Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
December 23, 2018
Hello all – Happy holidays to all; and please come to the CFOW holiday party on Sunday, December 30th from 6 to 9 p.m. It's always a good party, a time to see old friends and make new ones. The festivities will be at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs; and it's a pot-luck – please bring something to eat/drink to share. See you there!
Last Tuesday the Hastings Board of Trustees voted to support the CFOW Resolution on Yemen. The Resolution calls on the United States to end its military support for the horrible war being carried out by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Resolution is framed as a message to our congressional representatives Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey, and to Senator Schumer. Engel and Lowey will be chairs of important House committees when Congress reconvenes on January 3rd, and the Resolution asks them to use their new powers to hold hearings, call witnesses, subpoena records, and otherwise shine some light on the US role in this war, just as Sen. William Fulbright did for the Vietnam War in 1966. You can read the Resolution on the CFOW Facebook page. It is our hope to meet with staff at Lowey's and Engel's offices. We also hope that other towns and villages will adopt similar resolutions.
Trump, Syria, and Afghanistan
The big news this week was President Trump's announcement that US troops would be leaving Syria asap, and that half of the 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan would also be withdrawn. Like the rest of the world, we were caught by surprise by this. But unlike most of the political elite and the mainstream media, we and many other US peace groups welcomed the troop withdrawal, even it was delivered by our arch foe, President Trump. In our leaflet for Saturday's vigil, posted on our Facebook page, we stated
Since its beginning in 2001, Concerned Families of Westchester has called for an end to the war in Afghanistan. And since the beginning of US intervention in the civil war in Syria, we have called for the United States to work for a negotiated settlement of the conflict and to bring our troops home.
And now President Trump declares that all the troops now in Syria, and half of the troops now in Afghanistan will be coming home. We support that. We also look forward to the day when the remaining troops now in Afghanistan will come home.
Twenty-four hours later, this still looks right to us. But in this interval a lot has been written about why President Trump pulled the troops and what (benefits or disasters) this might lead to. Additionally, the resignation of Secretary of Defense James Mattis in protest over Trump's action has generated an additional line of debate/concern about President Trump's impetuous foreign policy now having no "adults in the room" to curb his lunatic impulses. I've linked several good/useful articles and essays about these issues below.
In addition to the vast uncertainty now before us, the President's action is immediately deficient on (at least) three grounds. The first, as expressed by antiwar Democrats Rep. Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna and others, is that the troop withdrawal was decided upon with little or no preparation to deal with the many practical questions that will now arise, and that we have little or no knowledge about how all this will be implemented. These concerns probably ask more than we can expect from President Trump, but this is not the way to ensure a just and durable peace.
Our leaflet for yesterday's vigil also stated that "there is more to making peace than simply stopping the slaughter."
Our government needs to work with the political and military forces in both countries, and with the governments of neighboring countries, to stop the fighting in those areas and achieve economic and political equity among neighbors. We need to meet the humanitarian needs of the people of Syria and Afghanistan, and to provide reconstruction assistance to each country, after so many years of destroying their civil societies and means of self-support.
While the current administration and Congress is no more likely to help with the repair of the damage we've done in the Middle East than the US did in the 1970s (in violation of its promises) to assist with the reconstruction of Vietnam, this is a debt that we/the peace movement will not forget.
Finally, there are serious concerns about a possible/likely Turkish attack on the Kurdish self-governing zone in northern Syria. We pay no attention when such concerns are raised hypocritically by those who want US forces to stay in Syria indefinitely, to fight Assad or the Russians or the Iranians, but for the great many of us who admire what the Kurds have done, the likelihood of a Turkish attack on them is a great tragedy. Analysis linked below describes possible (not unrealistic) ways that this crisis may be prevented. These scenarios suggest that the Syrian government and/or the Russians may be prepared to offer the Kurds protection against Turkey; but most probably at the expense of the loss of Kurdish autonomy, which is/was the point of their Rojava enterprise. There may not be anything the US government could do to prevent a Turkish attack if it wanted to, but the available evidence suggests that the Turks have already been given the green-light by President Trump. We will learn more soon.
News Notes
CFOW stalwart Nick Mottern has an important article on the website Truthout about retail giant Amazon's efforts to win a $10 billion contract with the Pentagon to create a global "brain," "a weapon of unprecedented surveillance and killing power, a profoundly aggressive weapon that should not be allowed to be created." Simultaneously, an on-line petition hosted by Roots Action calls on Amazon employees to refuse this and other military work. For additional information on the future of automated warfare, read "Weaponised AI is coming. Is algorithmic forever wars our future?" Read up on this stuff!
In addition to the CFOW Resolution on Yemen, last Tuesday the Hastings Board of Trustees also passed a resolution supporting state legislative action that would give all immigrants in New York the opportunity to get a drivers licenses, whatever their immigration status. While the primary goal is to enable immigrants to get to work and do what must be done, there are many reasons why this is in the interest of ALL New Yorkers, including traffic safety. Governor Cuomo failed to include this issue is his "next 100 days" speech, and advocates urge us to urgel him (518-478-8390) to make it a legislative priority. To learn more about the issue and the coalition working to make all this happen, go here.
I love this picture, and it's showing up all over. For me it represents the invincibility of the human spirit. But make up your own caption.
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.
Please Support CFOW
CFOW's expenditures are small, but if you would like to support our work financially, please send a check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
This Newsletter
Articles linked in the CFOW newsletter are intended to illuminate some of the main action-issues about which we are concerned. Coming mostly from the "dissenting media," they provide an alternative to the perspectives of the mainstream media. In addition to the excellent Featured Essays, I especially recommend the sets of articles on Syria and on Yemen; good articles on the fossil fuel outlaws and on the Green New Deal; and good articles ("Our History") on Martin Luther King (birthday coming up) and on the slaughter in the Third World during the so-called years of peace during the Cold War. Read on!
Rewards!
This week's rewards reflect the seasonal celebrations of commodity consumption. First up is CFOW favorite Roy Zimmerman, who has a slew of good songs on his website. Check out this one for its Holiday Spirit. And the Puppini Sisters are also newsletter favorites, and they have lots of Christmas songs, including this one, "Santa Baby." Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
A Podcast in the Making: Getting Emotional About Labor
By Naomi Klein, The Intercept [
---- Does the world need another podcast? Probably not. But I find myself needing a free-form space to think through the contours of our historical moment — from the epic social and ecological stakes to the savviest strategies for getting ourselves out of this mess. With that in mind, I recently wrangled two of my most brilliant and busiest friends — author and Princeton professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and filmmaker and writer Astra Taylor — around a wooden table at a college radio station to start that conversation. There may have been tequila. There was definitely gallows humor. More than anything else, we found ourselves getting emotional about labor — about the fact that being a decent human is increasingly being griped about as "emotional labor"; about the Dickensian working conditions suffered by the women boxing up our holiday crap; about the fact that caging children is fast becoming a booming career path; and about the tremendous promise of a different kind of work (and leisure) under a Green New Deal. We also tried to figure out why some things feel too mean — and too meaningful — to say on Twitter. [Read More]
(Video) Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent revisited [30th anniversary]
From Aljazeera [December 22, 2018]
---- For many of us who work at The Listening Post, Chomsky's ideas on the media in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media have provided us with a guide, full of cautionary tales and ideas that are still controversial to this day. The book was published in 1988 - a year before the end of the Cold War when it was announced that western liberal democracy had triumphed, heralding the end of ideology, authoritarianism, and propaganda. In the past 30 years, we have seen the mass communications industry multiply, providing an illusion of choice, echoing the rhetorics of freedom - of press, of expression - but not necessarily yielding the pluralism liberal democracies had promised. In that way, the book continues to resonate. But like all revered texts, Manufacturing Consent also calls upon us as active readers, journalists, citizens to interrogate its premises. Does the book's denunciatory tone risk overstate the power of the media establishment? Does it underestimate the critical faculties of the public? Is the media so homogenous an entity that power can be wielded top-down? Where are the lapses, the blind spots? Where do journalists find pockets of power that serve to disrupt? We spoke to three journalists who have their careers being disruptive and asked them about the ideas that had influenced them in Chomsky and Herman's book: Matt Taibbi, whose reporting for Rolling Stone has provided one of the most critical accounts of US political history in recent years; Indian editor-in-chief Aman Sethi who questions the premises of Chomsky's book and Amira Hass, the Haaretz correspondent for the Occupied Territories. [See the Program]
None of Us Deserve Citizenship
By Michelle Alexander, New York Times [December 21, 2018]
---- Late last month, 19-year-old Maryury Elizabeth Serrano-Hernandez reportedly scaled a wall along the United States-Mexico border while eight months pregnant and gave birth within hours of placing her feet on American soil. She was part of a widely publicized Central American caravan and traveled more than 2,000 miles from Honduras propelled by the dream of giving her new baby, as well as her 3-year-old son, a life free from the violence and grinding poverty she endured back home. … For some Americans, Ms. Serrano-Hernandez's story is nothing short of heroic, given the suffering she endured and the extraordinary obstacles she overcame to give her children a chance at a better life. For others, her story represents everything that's wrong with our immigration system. … No matter what side of the debate one gravitates toward, stories like Ms. Serrano-Hernandez's highlight the moral quagmire that we've created by treating the migration of desperately poor people as a problem that can best be addressed by border walls, tear gas, detention camps, militarized policing and mass deportation. [Read More]
Let Them Eat Heritage
---- Reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Syria have been a top-down process, as several architectural experts have warned. Their agendas are set not by the needs of communities so much as the interests of national governments. And it is in the interests of those governments — not only the Iraqi and Syrian governments themselves, but also Russia, the UAE, and others — to promote the restoration of cultural heritage. Heritage tourism is very lucrative. Heritage also allows governments to burnish their image and questionable legitimacy, to consolidate their power after civil wars, and to project a false sense of normalcy. And funding heritage allows other countries to pose as the saviors of civilization. There is much less symbolic value, or money, in practical things. And so we read feel-good stories of signs of the return of normalcy, in the form of rebuilt historic buildings or book fairs or music concerts. But not of the rebuilding of homes or of basic infrastructures, like water, electricity, and transportation. Culture is important, but it's hard to enjoy it when you can't find food to eat or a place to sleep … or a city to return home to. [Read More] [h/t LS]
TRUMP AND SYRIA
What Motivated Trump to Do This?
Bolton's Hawkish Syria Plan Backfired, Pushing Trump to Get Out
By Spencer Ackerman andKimberly Dozier, The Daily Beast [December 21, 2018]
---- A fateful decision by National Security Adviser John Bolton to expand the United States' goals in Syria backfired, and is a key reason why President Donald Trump ordered a total withdrawal of U.S. troops, two senior administration officials told The Daily Beast. Bolton in September added a second mission to the already open-ended operation in Syria: In addition to destroying the so-called Islamic State, U.S. troops would stay in Syria indefinitely, forcing Iranian forces there to eventually withdraw. … The U.S. officials said that Turkey used Bolton and Jeffrey's expanded mission as an opportunity to manufacture a crisis that proved to be decisive. [Read More] Also useful is "US diplomats shaken by Trump decision to exit Syria," bDecember 19, 2018] [Link]
Some Things That Might Happen Next
With Trump leaving, Syrian Kurds seeking Support of Damascus, Moscow against Turkey
---- Trump's precipitous US troop withdrawal, in the absence of any political settlement in the region, likely spells an end to Kurdish semi-autonomy. Turkey is talking about invading and destroying the YPG as terrorists. So either you are willing to see the experiment end or you are willing to support a US military presence that keeps the experiment going. … Russia is said to be pinning its hopes for avoiding a confrontation with Turkey on such a deal between the Kurds and Damascus, allowing the establishment of a Syrian Army zone separating the Kurds from the Turks and forestalling a Turkish invasion. Russia is said by the article to have told Erdogan he can't invade the Syrian Kurdish northeast, and that he will just have to be satisfied with an SAA buffer with the Kurds. The Kurds, having lost their US ally, will strive to find new patrons and arrangements that might allow their cooperatives and ideals to survive. Whether they can succeed is the big question. [Read More] Also useful is "Despite Assurances From Trump, the U.S. Battle Against ISIS in Eastern Syria Is Far From Over," by Ali Younes, et al., The Intercept [[Link].
The Shape of the New Middle East?
A New Middle East: Winners and Losers from Trump's Abrupt Syria Withdrawal
---- Trump shook up the Washington establishment and Middle Eastern and world politics on Wednesday by abruptly announcing by Tweet a full and immediate withdrawal of US military forces from northeast Syria. Trump's motives for what he does are never easy to fathom. He may have been driven by a desire to please his base, which has been shaken this fall by a massive blue wave in the House midterms and a series of legal scandals sending members of Trump's circle to prison and threatening Trump and his family members themselves. Trump campaigned in 2016 on contradictory principles, but one of his planks was to "give Syria to Putin" if the latter would defeat ISIL (the so-called Islamic State Group.) … It may be that Trump has decided that he doesn't want to risk an escalation with Turkey over the leftist Kurds (did someone tell him they are anti-capitalists?), and it may be that Erdogan offered the quid pro quo of a $3 billion deal for Patriots if only the US would get out and allow Turkey to have a straight shot at the Syrian Kurds. So who are the losers from a US withdrawal from Syria: [Read More]
Adults In The Room?
Mattis was no Shining Knight: From backing Yemen War to Whitewashing Khashoggi Murder
---- If you were going to judge Mattis's performance as Secretary of Defense, you'd have to look at his performance with regard to military challenges. Mattis basically followed through on the policies toward ISIL set by the Obama administration and by his predecessor Ash Carter. …There is, however, a difference between Obama policies toward ISIL and those of Mattis. … In Afghanistan during the past two years there has been a steady worsening of the security situation on the ground. Mattis years ago said that it was "fun" to kill Taliban who mistreated their women. Fun or not, he hasn't been effective at it. It is now estimated that 40% – 50% of the country is under Taliban rule. Some 28,000 Afghanistan National Army troops have been killed since 2015, which is not exactly a win. Trump's dropping of the mother of all bombs on some radicals had no long term effect. Mattis said he sought a political solution that did not involve withdrawing US troops from that country. Mattis was losing Afghanistan…. [Read More]
THE WAR IN YEMEN
Hesitant Hope for the Fate of Yemen
By Chris Gelardi, The Nation [December 20, 2018]
---- When it comes to Yemen, there are dual realities. For Yemeni civilians living through the world's worst humanitarian crisis, relief can't come soon enough; along with the bombing and shelling from combatants, torture, cholera, and starvation are now bearing down with previously unthinkable urgency. But for those with power over the conflict—both in Yemen and abroad—"world's worst humanitarian crisis" is less concrete. It's an epithet to ignore, or a bargaining chip, or a distant problem, rather than a matter of life and death. For much of the past year, as desperation reached new heights in Yemen, the gulf between these realities widened. In November 2017, Saudi Arabia, a major player in the conflict, made a strategic decision to tighten its stranglehold on the country, further restricting civilian access to food and aid; a year later, in November 2018, Yemen likely had its deadliest month of the war. But over the past few weeks, much of that changed. In an opportune coincidence, parties to Yemen's conflict convened on Capitol Hill and in a castle in Sweden—and in a matter of days, the military and geopolitical conditions were realigned, allowing room for hope. Now Yemen's war is at a critical moment, and the fate of 28 million people hangs in the balance. [Read More]
Chaos in Yemen: A Conversation With Isa Blumi
By Gunar Olsen, The Nation [December 21, 2018]
---- In Yemen, nearly 13 million people, or about half its population, could soon be on the brink of famine. More than 22 million people rely on sparse humanitarian aid to survive. Cholera has infected more than a million people in the past two years, constituting the largest and fastest-spreading outbreak of the waterborne disease in modern history. The United Nations has called the situation in Yemen the "the worst manmade humanitarian crisis in the world." This disaster is by no means coincidental. Rather, it is the result of a massive bombing campaign and aerial and naval blockade waged by a coalition of 10 countries led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. From the war's first day, the United States has provided essential support to its clients in the coalition. American-made bombs, dropped from Saudi fighter jets that are refueled in midair by American planes, have destroyed critical infrastructure and killed countless civilians, from children in school buses to families at wedding ceremonies—all targeted with the help of American intelligence agencies. [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
(Video) Bacevich on Mattis & Why We Need to End Our Self-Destructive, Mindless Wars in Middle East
From Democracy Now! [December 21, 2018]
---- Secretary of Defense James Mattis has announced he will resign at the end of February, in a letter publicly rebuking President Trump's foreign policy. Mattis resigned one day after President Trump ordered the withdrawal of all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria and on the same day that reports emerged that Trump has ordered the withdrawal of about 7,000 troops from Afghanistan. The New York Times reports Mattis is the first prominent Cabinet member to resign in protest over a national security issue in almost 40 years. Much of the Washington establishment expressed shock over Mattis's resignation. We speak with Andrew Bacevich, a retired colonel and Vietnam War veteran. He's the author of several books, including his latest, "Twilight of the American Century." His other books include "America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History" and "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War." He is professor emeritus of international relations and history at Boston University. [See the Program]
Why 'Overmatch' Is Overkill
By Michael T. Klare December 20
---- For the 40-odd years of the Cold War, the United States and its allies were governed by the overriding strategy of containment: a scheme to obstruct the Soviet Union's advances around the world and eventually trigger its collapse. Every aspect of US foreign and military policy—and much of America's economic, technological, and cultural behavior—was subordinated to this all-inclusive concept. Once the Cold War ended, however, US strategists lacked a unifying theme for military planning and spending, and so they flirted with one imperfect substitute after another—the campaign against "rogue states," the "Global War on Terror," and so on. But now, with Donald Trump in the White House and a new cast of hawks at the Pentagon, military leaders have landed on a new grand strategy: overmatch. … With virtually no public or congressional discussion, overmatch has become the driving principle of US foreign and military policy. This means, at the very least, that US military spending will continue to exceed that of all potential adversaries and that the country's arsenals will be perpetually replenished with new and more capable weapons. [Read More]
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHAOS
Destroying Civilization [Global warming/fossil fuels]
By Yves Engler, ZNet [December 22, 2018]
---- Is it simply business as usual or a corporate conspiracy to destroy the planet? However one characterizes it our planet is being cooked so already wealthy people can make even more profit. Last Friday the New York Times published a front-page story titled "The Oil Industry's Covert Campaign to Rewrite American Car Emissions Rules." The article pointed out that Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Marathon Oil, Koch Industries and other oil/refining interests won "rollbacks" to vehicle fuel mileage rules that "have gone further than the more modest changes automakers originally lobbied for." The legislative changes are expected to "increase greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by more than the amount many midsize countries put out in a year." … The private automobile has risen to dominance in large part because of its ability to draw together a wide array of powerful corporate interests from steel makers to real estate developers, rubber companies to big box retailers. During the automobile's embryonic phase, the oil industry was already big business. At that time, oil was mainly used to fuel the kerosene lamp, a business destroyed by the emergence of gas and electrical illumination. The powerful oil interests of the day, led by the Rockefeller family, were bailed out of this crisis and set up for life with the advent of the automobile. And as barrel upon barrel was drained from the earth and pumped into gas tanks, big oil swam in its profits. So, in many respects, oil interests lobbying against restrictions on automakers is simply business as usual, given their history of promoting automobility. But, given the dangers of climate disturbances, 'business as usual' takes on the appearance of a criminal corporate conspiracy to destroy civilization. [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
Supreme Court Slaps down Trump Automatic Denial of Asylum to Migrants
From Agence France Presse [December 23, 2018]
---- The Supreme Court dealt President Donald Trump's attempt to crack down on illegal immigration a blow Friday when it rejected a White House bid to implement his asylum ban on Central Americans. The high court declined to overturn a block placed by the San Francisco federal appeals court on Trump's executive order to automatically reject asylum requests from migrants crossing the US border from Mexico. The court made no comment in its ruling, but noted that four of the nine justices were in favor of lifting the lower court's stay and letting Trump enforce the ban, while lawsuits over it go ahead. The four backing the president were Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. [Read More]
The New Role of the US Navy as Brig for the World
---- Approximately 400-foot vessels, they are known as National Security Cutters and have been refashioned not as hospital ships but as prison ships. They, too, are patrolling the southern waters of the Americas. Their mission is the apprehension and detention of drug smugglers, part of a multinational effort to stem the narcotics trade. They detain prisoners of the "drug war" on board, theoretically as a prelude to their future charging and prosecution, usually in the United States. During the first 20 years of this drug interdiction program, the U.S. detained around 200 individuals per year on board such ships. Then, in 2012, Washington escalated its efforts by launching a Coast Guard-led multinational campaign. It would soon be overseen by Marine General John Kelly, who became head of U.S. Southern Command as that year ended. A further and more pronounced expansion of the program came when he was appointed secretary of DHS, the Coast Guard's mother agency. In 2017, as shipboard detentions soared, Kelly described the policy as an effort to stem the "existential" threat to the nation that drug traffickers posed. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
The Green New Deal Is Good for the Planet—and the Democratic Party
By Mike Konczal, The Nation [December 19, 2018]
---- We don't have much time to tackle climate change. A new report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds that we need to reduce carbon emissions by 45 percent in the next 12 years to keep the earth from heating up "only" 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. This isn't a problem for future generations; this is an emergency now. Into this crisis comes a demand for a Green New Deal, a call to mobilize the federal government to tackle this threat. Led by the young organizers of the Sunrise Movement, the campaign received a signal boost when Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined its members during a sit-in at Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi's office. The fact that the earth is rapidly warming is reason enough to pay attention. But there are three additional reasons why the Green New Deal should excite Democrats and progressives. [Read More]
The Battle Over NAFTA 2.0 Has Just Begun
By Lori Wallach, The Nation [December 21, 2018]
----After over a year of renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the NAFTA 2.0 text signed on November 30 revealed improvements for which progressives have long campaigned, the addition of damaging terms that we oppose, and critical unfinished business. It's no surprise that the administrations of Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, and Enrique Peña Nieto failed to deliver a transformational replacement for the corporate-rigged trade-pact model that NAFTA hatched in the early 1990s. But if progressives secure swift and certain enforcement of the agreement's new labor standards—and succeed in incorporating some other key improvements—the final package that will head to Congress in 2019 could end some of NAFTA's continuing, serious damage to people across North America. And that would be a big deal. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Congress must reject Israel Anti-Boycott Act
[December 19, 2018]
---- Today the US Congress is weighing draft legislation based on problematic logic that conflates a call for businesses to stop operating in West Bank settlements, which are unlawful under the 1949 Geneva Conventions that prohibit transferring civilians into occupied territory, with a boycott of Israel. Companies should fulfill their human rights responsibilities by ending operations in the settlements – yet the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S. 720) would impose criminal penalties on businesses and nonprofits who stop doing business with Israel or Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, erasing the distinction between Israel and the West Bank that the US has long recognized. The act expands the scope of the Export Administration Act (EAA), which currently bars Americans from joining boycotts against US allies "fostered or imposed" by a foreign country, to apply to boycotts called for by an "international government organization" like the United Nations. The EAA's broader scope is an apparent response to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which is preparing to name businesses that have enabled or profited from settlements, including in the West Bank, and urge them to avoid the "adverse impact" of their activities on human rights and their contributing to the "establishment or maintenance of Israeli settlements." [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
MLK Day Today: The Legacy of the Man and the Myth
---- Long gone are the days when white American radicals turned their collective backs on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), and embraced Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. In those heady days during the late 1960s, King sounded, at least to young protesters against the War in Vietnam, like a reformer who belonged to the church, not a revolutionary from "the hood." Indeed, King was a Baptist preacher and a civil rights activist who insisted on the power of love— he meant agape not eros— and who was not a spokesman for Black Power, guerrilla warfare or violent revolution, though he wanted total "war" through non-violent means to achieve social and economic equality. "The American racial revolution," he wrote in 1967—a year before he died—"has been a revolution to 'get in' rather than to overthrow. We want a share in the American economy." This January, when we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day—which was first observed in 1986—we might look back at the man who worried about language and about figures of speech as much as he worried about moral issues, and who insisted "a leader has to be concerned with the problems of semantics." [Read More]
The Lethal Crescent - Where the Cold War was hot.
By Daniel Immerwahr, The Nation [December 20, 2018]
---- Paul Chamberlin's eye-opening The Cold War's Killing Fields offers us a precise, painful account of the Cold War as narrated from the Changchuns of the world rather than the Berlins. His focus is not on the capitals where grand strategies were spun but on the blood-soaked locales where those strategies took their greatest toll. By Chamberlin's calculations, more than 20 million people died in conflicts related to the Cold War. Of course, not every one of those conflicts had its origins in the superpower rivalry. But even when Washington and Moscow had little to do with starting a war, they nearly always had a hand in finishing it—by sending troops, advisers, weapons, or cash. Chamberlin isn't the first historian to observe that the Cold War ran hot outside Europe. Orwell himself imagined the fighting taking place within a "rough quadrilateral" whose "vague frontiers" stretched from Southeast Asia to North Africa. But what's so valuable about Chamberlin's book is that it draws the separate wars together into one intelligent, crisply written narrative. Doing so drives home just how relentlessly murderous the Cold War was. [Read More]
