized Omar in the past over alleged Antisemitism. Ditto Sen. Schumer. The New York Times ran a story yesterday about the response of Democratic presidential candidates. Some were supportive and some were silent; but Kirsten Gillibrand made an ambiguous statement that received some criticism. The "comments" on another story this morning are strongly anti-Omar. This is such a crazy country….
Finally, next Thursday, April 19th, is the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. After weeks of enduring the pain of daily deportations of thousands of Jews to the death camps to the East, a small group, many of the teenagers, resolved to die fighting, and encouraged others to join them. The Jewish Combat Organization held out for a month. Here is a useful video about the uprising, and you have certainly seen this picture. Never again.
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Ongoing – Weather permitting, the CFOW stalwarts gather every Saturday from 12 to 1 PM at the VFW Plaza in Hastings (Warburton and Spring St.) to protest war and other evils. Please join us!
Ongoing – The Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Hastings still has room for a few dozen members. CSA's connect local/regional farms with consumers, providing fresh organic vegetables (as they come into season) in exchange for a pre-payment that helps the farmers get their new season off the ground. The CSA in Hastings is managed by CFOW stalwart Elisa Zazzera, and the shopping/eating season runs from June 5 to November 13. You can learn about the CSA partner, Stoneledge Farm, here. For more information, email Elisa at hastingsCSA@gmail.com.
Monday, April 15th – Our friends at SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) will be meeting at South Church, 343 Broadway in Dobbs Ferry from 7 to 9 PM. The conversation will focus on "whiteness, white privilege and white fragility," following the insights of Dr. Robin DiAngelo, as presented in the imo interesting film "Deconstructing White Privilege."
Friday, April 19th – Take yourself in-town this night to see the film by CFOW friend James Dean Conklin called "Go Without Fear." The film is a "meditation on walking pilgrimage." It is based on the book Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha, by Marten Olthof. It was filmed over three years in India and Nepal. The program is at Tibet House US, 22 W. 15th St., from 7 to 9 PM. For more information, go here.
Sunday, May 5th – CFOW's next monthly meeting will be held at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 7 to 9 p.m. At these meetings we review our work/the happenings of the past month and make plans for the month to come. Everyone is welcome at these meetings.
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. And if you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
This Newsletter
Articles linked in the CFOW newsletter are intended to illuminate some of the main action-issues about which we are concerned. Coming mostly from the "dissenting media," they provide an alternative to the perspectives of the mainstream media. As always, we have some excellent "Featured Essays." I also encourage you to check out the set of articles about the arrest of Julian Assange; the symposium of writers about Venezuela and its crisis; a p/review of 350.org's Bill McKibben's new book on the existential crisis of our climate collapse; some interesting insights and inspirational words from labor organizer Jane McAlevey; and (in "Our History") a good essay about the Highlander School, recently torched by arson.
Rewards!
The Newsletter's Rewards are clever carrots that coax the reader down to page three and – I hope – provide encouragement to keep going. As the music of the late Leonard Cohen has often been featured in the newsletter, readers may be interested in the new exhibition of the Jewish Museum (5th Avenue at 92nd St.) called "Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything." You can read a good review of the exhibition here; and while we're at it, let's listen to "Everybody Knows," "Closing Time," "The Partisan." Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
(Video) Noam Chomsky: We Must Confront the "Ultranationalist, Reactionary" Movements Growing Across Globe
From Democracy Now! [April 12, 2019]
---- On Thursday night, hundreds of people packed into the Old South Church in Boston to hear the world-renowned dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky speak. He looked back at the rise of fascism in the 20th century and the growing ultranationalist movements of today, from Brazil and the United States to Israel and Saudi Arabia. [See the Program]
Yellow Vest Movement Struggles to Reinvent Democracy as Macron Cranks Up Propaganda and Repression
After five months of constant presence at traffic circles, toll-booths and hazardous Saturday marches, the massive, self-organized social movement known as the Yellow Vests has just held its second nationwide "Assembly of Assemblies." Hundreds of autonomous Yellow Vest activist groups from all over France each chose two delegates (one woman, one man) to gather in the port city of St. Nazaire for weekend of deliberation (April 5-7). After weeks of skirmishing with the municipal authorities, the local Yellow Vests were able to host 700 delegates at the St. Nazaire "House of the People," and the three-day series of general meetings and working groups went off without a hitch in an atmosphere of good-fellowship. A sign on the wall proclaimed: "No one has the solution, but everybody has a piece of it." [Read More]
The Man Who Saw Trump Coming A Century Ago
By Ann Jones, Tom Dispatch [April 10, 2019]
By Ann Jones, Tom Dispatch [April 10, 2019]
---- Distracted daily by the bloviating POTUS? Here, then, is a small suggestion. Focus your mind for a moment on one simple (yet deeply complex) truth: we are living in a Veblen Moment. That's Thorstein Veblen, the greatest American thinker you probably never heard of (or forgot). His working life -- from 1890 to 1923 -- coincided with America's first Gilded Age, so named by Mark Twain, whose novel of that title lampooned the greedy corruption of the country's most illustrious gentlemen. Veblen had a similarly dark, sardonic sense of humor. Now, in America's second (bigger and better) Gilded Age, in a world of staggering inequality, believe me, it helps to read him again. … He was already asking questions that deserve to be raised again in the 1% world of 2019. How had such a conspicuous lordly class developed in America? What purpose did it serve? What did the members of the leisure class actually do with their time and money? And why did so many of the ruthlessly over-worked, under-paid lower classes tolerate such a peculiar, lopsided social arrangement in which they were so clearly the losers? Veblen addressed those questions in his first and still best-known book, The Theory of the Leisure Class, published in 1899. [Read More]
JULIAN ASSANGE
[FB – After posting a news-flash report about the arrest of Julian Assange on several Facebook pages, I got some depressing responses that indicate, at least to me, that the Democratic/Trump vilification of Assange has been successful. A common response was that Assange was not a real journalist, and therefore "press freedom" was not an issue. Of course many journalists disagree; this note in The New Yorker, for example, says "The Indictment of Julian Assange is a Threat to Journalism" [Link]. The New Yorker also addresses another common response, which was that Assange was not being arrested for publishing something, but for assisting Chelsea Manning in attempt to break a password. (In the article linked below by Glenn Greenwald, this issue is also addressed.) It is beyond naïve, in my opinion, to think that the success of Assange/WikiLeaks in exposing war crimes and nefarious doings by Empire USA was/is not at the root of the Obama/Trump deportation schemes, or that the exposure of the Democratic National Committee's efforts to squelch the Sanders' presidential campaign isn't the reason for the extreme anger of the Democrats.]
Julian Assange Languishes in Prison as His Journalistic Collaborators Brandish Their Prizes
By Charles Glass, The Intercept [
---- While Julian Assange languishes in south London's maximum security Belmarsh Prison, a British court is weighing his fate. The 48-year-old Australian founder of Wikileaks is serving time for the minor crime of jumping bail by taking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden. His fear at the time was that the Swedes, with a track record of assisting rendition of suspects sought by the U.S., would send him straight across the Atlantic. Now that he has lost his diplomatic refuge, 70 British members of Parliament have petitioned to dispatch Assange to Sweden if prosecutors there reopen the case they closed in 2017. The greater threat to his liberty is the United States Department of Justice's extradition demand for him to stand trial in the U.S. for conspiring with Chelsea Manning to hack a government computer. … Then, last Thursday, Moreno cast aside the principle of political asylum and told the British police to come and get him. The U.S. presented the indictment that Assange had said all along was waiting for him. And so Assange waits to know whether he will ever be free again, while journalists who published his leaked documents continue working without fear of prosecution and, in some cases, brandish their journalism prizes while denouncing the man who made them possible. [Read More]
The U.S. Government's Indictment of Julian Assange Poses Grave Threats to Press Freedom
By Glenn Greenwald and Micah Lee, The Intercept [
---- The indictment of Julian Assange unsealed today by the Trump Justice Department poses grave threats to press freedoms, not only in the U.S. but around the world. The charging document and accompanying extradition request from the U.S. government, used by the U.K. police to arrest Assange once Ecuador officially withdrew its asylum protection, seeks to criminalize numerous activities at the core of investigative journalism. So much of what has been reported today about this indictment has been false. Two facts in particular have been utterly distorted by the DOJ and then misreported by numerous media organizations. The first crucial fact about the indictment is that its key allegation — that Assange did not merely receive classified documents from Chelsea Manning but tried to help her crack a password in order to cover her tracks — is not new. … The other key fact being widely misreported is that the indictment accuses Assange of trying to help Manning obtain access to document databases to which she had no valid access: i.e., hacking rather than journalism. But the indictment alleges no such thing. … That's why the indictment poses such a grave threat to press freedom. It characterizes as a felony many actions that journalists are not just permitted but required to take in order to conduct sensitive reporting in the digital age. [Read More]
Also interesting/illuminating about the Assange developments - "The Assange arrest is a warning from history," by John Pilger, ZNet [April 12, 2019] [Link]; "Julian Assange's Arrest Should Worry Anyone Who Cares About Freedom of the Press,," by Bruce Shapiro, The Nation [April 11, 2019] [Link]; "After 7 Years of Deceptions About Assange, the US Readies for its First Media Rendition," b[Link]; "Press Freedoms and the Case Against Julian Assange, Explained," by Charlie Savage, New York Times [April 11, 2019] [Link]; and "Julian Assange: Criminal or Benefactor?," by Richard Falk [April 14, 2019] [Link].
WAR & PEACE
Can the Bolivarian revolution survive the Venezuelan crisis?
From ROAR Magazine [April 11, 2019]
---- In Venezuela, the eyes of the global media and commentators are fixed on the battle for the presidency, with the country's legitimate president Nicolás Maduro in one corner and the US-backed President of the National Assembly and self-declared head-of-state Juan Guaidó in the other. Fears of a US intervention or civil war are widespread, while criminal sanctions imposed by foreign powers — the US in particular — combined with government corruption and mismanagement have devastated the national economy. The poor state of Venezuela's economy is often presented by right-wing pundits as a failure of the country's socialist Chavista governments that have ruled the country for the last 20 years. But this shortsighted analysis ignores both role played by international powers in their efforts to crush the radical socialist experiment that has taken root in Venezuela, as well as the historic gains of the Bolivarian Revolution in the fields of poverty reduction, education, increasing equality, housing, the radical democratization of the country from the bottom up, and more. To shift the focus away from the battle for the presidential throne, we asked a group of international experts to share their thoughts on the chances of survival of that most important, inspiring and admirable achievement of the Venezuelan people: the Bolivarian Revolution. Expressed in the agricultural and urban communes, the worker cooperatives, social movements and local councils, the Bolivarian revolutionary process preceded the Chavista governments by many years, and the key question right now is: has it a chance to outlast it too? [Read More] Also useful is "Why the US AID to Venezuela was Not Real Aid and How False Western Humanitarianism is Used to Justify Imperialism," b , Counterpunch [April 12, 2019
War Against Iran?
Trump's Controversial Decision on Iran's Revolutionary Guards
By Stephen Zunes, The Progressive [April 10, 2019]
---- There is little question that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is bad news. Some of its units have engaged in severe repression of nonviolent dissidents, supported Assad's brutal counter-insurgency operations in Syria, backed hardline Islamist militia in several foreign countries, and more. But the Trump Administration's unprecedented decision to label the IRGC as a terrorist organization—the first time the United States has given such a designation to any entity of an internationally recognized government—is dangerous and irresponsible. …With the IRGC and their allies now in the same category as ISIS and Al-Qaeda, the risk of an armed confrontation in these unstable war zones increases, and thereby the threat of a war between the United States and Iran. This may have been the goal of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, who apparently convinced Trump to take the controversial decision and have long pushed for a military confrontation with Iran. [Read More]
And in the Pacific….
It's Time to End U.S. Military Aid to the Philippines
By , The Progressive [April 8, 2019]
---- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody "War on Drugs" has now claimed over 27,000 lives — almost all poor and indigent people, including children, summarily executed by police or vigilantes. Over 140,000 pre-trial detainees are being held in overcrowded Philippine prisons, many on trumped up drug charges; 75 percent of the total prison population still awaits their day in court, let alone conviction. On top of this, assassinations of human rights lawyers, journalists, labor and peasant organizers, indigenous leaders, clergy, teachers, and activists are spiraling out of control. Duterte has systematically silenced voices of political dissent, jailing Senator Leila DeLima, an early drug war critic; ousting Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, who opposed the imposition of martial law in Mindanao; and now arresting Maria Ressa, internationally renowned journalist and executive editor of the indy outlet Rappler. … Ever since the Philippines attained formal independence in 1946, the U.S. has maintained a military presence on its former colony, guiding and supporting "counter-insurgency" operations to put down constant rebellions against an oligarchic government. Today, the Philippine armed forces overwhelmingly direct violence not against outside invaders, but at poor and marginalized people within its borders. U.S. military aid is only making internal conflict worse. Duterte's repressive regime is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in Asia. [Read More]
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHAOS
What 'Living in Truth' Looks Like in the Face of Climate Catastrophe
By Wen Stephenson, The Nation [April 11, 2019]
---- Bill McKibben has shown us what it means to live within the truth of our struggle for human survival. Will a new generation find the courage to do the same? …The sheer depth, scale, and speed of the changes required at this point are beyond anything a mere climate movement can possibly accomplish, because such a movement is inherently unsuited to the nature of the task we face: radically transforming the political-economic system that is driving us toward climate breakdown. Given the sclerotic system in which the Green New Deal—the only proposal ever put before Congress that confronts the true scale and urgency of the climate catastrophe—is dead on arrival, mocked even by the Democratic Speaker of the House, the pretense that anything less than revolutionary change is now required amounts to a form of denial. … even if such a revolutionary movement is exceedingly unlikely to succeed within the short time frame we have—even if it is too late to prevent runaway warming and some sort of global collapse—this revolution will still be worth fighting and sacrificing for, even dying for. And it always has been. Because the only thing more horrific than runaway climate catastrophe is the very real prospect of living into it, within mere decades, under a racist, nationalist, militarized, oligarchic political system that is leading us toward, if not already becoming, an authoritarian police state. The only thing worse than climate catastrophe is climate catastrophe plus fascism. [Read More]
Central American Farmers Head to the U.S., Fleeing Climate Change
By Kirk Semple, New York Times [April 13, 2019]
---- Farmers, agricultural scientists and industry officials say a new threat has been ruining harvests, upending lives and adding to the surge of families migrating to the United States: climate change. And their worries are increasingly shared by climate scientists as well. Gradually rising temperatures, more extreme weather events and increasingly unpredictable patterns — like rain not falling when it should, or pouring when it shouldn't — have disrupted growing cycles and promoted the relentless spread of pests. The obstacles have cut crop production or wiped out entire harvests, leaving already poor families destitute. Central America is among the regions most vulnerable to climate change, scientists say. And because agriculture employs much of the labor force — about 28 percent in Honduras alone, according to the World Bank — the livelihoods of millions of people are at stake. [Read More]
Could a Green New Deal Make Us Happier People?
By Kate Aronoff, The Intercept [
---- Could a plan to curb emissions also make us happier? Could the things we cut back also be the things that make us miserable? If you buy scientists' claims that an economy-wide mobilization is the only thing that can stave off full-blown catastrophe, there are some obvious reasons to believe that a Green New Deal — the only call for that on the table — will make us happy, at least in the long run. Averting civilizational collapse, that is, is a happier outcome than the alternative. Provisions like a federal job guarantee, improved public transportation, and reining in pollution could improve millions of lives in the shorter term. A growing body of research, though, points to some more unexpected reasons why a Green New Deal could make us more cheerful. … Happy countries' investments in collective consumption and their shorter work weeks allow for a whole host of activities that make us happier — and happen to not destroy the planet. [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
NSA's Domestic Spying Program Needs to End—Permanently
By Sarah St.Vincent, The Progressive [March 18, 2019]
---- The U.S. National Security Agency has reportedly mothballed a large domestic spying program that the NSA and its allies in Congress fought vigorously to retain just a few years ago. This program, first publicly revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013, allows the NSA to gather records of U.S. phone calls and texts from major telecommunications companies in secret under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. … The reported discontinuation of this monitoring during the past six months is not necessarily permanent. The U.S. executive branch could still ask Congress to renew Section 215, which will otherwise expire in December. This is a good time for us to reflect on the program's many problems. For example, despite the enormous scale and long duration of the snooping, there is no evidence that it was ever used to thwart a terrorist offense aimed at the United States. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Labor organizer Jane McAlevey on why strikes are the only way out of our current crisis
April 10, 2019]
---- Over the past year, a wave of teacher strikes — from Los Angeles to West Virginia — have won major victories for public education, including salary increases and smaller class sizes. Inspired in part by the Chicago teachers strike in 2012, they drew on years of grassroots organizing and strategic planning to build stronger unions and establish clear demands to address the major problems affecting the public education sector today. According to longtime environmental and labor organizer Jane McAlevey, this recent wave of teacher strikes is also the perfect example of how change happens. It begins by developing a deep understanding of power, which then evolves into building small campaigns within a larger struggle to achieve measurable goals — all the while engaging in deep listening across differences, instead of self-selecting into single-minded silos. [Read More]
Unaccountable Media Faced With Dilemma in Next Phase of Deep State-Gate
---- Devin Nunes (R-CA), the House Intelligence Committee ranking member, has gone on the offensive, writing Friday that committee Republicans "will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous individuals involved … in the abuse of intelligence for political purposes. These people must be held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future." On Sunday, Nunes told Fox News he's preparing to send eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice this week concerning alleged misconduct during the Trump-Russia investigation. This will include leaks of "highly classified material" and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. It's no-holds-barred for Nunes, who has begun to talk publicly about prison for those whom DOJ might indict and bring to trial. Nunes's full-speed-ahead offensive is being widely ignored in "mainstream" media (with the exception of Fox), giving the media the quality of "The Dog That Did Not Bark in the Night." [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Netanyahu's Reelection Further Dooms Millions of Palestinians to Decades of Statelessness, Denial of Basic Rights
---- The breathless headlines that the reelection in Israel of far right prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu of the fascist Likud Party has doomed the two state solution are wrong. The two state solution was doomed by the late 1990s, as Israel doubled its squatters in the Palestinian West Bank after the 1993 Oslo Accords. That is, it doubled the number of squatters over the years it had promised in the accords to withdraw entirely from the West Bank and let the Palestinians have a state there and in Gaza. Or let them have a statelet would be more accurate. [Read More] Also illuminating re: Israel's election is "Benjamin Netanyahu's reelection underlines Israel's apartheid reality," by Saree Makdisi, Los Angeles Times [April 10, 2019] [Link]
Founder of BDS movement is denied entry to the U.S. — as Congress circulates bills to curtail BDS
By Allison Deger, Mondoweiss [April 11, 2019]
---- On Wednesday the man regarded as the founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel (BDS), Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti, headed to the airport outside of Tel Aviv intending to embark on a U.S. speaking tour and attend the wedding of a relative. Despite possessing a valid visa through 2021, he was prevented from boarding. According to a statement released by the Arab American Institute (AAI), the group sponsoring his talks, Barghouti was told his travel block was due to an "immigration matter." Airline staff told him they had orders from the U.S. Consulate in Tel Aviv and U.S. immigration services not to let him on the plane. The denial sparks questions whether legislation circling on Capital Hill to curtail boycotts against Israel has come with a shadow policy to prevent its most vocal advocates from entering the country. [Read More] Also useful on this subject is "Trump Admin. blocks Entry to US of Palestinian leader of Israel Boycott," f [Palestine] [April 14, 2019] [Link].
OUR HISTORY
Why the Highlander Attack Matters
By Robin D.G. Kelley and Makani Themba, The Nation [April 12, 2019]
---- News of the March 29 arson attack on the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee, shocked and angered progressives across the country. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the blaze destroyed Highlander's main office building, along with valuable organizational records and historic documents that had not been archived at the University of Wisconsin and other repositories. Yet, for the many familiar with its storied history of movement-building, research, radical education, and cultural work, the devastation goes much deeper than property loss. It's as if a sanctuary was violated. … Situated on about 200 acres of land just east of Knoxville, Tennessee, Highlander has long been on the front lines of a protracted war on workers, poor farmers, people of color, and other marginalized communities. In a region ravaged by the worst excesses of capitalist and racist exploitation—plant closures, environmental catastrophe from coal mining, dispossession, opioid addiction, state-sanctioned violence—Highlander is one of the few progressive safe spaces where movements connect, dream, and build for the local, national, and global fight back. [Read More]
The Massacre That Led to the End of the British Empire
By Gyan Prakash, New York Times [April 13, 2019]
---- On April 13, 1919, Gen. Reginald Dyer led a group of British soldiers to Jallianwala Bagh, a walled public garden in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. Several thousand unarmed civilians, including women and children, had gathered to celebrate the Sikh New Year. Viewing the gathering as a violation of the prohibitory orders on public assembly, General Dyer ordered his troops to fire without warning. According to official figures, the 10 minutes of firing resulted in 379 dead and more than a thousand injured. As news of the massacre became public, many British officials and public figures hailed General Dyer's actions as necessary to keep an unruly subject population in order. For Indians, "Jallianwala Bagh" became a byword for colonial injustice and violence. The massacre triggered the beginning of the end of the colonial rule in India. [Read More] And they're still not sorry. Read "100 Years On, India Still Awaits Apology for Massacre in Amritsar," New York Times [April 13, 2019] [Link].
