The Fray

News Websites

The last post at The Fray was Dec 4, 2024.  One of the functions of The Fray was to separate fact from fiction.  The News Websites linked below will help you do just that in the absence of regular posts at The Fray.

Resistance: a survival guide to Trumpocalypse 2.0 - Dec 4

Stay strong, stay informed, stay engaged. "Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don't yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it's actually going to be possible." - Angela Davis

Dear Joe Biden (November 2024) - Nov 26

President Biden has had four years to reverse Trump's abhorrent foreign policies.  He has almost totally failed, and he has added his own diplomatic and humanitarian missteps and disasters - most notably  by failing to compromise on NATO expansion and to negotiate on Ukraine's neutrality and by enabling Israel's genocide in Gaza.  "You can't undo the damage already done, but you can put up the safeguards now to prevent further devastation and set the course towards peace and accountability."

The lunatics will soon be running the asylum: who is the most dangerous? - Nov 21

As bizarre and disturbing as they are, Trump's cabinet picks are a perfect reflection of what he promised for his second Presidency.  Many nominees have no experience in the areas they are to lead.  Others hold views that are downright antithetical to the department they are running.  And others pose a serious threat to the freedoms of Americans and to the lives of people all over the world.  A look at Trump's "cabinet of curiosities and horrors" 

How the Democrats' failure to take radical action in 2021-2022 doomed democracy and the party - Nov 19

When Joe Biden entered office in January 2021, Democrats had a majority in both houses of Congress.  Biden and the Democrats had two years to take the action necessary to reverse the trend towards authoritarianism and an undemocratic future. They had two years to enact and publicly champion legislation for the common good.  Radical action was needed. They failed. 

And so it begins - Nov 13

The genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity continue in Gaza as the Biden Administration unconditionally arms the apartheid state of Israel. The 30-day grace period the Biden Administration gave Israel for denying aid to Palestinians ended November 13.  In spite of numerous NGO and UN groups finding that Israel had failed to comply and was in violation of US and international laws, Biden chose to continue arming the genocide, which has killed at least 43,764 Palestinians and wounded 103,490 since October 7, 2023.  By refusing to enforce US and international law, Biden is leaving office with this genocide forever tainting his legacy.

Reflections on Kamala Harris's defeat - Nov 6

A twice-impeached seditionist and convicted felon who spewed vitriol and lies was victorious in his quest for the highest political office in the land.  Trump's victory speaks volumes about our nation and, even more so, about its politicians. How do we explain it? To the many possibilities being promoted in the mainstream media and among the Democratic Party leadership, I'll add one that you won't see mentioned there.   Kamala Harris failed to distance herself from Biden's Gaza policy and, like Biden, lost the support of the Democratic Party base.  The signs of this disaffection were there for over a year.  Harris-Walz, like Biden-Harris, remained oblivious as the atrocities multiplied and the scale of the humanitarian crisis  became more and more appalling.

"Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes" - Nov 1

It's been a week of depravity both at home and abroad.  A look at the polls four days before the election... a good time to remember Hannah Arendt's precept "Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes."  

Calling bullshit on US and Israeli lies and propaganda - Oct 25

The genocide continues.  Israel, propped up by the unconditional support of the United States, commits its war crimes with impunity...a sampling of recent atrocities, countering the lies of Israeli and US propaganda, the impact of Gaza on US credibility and the election, and what's happening in Lebanon 

Don't wanna be an American Idiot - Oct 14

The great Green Day song came to mind with the release of two books that might help us all from becoming or remaining American Idiots.  The first is Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Message, which is based in part on his visit last year to Israel and the occupied West Bank, where he says he saw a system of segregation and oppression reminiscent of Jim Crow in the United States.  The other, The False White Gospel by the Evangelical theologian Jim Wallis, unveils how far the rantings of the so-called Christian nationalists are from the actual message of Christianity.

Harris barely leading; Trump slowly surging - Oct 11

What the polls are saying today and what the trend has been this last month...all eyes on Michigan and Pennsylvania

No one but the United States can stop Israel's crimes - Oct 10

As Israel continues to militarily ravage Palestine and Lebanon, the failure of the United States to use its considerable leverage to stop Israel's crimes against humanity is obvious to all the world except us.  More than one year into the genocide, the Biden Administration shows no sign of comprehending the enormity of what has happened there and what is on the horizon and no sign of a moral backbone to stop it - conditioning all current and future military aid on Israel's compliance with international law and imposing a complete arms embargo if they do not do so...the courage of Ronald Reagan and a suggestion from Waging Non-Violence 

Beyond the "American Century": an antidote to the arrogance, failures, and tragedies of US foreign policy 

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States became the world's sole superpower.  The world was ready for a new era of international cooperation, but instead of a diplomacy-first  approach to foreign relations, the US chose to continue the "armed primacy" mentality of the Cold War...

Occupied Palestine: A Primer

The War on Gaza is "the moral issue of this student generation."  While the horrors inflicted on the Palestinians over the last eight months are more than enough to outrage almost anyone, the young have lead the way - showing up in numbers and questioning the dominant narrative about Israel and Palestine accepted so unthinkingly in America...a corrective to that dominant narrative.

But how shall we pay for it?

A friend speaking to her more progressive daughter: "Free college, free healthcare...that's all very nice. But how shall we pay for it?"  When conservatives don't cry "socialism" at programs that help anyone but the rich, they fall back on "we can't afford it" or "raising taxes will slow economic growth" or, more spitefully, "they just want a handout."  These arguments do not stand up to scrutiny.  A three-part series that explores how we could have an economically just twenty-first century America.

Criminal Justice System Reform

From enforcement to trial to imprisonment and its aftermath, the criminal justice system in the United States is in need of reform.  Shot through with economic inequality, fueled by a desire to punish, and tainted by racism, it fails to achieve the equality before the law that a democracy requires.  Three-part series discusses crime & punishment in America.  NEW: Lessons from Ferguson, Ten Years Later (Yes!, Aug 7. 2024)

Poverty by America

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy.  Sociologist Matthew Desmond's Poverty, By America attempts to answer the question: "Why?" Why does this land of plenty allow one of eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on its streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages? Matthew Desmond's answer is blunt: Poverty in America persists because the rest of us benefit from it.  

Resistance: a survival guide to Trumpocalypse 2.0    

POSTED DECEMBER 4, 2024

Stay strong

"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer."  - Albert Camus

The first step in resisting Trumpocalypse 2.0 is to stay strong.  Here are some suggestions:

• When a second term for Trump loomed as a distinct possibility in early 2020, I posted Marcus Aurelius and Albert Camus on courage and hope in troubling times.  A few months later, as the Covid pandemic hit, I posted Hope and courage in troubling times redux.  If you begin to get discouraged, these posts might help.

• Listen to some good, uplifting music.  Heck, along with protest marches and evening meetings with like-minded folks, rock and folk music got me through the '60's.  I guess the difference between then and now is that back then you felt things were going to change for the better.  Now, the election of Donald Trump has shown how divided the country still is and how much a role fear and hate and misinformation play in our politics.  Nearly sixty years on and we still have a long way to go.

• Speaking of like-minded folks, understand that you are not alone in this fight.  Ezra Levin, an organizer of what eventually became the Indivisible movement after Trump's 2016 victory,  advises us to "show up in community together right now, grieve together, and make clear to one another that we’re not alone.  Because that’s how fascists ultimately win, is by making you think that you’re alone and you have no power.” 

• Find meaning and understanding, solace and strength, in great works of literature, art and music - what Camus called the "slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence [our] heart first opened."  The Arts section of this website has dozens of places where you can start.  Artists, composers, and writers have produced works of incomparable beauty through the ages.  It's a reminder that Humankind is so much more than Donald Trump.

• Meditate and practice mindfulness.  Be here now.  Attend to what is in front of you.  The Mind & Spirit section of this website has much information on these subjects.

Stay informed

 "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists."  - Hannah Arendt

There are two parts to this.  First is to keep an eye on what Trump, his band of crackpots, and Republicans in general are up to.  Second is to separate fact from fiction in the news.

On the first, the Right have given us a roadmap of what they hope to accomplish once Trump was in office.  Project 2025 developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation poses a number of threats to democracy and the common good, most prominently:

Threat to Democracy: Project 2025 aims to consolidate power in the presidency, undermining the system of checks and balances that protect American democracy. It could lead to authoritarianism by replacing civil servants with partisan loyalists.

Economic Inequality: The project's policies could increase income inequality and reduce the government's capacity to provide essential services. This could disproportionately affect vulnerable populations.

Civil Liberties: The project could lead to the erosion of civil liberties, particularly for marginalized groups. The plan includes measures that target immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other minority communities.

Environmental Impact: The project's emphasis on boosting American energy production could lead to the rollback of environmental regulations, potentially harming efforts to combat climate change.

Public Education: Project 2025's agenda to abolish the teaching of critical race theory* and gender diversity in public schools could undermine educational equity and inclusivity.

In addition to these general threats, there is a strong possibility that "Obamacare" (the Affordable Care Act) and its Medicaid expansion will be under attack reducing healthcare access for millions, that Trump's proposal to eliminate tax on Social Security benefits could accelerate the depletion of the Social Security trust fund, and that Trump's picks for key health positions could undermine public health care.

The antidotes: 

• Stay vigilant as proposals to weaken the nation's social safety net move through the Republican Congress.  Pressure Congress at every step to stop them.  Join protests and demonstrations to show the widespread support these programs have among the public.  Much of this legislation will need Senate approval.  Hopefully 41 Democrats can be found to oppose them.

• Be ready for the attack on civil liberties.  Defend and advocate for marginalized groups, particularly immigrants.  [link below left] Support organizations such as the ACLU, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.  

On the second point, myths and misinformation were rampant in the corporate media even before the arrival of the Post-Truth era and the ascendence of social media.   In fact, one of What in the World's reasons for being is to separate fact from fiction in the media as well as point to the inconsistencies and lies emanating from the mouths of political leaders.  

The antidotes:

• There are a number of links to reliable news sources on The Fray's homepage to keep you from being drawn into the worst aspects of corporate media bias - a bias which extends far beyond Fox News and its even more outrageous right-wing media cohorts.

• Check out the featured posts at the Fray for a deeper understanding of the news.

• Be alert to the mainstream media's "Israel bias" [link below center], which has been in evidence throughout the ongoing genocide in Gaza.  To counteract the dominant and false mainstream media narrative, some reliable sources of news about the Middle East are Democracy Now!, Al Jazeera , The Intercept, and Informed Comment. 

• The US-based are nonprofit and endangered by the nonprofit-killing HR 9495.  Financial support of these news sites will be critical if we are to maintain a free press and access to the truth.

• Be alert to the US penchant for military, rather than diplomatic, solutions to disagreements and conflicts.  Besides the four news sources above, TomDispatch provides a "regular antidote to the mainstream media" take on militarism and imperialism.

• Practice "critical thinking" and encourage local school boards to keep it in the curriculum. [link below right] This is especially important for the many who get their news (and misinformation) from social media.  At the heart of fascism is the blurring of the lines between truth and lies.  Indeed, lies are at the very center of that ideology, and they are the reason that the Right is so intent on wiping out history and controlling school boards.

• Two WITW posts might help: Living in a Post-Truth Era and Why critical thinking is important and three ways to improve it 

*The dog whistle rallying cry of "critical race theory" is a ruse.  Critical race theory is taught at the college and graduate school levels, not at the elementary or high school levels.  The conservatives are actually opposing Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), which focuses on five skill areas:  "self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making."   SEL has become the target of right-wing activists with critics calling SEL "racist garbage," "anti-white," and "a vehicle for introducing leftist propaganda in the classroom."  

Stay Engaged

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Teddy Roosevelt

As Slate's Christina Cauterucci points out, the Resistance will be different from the last time around. [link below left]  This time, Trump won a majority of the votes cast, even though we knew what he was like.  

"In 2016, the mandate for an opposition movement was simple: stopping the agenda of an ill-prepared, inexperienced president. In 2024, it is much broader: beating back a well-orchestrated conservative plan to usher us into a punitive authoritarianism, all under the control of a Supreme Court and federal judiciary packed with right-wing Trump loyalists."

Mass demonstrations such as the Women's March, which drew millions into the streets for the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, are not likely.  America, unfortunately, has widened its definition of what a President should be and, with the help of a compliant democracy-challenged conservative majority Supreme Court, the definition of what he can get away with.  

How then do we stop the march to "fascism-lite"?  Harvard political scientist Pippa Norris predicts that a movement against Trump likely won’t materialize against his presidency in abstract, but against specific things he does.  No subject will be more ripe for attention than Trump's mass deportation plan for immigrants.

• The first order of business then will be solidarity with immigrant communities.  Blue states and cities are developing plans to thwart Trump's mass deportation plans.  Civil liberties, human rights, and Hispanic organizations such as America's Voice and Mi Familia Vota [link below right] are preparing to challenge those plans in court.  Social Justice Ministries in churches across the country are organizing information sessions both as a means to show solidarity with and help immigrants and to re-educate their fellow churchgoers.  Find a group near you to work with, and financially support the civil liberties organizations fighting for the rights of immigrants.

• Look for opportunities at the state and local level to support an inclusive democracy.  

  • Protest curriculum changes in public schools that could further marginalize vulnerable minorities.  

  • Support local libraries attempting to stop book banning.

  • Organizations such as Indivisible have guides on how we as individuals can fight back together: Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Democracy on the Brink."

• Write your Senators and House Members whenever legislation contrary to the common good, such as Medicaid cuts, or authorizing attacks on First Amendment rights, such as HR 9495, are being considered. 

We can get through this.  Others have been there before us, and their wisdom can guide us through the next few years.

Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us many years ago, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Change takes a long time, but it does happen.  

The American political activist and philosopher Angela Davis has good advice for us when the going gets tough: "Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don't yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it's actually going to be possible." 

Finally, there is much truth in Albert Camus' memorable line “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a person's heart." 

Camus' words are a fitting end to this last post at The Fray.  Thank you for stopping by and sharing the journey.

Dear Joe Biden (November 2024)

POSTED NOVEMBER 26, 2024

My condolences on the November elections.  You accomplished much domestically with your progressive policies.  In the end, though, high prices  and anti-immigrant rhetoric from the right brought the Democrats down.  

Sadly, your foreign policy is another matter entirely.  It was not as extreme as your predecessor's, but also not much different.  Many of his abhorrent policies are still in place.  You've had four years to correct them and you did not.  

Two weeks after your election, I forwarded some suggestions from Code Pink on ten things you could do on day one to reverse Trump policies.  Here on day 1406, little progress has been made.  

You still send arms to violators of human rights.  You failed to renew the JCPOA with Iran and failed to lift the sanctions on them. You have attacked Yemen which has been in  a humanitarian crisis since the US-supported attacks by Saudi Arabia and UAE during the Obama and Trump years.  You have blamed the Houthis in Yemen for "illegal and reckless" acts (disrupting shipping until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza) while you arm a genocide in violation of US and international law.  You have maintained most of Trump's illegal* sanctions, which have caused misery in Latin America and elsewhere.  Rather than freeze the military budget, you increased spending to historically high levels.

You added your own mistakes and blunders - most notably, failing to compromise on NATO expansion and to negotiate on Ukraine and aiding the genocide in Gaza.   Negotiation on Ukraine could have saved tens of thousands of lives and prevented a refugee crisis.  Your enabling of Israel's rampage lost the United States any respect it still had as a defender of human rights and an upholder of international law.  Israel has turned Gaza into a wasteland - destroying Gaza's health care and educational systems as well as its civilian infrastructure that provides water and electricity.  Israel has deliberately starved Gaza and displaced nearly everyone there at least once.  Israel has killed a minimum of 44,000 and wounded/maimed more than 100,000.  The vast majority of the dead and wounded are women, children, and elderly and noncombatant males.  Among the dead are journalists, health care workers, ambulance drivers, humanitarian aid workers, and people waiting in line for food.  None of this would have been possible without the bombs and arms you sent them.  This is your legacy.

But you still have the opportunity to act before your term ends.  You can't undo the damage already done, but you can put up the safeguards now to prevent further devastation and set the course towards peace and accountability.  Code Pink has several suggestions below for you to consider in the waning days of your Presidency.  Perhaps history will look a little more kindly on you if you take them to heart.  

- Remove Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list and lift sanctions that have economically crippled Cuba and infringed on the daily lives of millions of Cubans.

- Enforce the Leahy Law to prevent U.S. arms from being sent to Israel to commit human rights violations, and impose a complete arms embargo on Israel. Reach a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and ensure aid reaches the millions of people starving in Gaza.  ICYMI, Israel is still starving Gaza: Israeli total War Continues, with "No end in sight" for Palestinians in Gaza -- Cold, Drenched, Homeless and Hungry  (Nov 26)

- Re-engage with Iran diplomacy and lift sanctions on Iran to reduce the risk of further escalation in the region. 

- Increase diplomacy with China by cooperating on climate change efforts. This would set a necessary international precedent to save our planet as well as nurture the U.S.’s relationship with China. 

- End weapons to Ukraine and push for a diplomatic solution to the war. 

Dear Joe Biden (May 2020)

Dear Joe Biden (Feb 2021)

Biden must reverse ALL of Trump's foreign policy fiascos: why the delay? (Mar 2021)

To say I am disappointed would be an understatement.  

Very truly yours...

*U.S. sanctions on countries like Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and Syria are a form of economic warfare. UN special rapporteurs have condemned them as crimes against humanity and compared them to medieval sieges. 

The lunatics will soon be running the asylum: who is the most dangerous?

POSTED NOVEMBER 21, 2024 [updated November 24]

UPDATE November 24: Shortly after this was originally posted, Matt Gaetz removed himself from consideration as Trump's Attorney General.  Trump's replacement choice is former Florida AG Pam Bondi.  Unlike Gaetz, she has Attorney General experience and has not been not been the subject of a Congressional ethics committee investigation.  But as Jim at Slate's newsletter notes: she has plenty of baggage to discuss in her confirmation hearings. She dropped an investigation into Trump University in 2013 after getting a $25,000 donation from Trump, once got an execution rescheduled because the timing conflicted with a fundraiser, and became a lobbyist with both US and foreign clients after leaving the Florida AG’s office.  It is not expected that his replacement nominee will change anything.  The Attorney General will still be one of the most important positions enabling Trump to pursue his agendas.

As bizarre and disturbing as they are, Trump's cabinet picks are a perfect reflection of what he promised for his second Presidency.  Many nominees have no experience in the areas they are to lead.  Others hold views that are downright antithetical to the department they are running.  And others pose a serious threat to the freedoms of Americans and to the lives of people all over the world.   

In his choices for leadership positions, Trump is also making Nixon's "enemy list" look mild by comparison as he goes after everyone who opposed his corrupt and seditionist actions.  The Guardian's article [linked below left] calls them "agents of his contempt, rage, and vengeance"  adding that

"Certain common characteristics run through his cabinet of curiosities and horrors to mark them collectively unique among any cabinet of any president – alleged sexual misconduct and abuse, drug addiction, megalomania, authoritarianism, cultism, paranoia, white supremacy, antisemitism and grifting. Some nominees meet all these qualifications, others only two, three or four. For a few, it’s just plain and simple self-aggrandizing corruption."

As for some of the individual nominees, The Guardian calls Fox News host Pete Hegseth (Secretary of Defense),  "the ideal man to purge the military" as Trump's "enforcer of politicizing the military so that it never questioned any illegal behavior, like violating the War Crimes Act, or refusing an order to open fire on American protestors"; Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence), "a rote pro-Russian propagandist, hailed on Russian state media as “our girlfriend”...there to wreak havoc on Trump’s phantom nemesis, the deep state"; RFK Jr , (Secretary of Health and Human Services), "an opponent of the scientific method for which he reflexively substitutes a priori conspiracy theories." Known for his bogus statements that vaccines cause autism, he once claimed 'There is no vaccine that is safe and effective"; Chris Wright (Secretary of Energy), a fracking equipment company executive who has declared: “There is no climate crisis.”

While these picks promise chaos as a minimum and while Hegseth's is a clear threat to democracy, their ability to cause damage and harm is not as great as that of Matt Gaetz, Trump's choice for Attorney General, or Marco Rubio, his choice for Secretary of State.  

The selection of Gaetz, a staunch Trump loyalist, appears to signify Trump’s intent to weaponize the Department of Justice to target political enemies.  Gaetz has “no appreciable law enforcement experience,” says Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.  

In an interview with Democracy Now! [link below center], Bookbinder summarizes the importance of the position of Attorney General: "The attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. The attorney general runs the Department of Justice, which brings all federal prosecutions in the United States but also handles vast amounts of civil litigation, environmental litigation, civil rights litigation. The Department of Justice sets legal policy for the executive branch of the government. It’s hard to overstate what an important position the attorney general is, both in the actual management of the justice system in the United States and in setting the tone for how justice works in the United States." Vox senior political correspondent Zack Beauchamp adds that Gaetz is likely to “take an ax to the nonpartisan functioning of the Justice Department...His chief qualification … is his willingness to do whatever Donald Trump needs to be done.”

If Matt Gaetz as Attorney General poses a threat to justice here at home, Marco Rubio as Secretary of State poses a threat to peaceful resolution of conflicts overseas.  As Code Pink points out [link below right], "In Latin America, U.S.-backed coups and sanctions have impoverished communities, while in Palestine, the U.S.-backed genocide and occupation have claimed countless lives. These policies perpetuate cycles of violence and suffering, impacting millions...Rubio’s hubris in blaming Hamas for Israel’s brutal genocide campaign in Gaza exemplifies his foreign policy: callous, reckless, and devoid of diplomacy." From Latin America to Palestine to China to Iran to free speech here at home, Rubio has shown no sign of understanding the difference between domestic politics and diplomacy. Code Pink concludes its article with this:

All his positions are based on cynically mischaracterizing the actions and motivations of his enemies and then attacking the “straw man” he has falsely set up. Unscrupulous politicians often get away with that, and Rubio has made it his signature tactic because it works so well for him in American politics. But that will not work if and when he sits down to negotiate with other world leaders as U.S. secretary of state. 

His underlying attitude to foreign relations is, like Trump’s, that the United States must get its way or else, and that other countries who won’t submit must be coerced, threatened, couped, bombed or invaded. This makes Rubio just as ill-equipped as Antony Blinken to conduct diplomacy, improve U.S. relations with other countries or resolve disputes and conflicts peacefully.

Who is the most dangerous Cabinet pick?  For me, it's a toss-up between Matt Gaetz and Marco Rubio.  Both will be reflections of the President they will serve, and that bodes ill for both America and the world.  While there is not much Biden can do to counter the future Attorney General, there are several things he can do in the area of foreign affairs to blunt the worst aspects of the Trump-Rubio agenda.  

Code Pink has a petition calling on Biden to

• Remove Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list and lift sanctions that have economically crippled Cuba and infringed on the the daily lives of millions of Cubans.

• Enforce the Leahy Law to prevent U.S. arms from being sent to Israel to commit human rights violations, and impose a complete arms embargo on Israel. 

• Reach a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and ensure aid reaches the millions of people starving in Gaza. 

• Re-engage with Iran diplomacy and lift sanctions on Iran to reduce the risk of further escalation in the region. 

• Increase diplomacy with China by cooperating on climate change efforts. 

• End weapons to Ukraine and push for a diplomatic solution to the war. 

Biden has had four years to accomplish these things, but maybe he will have a change of heart in the waning days of his presidency.  It's worth a try.

How the Democrats' failure to take radical action in 2021-2022 doomed democracy and the party

POSTED NOVEMBER 19, 2024

When Joe Biden entered office in January 2021, Democrats had a majority in both houses of Congress.  Biden and the Democrats had two years to take the action necessary to reverse the trend towards authoritarianism and an undemocratic future. They had two years to enact and publicly champion legislation for the common good.  

As the Covid-19 pandemic lessened, the top domestic legislative priorities should have been passage of the H.R.1 voting rights bill, a $17/hour Federal minimum wage, gun control legislation, and comprehensive immigration reform.  Two things stood in their way: the Senate's filibuster rule and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court.  

To accomplish these goals, Democrats would have had to take radical action starting with the removal of the Senate's filibuster rule.  In a body already skewed undemocratically because all states have two Senators regardless of population, the filibuster rule which required 60 votes instead of a simple majority to pass legislation guaranteed that there would be no passage of any progressive legislation.  The filibuster rule is just that - a rule.  It can be removed from Senate procedures at any time.  Failure #1 was Senator Schumer's reluctance to change that rule in any way.

The second radical step would be to expand the Supreme Court, whose conservative majority had shown itself to be democracy-adverse for more than two decades.  If Biden appointed four liberal or even moderate judges, the balance would have swung to the liberals/moderates with a 7-6 majority.  Failure #2 was President Biden's reluctance to expand the Supreme Court.

The first in a series of "Moving Forward" posts shortly after Biden's inauguration was "Defending Voting Rights and Democracy".  Voting rights are the heart of a democracy.  Had HR 1 been enacted, America would have fulfilled its promise as a multi-racial democracy with the rights of all protected.  That democracy is now threatened by a second Trump Administration.  Had the there been a liberal/moderate majority on the Supreme Court, Donald Trump would have been held accountable for his seditionist activity and not granted immunity for his crimes.  He would be sitting in a jail cell and not in the Oval Office.

Had a $17/hour minimum wage been enacted, Trump's support among working class white males would have been diminished.  

Had comprehensive immigration reform legislation been passed, the Republicans anti-immigrant rhetoric would have fallen on deaf ears. 

Had national gun control measures been enacted, widely-supported gun laws brought before a moderate/liberal Supreme Court would pass and at long last begin to bring America's gun death epidemic to an end. 

And so it begins...

POSTED NOVEMBER 13, 2024

"The unchecked powers granted by H.R. 9495 are ripe for abuse and any member of Congress who votes yes on it cannot honestly claim to support peace, justice, and freedom of speech." - Rep. Jamaal Bowman

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has fired the first volley in the upcoming assault on democracy.  H.R. 9495 would grant the incoming Trump administration and future administrations unprecedented and unchecked power to take away vital tax exemptions from nonprofits — including news outlets — that are deemed “terrorist supporting.”  Aimed at opponents of the Gaza genocide, the bill garnered support from 52 Democrats [link below left], demonstrating once again the anti-Palestinian sentiment and the power of the Israel Lobby among centrist Democrats. Even with this support from the "AIPAC Democrats", the bill failed to gain the two-thirds majority vote necessary for passage since it was being considered under a suspension of House rules to expedite passage.

Nov 22 Update: The House re-introduced the bill and passed it on a simple majority vote. This time 15 AIPAC Democrats joined the Republicans. 15 Democrats Join House GOP to Pass 'MAGA Assault' on Nonprofits

Representative Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat who lost his primary race earlier this year, and will be leaving Capitol Hill come January, warned that the bill will sink us further into authoritarianism. "It is an extremely dangerous bill that would give the government unlimited power to stop the work of humanitarian groups and target political enemies. All without transparency or evidence," Bowman, who is among the most vocal pro-Palestinian voices in Congress, wrote on X.  The Israel Lobby spent nearly $15 million dollars to unseat him in the Democratic primary.

Actor Cynthia Nixon, a former candidate for New York governor, called the bill a "five alarm fire" and urged her followers on X to persuade their members of Congress to block it. Opponents have warned that passing the bill would kill a nonprofit's ability to function, as it could prohibit their ability to fundraise, prevent them from getting banks to service them and imperil their work in war zones or other hostile environments.

This attack on free speech and freedom of the press is just the beginning of what is expected to be a wholesale trampling of First Amendment rights [link below center] and human rights [link below right] during Trump's upcoming presidency.  

What the world needs now: a global armistice

POSTED NOVEMBER 11, 2024

In what is described as an "incomplete" list of the approximately 3000 wars in recorded human history, a Wikipedia article puts the minimum figure for deaths due to war at more than 340 million. The totals for each war in the list "usually include both the deaths of military personnel which are the direct results of battle or other military wartime actions, as well as the wartime/ war-related deaths of civilians, which are the results of war induced epidemics, diseases, famines, atrocities etc."

Besides the deaths from war, tens of millions of civilians have become refugees - either fleeing to another country or "internally displaced". Currently, according to the UNHCR,  there are 120 million of them.  Were they a country, refugees would rank 12th in population amongst the nations of the world.

Greed, hatred, nationalism, perceived wrongs, balance of power, economic systems, religious beliefs, quest for power, land grabs, bloodlust - mankind has found many reasons to go to war. They are all wrong. They stem from the perception of "the Other", someone you can dehumanize because he is different from you or violate his rights because you feel entitled to take what he has.

Today as the New Cold War threatens to get hot in Ukraine, as the genocide and ethnic cleansing continue in Gaza, as rival military factions fight each other and devastate Sudan...to just name the most prominent of our current wars, we would do well to remember the words of the historian Howard Zinn, "I wonder how foreign policies would look if we thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children." 

Today we need a global armistice, an end to all fighting everywhere.  To put an end to war, we need a return to respect for international law and a renewed commitment to diplomatic resolution of conflicts. The United States, the driving force for the founding of the United Nations, should have taken the lead in this.  We have not been doing a good job of late - deliberately torpedoing Ukraine peace talks (below left) and arming a genocide in Gaza.  In two days, President Biden has a unique opportunity to contribute to peace in the world.  On November 13, the 30-day grace period given Israel to stop interfering in aid deliveries to Gaza will be over.  They have obviously not complied.  Biden must immediately suspend all arms shipments to Israel and bring them to the negotiating table. (below right)

Reflections on Kamala Harris's Defeat

POSTED NOVEMBER 6, 2024

"Every country has the government it deserves," observed the French philosopher and writer Joseph de Maistre. A twice-impeached seditionist and convicted felon who spewed vitriol and lies was victorious in his quest for the highest political office in the land.  Trump's victory speaks volumes about our nation and, even more so, about its politicians. 

Votes are still being tallied, and as of noon Friday Nov 22, with nearly 99% of the vote counted, Kamala Harris had received 7 million less votes than Joe Biden's final count.  She is also on track to become the first Democrat to lose the popular vote in 20 years.

How do we explain it?  Was it the lies about immigrant crime?  Was it the lingering and erroneous belief that we are still experiencing high inflation rates?   Did so many voters struggling to make ends meet believe that the party of trickle-down economics, tax breaks for the rich, and reduced spending on domestic programs would be better for them?  Was it the extent to which states like Georgia made it more confusing and difficult to vote? Is America still not ready to elect a woman president? Were Trump supporters and others who should know better convinced that Kamala Harris was a "communist"? Did Americans not believe that Trump and Project 2025 pose a threat to American democracy? Did we have a case of collective amnesia about what happened during the previous term of Donald Trump and its aftermath - the attack on the Capitol? Do some Americans really hate people different from themselves and applaud the vile rantings of the most mendacious (and many would say, worst) president in US history?  

Yes, all of that.  To which I'll add one more that you won't see mentioned in the mainstream media or among the Democratic Party leadership.   Kamala Harris pulled a "Hubert Humphrey" by failing to distance herself from Biden's Gaza policy, and many voters in the Democratic base could not get enthusiastic about her candidacy.  Humphrey at least made an effort - albeit too late - to take a stance on ending LBJ's Vietnam War.  Harris had 107 days to protest the Biden Administration's unwavering support of Israel's assault on Gaza, and she did not.

The signs of this disaffection of the Democratic Party base were there for over a year.  Harris-Walz, like Biden-Harris, remained oblivious as the atrocities multiplied and the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza became more and more appalling.  

"Voting blocs and activists that came out strongly for Biden in 2020 are not enthusiastic for 2024.  As civilians in Gaza are being massacred day after day, Biden’s one-sided “I stand with Israel” policy is losing him countless young activists and racial justice organizers who mobilized for him against Trump in 2020. In Michigan and other swing states, Arab and Muslim activists who detest Trump have said they won’t vote for Biden, let alone mobilize for him.  In short, Biden's popularity among young voters, social justice activists and voters of Middle Eastern ancestry has tanked." (WITW, Nov 10 2023)

"One must also wonder: what war crime or atrocity will push Biden to understand the horrific nature of the Israeli assault?  That some of the most vital humanitarian aid is being turned away by Israel? The massacre of dozens of men women and children in line to get food? The obliteration of Gaza's health care system?  The killing of more than 12,000 children...the equivalent of five Parkland Florida high school shootings every day for four months?  The destruction of  water wells,  fuel shortages, power cuts, and the absence of working desalination plants that have left Gaza's clean water at only 7% of its prewar supply?" (WITW, Feb 29 2024)

"People have not forgotten what Trump did, and no amount of harping on Trump's past misdeeds will energize disaffected Democratic voters.  A Common Dreams post more accurately explains why Biden's approval rating is so low: U.S. public support for Israel's military assault on Gaza has plummeted since November, with the decline particularly sharp among Democratic voters...just 18% of Democratic voters currently approve of 'the military action Israel has taken in Gaza' and 75% disapprove. (WITW, March 28, 2024)

"Biden's loss of support among the Democratic base could decide the election.  Will he step aside? Will he listen to his base and significantly change his Israel/Gaza policy? Or will Biden, with Donald Trump waiting in the wings, "risk his second term and our democracy by continuing to support the kind of violence and cruelty that is being perpetrated in Gaza right now"?  It's not too late to turn this around.  If Biden doesn't heed his base, perhaps he will listen to long-time admirer, columnist Nicholas Kristoff.  In an op-ed piece at the NY Times Kristoff asks plaintively "What Happened to the Joe Biden I Knew?" (WITW, April 24, 2024)

Biden resigned in July, and there was a brief moment of hope for opponents of his Gaza policy.  That moment faded quickly and then was almost completely uprooted at the Democratic National Convention.  I began to lose enthusiasm for the Harris-Walz campaign when they refused to let a Palestinian-American address the Convention.  For many Uncommitted Voters, Gaza was a moral and often personal issue - how could one vote for a candidate who was part of an Administration that was aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity?  

15,000 protesters took to the streets of Chicago during the Democratic National Convention to demand an end to the genocide in Gaza.  For the most part, their pleas fell on deaf ears. Inside the convention center...a few good words and a first-ever panel on Palestinian rights.  BUT no demand for an immediate permanent ceasefire, no call for an end to Israeli interference in aid shipments, no arms embargo...not even a mention of conditioning of military aid to Israel.  The DNC platform appeared to be trying to outdo the Republican platform in declaring their unswerving (and blind) support for an Israel engaged in the greatest assault on a civilian population in recent times.  The Dems capped their dismissal of the  Palestinians' plight on Wednesday night by rejecting a request for a Palestinian-American to address the convention. (WITW, Aug 23, 2024)

As the months went by, it became clear that Harris was not going to call for any substantial changes to the Biden policy.  Whatever enthusiasm she had generated when Biden resigned slowly evaporated.  Between September 1 and November 1, her margin in the popular vote was halved.  Even that shrinking margin did not hold as many disaffected Democrats voted for third-party candidates* and many others just stayed home.

*Total 3rd party votes for this election exceeded 2.7 million, as of noon November 22.

"Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes"

POSTED NOVEMBER 1, 2024

It's been a week of depravity and unreality both at home and abroad, a fitting reminder that we are still in the Post-Truth era, possibly more than ever.  On Sunday, Trump and his cohorts filled Madison Square Garden with anger, vitriol and racist threats, drawing comparisons to the pro-Nazi rally held there in 1939.  On Monday, Evangelical faith leaders laid hands on Trump and prayed for him at a faith summit in Georgia.  Also on Monday, Israel, after a year of genocide made possible by US bombs, weaponry and unconditional support, banned a UN humanitarian and relief agency and declared it a terrorist organization.  Which is the most bogus and most depraved I'll leave for you to decide.

Living in a Post-Truth Era 

Six iconic biblical text that put the lie to "Christian" Nationalism

Four days until the election, and it would be a good idea to remember Hannah Arendt's precept "Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes."  

The race for the control of Congress looks about the same as it did three weeks ago. Democrats have a chance to take back the House, and Republicans appear poised to take control of the Senate.   As for the Harris-Trump face-off, Trump's momentum continues.  In the three week's since my last post on the election, Trump has taken the lead in the electoral college according to the latest polls.  He has taken the lead away from Harris in both Pennsylvania (now 0.7% over Harris) and Nevada (now 0.3% over Harris). Harris's lead in the national popular vote has dropped to 1.2%, well below the margin historically needed for a Democrat to win the electoral college.

Prepare for the worst

Trump has raised xenophobia to a fever pitch, and the dark vision of a second Trump presidency has prompted immigrant rights advocates to prepare for worst case scenarios. 

They have their work cut out for them. The former president has promised a seemingly never-ending catalog of crackdowns on all forms of immigration: the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants; deploying the military within US borders (against migrants and, presumably, protesters); ending birthright citizenship for American-born children of undocumented immigrants; and possibly reviving the “zero tolerance” policy of family separation.  If reelected, Trump has also vowed to restore the “Muslim ban” executive order...Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) hopes to take lessons from those first four years of resisting not only the travel ban, but also family separation and a rule punishing immigrants for accessing public benefits. “The biggest piece that we did but didn’t do as strongly in his first go-around was litigation,” Awawdeh says, “and I think that’s the piece that we’re all going to be doubling and tripling down on.”  Policy and legal experts at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) are actively keeping a growing list of policy proposals from the Trump campaign and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 playbook and drafting legal memos for potential lawsuits. (Mother Jones, link below left)

Pennsylvania has been a breeding ground for far-right conspiracies and attempts to subvert the will of voters. The Commonwealth is taking steps to safeguard the election.

"Ahead of this year’s election, the state has assembled an election-threat task force to prepare for all imaginable contingencies, comprising officials from the governor’s office, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Guard, and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. The task force has a plan to respond to a large-scale natural disaster or a violent attack on Election Day, but the group’s most urgent work centers on more wily and focused threats to the process: voter suppression, foreign and domestic interference, the proliferation of disinformation, and local officials refusing to certify the results." (The New Yorker)

Expect the best

A last minute Harris surge in Pennsylvania would win her the presidency.  That is, it will if she can hold onto her slim leads in Wisconsin and Michigan.  That is a big "if". In all three "blue wall" states, there is a significant number of Uncommitted Voters that Harris has not engaged even as the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza continue.  They may be voting for Green Party candidate Jill Stein or staying home on election day.     

Reem Abuelhaj, an organizer in Pennsylvania who was involved in the uncommitted primary vote there, wants Democrats to reckon with how painful it is to ask a Palestinian American like her to continue supporting the current administration. “We’re watching people we love lose family members and live in daily fear...This campaign is about identifying the leverage we do have. I’m a Palestinian American who has lived in Pennsylvania my whole life. I’ve voted Democrat in every election until this one, when many of us looked around and realized this was the leverage we have right now,” she said. “We know another Trump presidency would be disastrous. But I cannot bring myself to go to the polls and cast my ballot for a candidate who is responsible for the death of family members, and is clear on continuing support for this genocide.” (Slate, link below right)

If Harris does win, I personally have hope that she will make good on the slaps on the wrist we've given to the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu and condition US military aid to Israel if not support an outright embargo.  And I know that she, being committed to a two-state solution, will be better for Palestinians both in the post-genocide time frame and in the long run.

A Harris victory would also make domestic program cuts less likely and a more humane immigration policy more likely.  With the Republicans controlling the Senate, she may not have any chance of getting a liberal on the Supreme Court.  Perhaps we can wish for an early retirement or impeachment for the likes of 76-year-old Clarence Thomas and 74-year-old Samuel Alito.

If Trump wins, about the only positive I see is he may better push Ukraine and Russia to a negotiated settlement, ending the carnage there.  And a Trump victory - especially if due to a third party vote - may make Democrats rethink their dependence on the Israel Lobby and their unstinting support for an apartheid genocidal nation.

Take what comes

Whatever the result of the 2024, social justice activists, peacemakers, and human rights advocates will have much to do - countering xenophobia, opposing tragically misguided US foreign policy, and fulfilling its stated role as a defender of human rights and an advocate for international law.  The work to demolish the roadblocks to Martin Luther King's Beloved Community - the three great evils of militarism, economic exploitation and racism - continues.

The Beloved Community: the philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Calling bullshit on US and Israeli lies and propaganda

POSTED OCTOBER 25, 2024

The genocide continues.  Israel, propped up by the unconditional support of the United States, commits its war crimes with impunity.  Over the past several weeks, to cite some recent atrocities, Israel has:

• Bombed a makeshift tent camp for displaced persons near Al-Aqsa hospital, burning people alive

• Struck a U.N.-run school sheltering displaced Palestinians killing at least 25 people, including children in northern Gaza

• Issued an apparent death threat to six journalists who are among the only journalists left documenting atrocities in north Gaza as Israel carries out its ethnic cleansing campaign against hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the region.  

• At least 87 people were killed or are missing under the debris after an Israeli air attack in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip. The overnight raid hit several houses and a multistorey residential building, known as the Beit Lahiya Project.

• Trapped more than 350 patients inside the three remaining partially operational hospitals in northern Gaza, blocked six medical NGOs from entering Gaza, and killed four water engineers who were traveling to make repairs to the water infrastructure near Khan Youni.

• On Thursday, Israeli warplanes struck an entire block of residential buildings housing 10 families on Hoga Street in the Jabaliya refugee camp in north Gaza, killing or wounding more than 150 Palestinians. It was the largest massacre committed by the Israeli army in northern Gaza since Israeli airstrikes killed nearly 90 Palestinians in Beit Lahia.   "No civil defence, no reporters can respond, no coverage. There is nothing but death and destruction," said Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al-Sharif on his X account.  "Hospitals have stopped functioning. Civil defense has stopped. Tens of thousands of families remain trapped. No food. No medicine. No water."

• On Friday, Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, expelling patients and staff, after earlier surrounding and shelling what was essentially the last hospital left standing in the area. Soldiers carried out mass arrests, and doctors say babies and children have died after being cut off from their oxygen supplies. Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, says the situation is catastrophic and there’s nowhere patients in northern Gaza can go for treatment.

Meanwhile, the lies spewing from the orifices of the Israeli propaganda machine and the Biden Administration are incredible in their justification of the genocide..."The journalists are Hamas", "UNRWA is Hamas", "Hamas is using Palestinians as human shields", "Hamas needs to accept a ceasefire".  

And what has been the response of the United States to the war crimes and crimes against humanity? Besides arming the genocide and parroting Israeli propaganda, we have cut off aid to UNRWA, the most effective humanitarian organization aiding the Palestinians and have stood idly by while Israel blocks aid shipments and starves Gaza.  Every other donor nation has resumed aid to UNRWA because Israel never produced any credible evidence to back their allegations that twelve of the 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza played some role in the October 7 attacks.  

As the aid crisis deepens, Israel is starving Gaza.  Israeli forces are only allowing a handful of aid trucks to enter north Gaza each day after weeks of a total aid blockade, the UN reports. With crucial supplies depleted, the estimated 440,000 Palestinians still trapped in the region are simply “waiting to die,” one UN official said.

Nearly seven months after the UN declared that northern Gaza was on the verge of famine, Secretary of State Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a letter threatening to cut off U.S. military assistance if Israel does not boost humanitarian aid to Gaza in the next 30 days.  One cannot help being cynical at this half-hearted and way-too-late attempt to reign in a war criminal.

Hala Rharrit quit the State Department in April to protest the Biden Administration's Gaza policy. [link below right] Her take on the "threat" to condition military aid after a year of genocidal rampage:

We don’t need another 30 days. We have had ample evidence from within the United States government, not just the State Department, but a multitude of U.S. agencies, with proof that Israel is violating so many of our laws, is systematically withholding humanitarian assistance from going in. As was mentioned in the report, as well, Leahy vetting is being violated, with army units determined to have committed gross human rights violations. 

Her interview with Democracy Now! also addresses the press conference statements of State Department spokesperson Matt Miller ("I’m going to be unequivocal: He’s lying...Hamas has repeatedly agreed to ceasefire deals. It is Benjamin Netanyahu who has reneged on those deals. "), the loss of US credibility across the Global South ("We are seen as a country of double standards. We only care about human rights when it’s the human rights of a certain people. We only care about freedom of press when the journalists are not Arab, right?") and the potential impact on the election given the lack of Kamala Harris distancing herself from the policy ("the trauma that this conflict has caused...these incessant images of massacres, absolute massacres, of children getting killed, of the suffering now in Lebanon, [is] unacceptable. And I think for a lot of people of conscience, they are not going to be able to bring themselves to vote for Harris.")

Carrying out a genocide in Gaza for over a year with impunity and without consequence, Israel is turning its attention to Lebanon.  In spite of international calls for a ceasefire there, a war rages.  Employing many of the tactics it used against Gaza - including the targeted and indiscriminate killing of journalists, civilians and medical workers - Israel is bringing death, destruction and displacement to Lebanon. [link below right]

Anti-Nuclear Group Founded By Atomic Bomb Survivors Wins Nobel Peace Prize

POSTED OCTOBER 24, 2024

As the nuclear powers appear on the verge of increasing their arsenals and are signaling worrisome changes in their policies, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its Peace Prize for 2024 to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo.  "This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again."

Next year marks the 80th anniversary of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  This was the only time these ultimate WMD's were used.  The two bombs killed an estimated 120,000 inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki immediately.  A comparable number died of burn and radiation injuries in the months and years that followed.  Noting that the taboo against nuclear weapons use was now “under pressure,” Nobel Committee Chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes noted, "Today’s nuclear weapons have far greater destructive power. They can kill millions and would impact the climate catastrophically. A nuclear war could destroy our civilization."

ICAN (The International Committee to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) responded with praise for the movement:

For decades, the hibakusha have been tireless advocates for the elimination of nuclear weapons. No one will ever be able to measure how many people’s lives were forever altered by hearing, first hand, a survivor tell their story of that summer morning in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Most often, the person telling the story was a child at the time- and lost their parents, their siblings, their best friends. 

It takes incredible bravery to re-live such a horrific trauma, over and over, for audiences around the globe. The courage to do so has led people to the conclusion that nuclear weapons are so horrific, they must never be used again. It has helped the public and world leaders to see nuclear weapons for what they truly are.

In an interview with Democracy Now!, Joseph Gerson, a longtime peace and disarmament activist who has worked closely with Nihon Hidankyo for the past 40 years, said, "...these people literally survived hell. And they turned their experiences, their suffering, into what Wilfred Burchett, the first Western journalist to go into Hiroshima, later described as the most important force for the abolition of nuclear weapons among humanity." [below right]

After the prize was announced, the co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, Toshiyuki Mimaki, spoke to reporters in Tokyo and expressed his surprise at the announcement "What? Nihon Hidankyo? How did Nihon Hidankyo? It can’t be real. It can’t be real. … We will appeal to the world, as we always have done, for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the achievement of an everlasting peace. … Why Nihon Hidankyo? I thought for sure it would be the people working so hard in Gaza...In Gaza, bleeding children are being held [by their parents]. It’s like in Japan 80 years ago.”

Don't wanna be an American Idiot

The year after the government and the media manipulated public opinion in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq* and the Iraq War was raging, the American rock band Green Day released their American Idiot album.  Rightfully hailed as one of the greatest albums of all-time, it became the score for a Tony-award-winning musical of the same name.  

The title song gave us many memorable lyrics including this still relevant assessment of the American political and media landscape:

Don't wanna be an American idiot

One nation controlled by the media 

The song and lyrics came to mind with the release of two books that might help us all from becoming or remaining American Idiots.  

The first is Ta-Nehisi Coates's The Message, which is based in part on his visit last year to Israel and the occupied West Bank, where he says he saw a system of segregation and oppression reminiscent of Jim Crow in the United States.  In an interview with Democracy Now!, Coates said, “It was revelatory.  I don’t think the average American has a real sense of what we’re doing over there — and I emphasize 'what we're doing’ because it’s not possible without American support.”

He's right of course.  The average American pretty much has swallowed whole the myth of Israel as a benign democracy.  That it took Coates, a journalist for 20 years, so long to realize the toxic reality of Israeli apartheid is a testament to how biased mainstream media coverage and to how powerful Israeli propaganda is.  In his interview with Democracy Now! [link below], Ta-Nehisi Coates draws parallels between the segregated world his parents were born into and the day-to-day oppression of Palestinians.  In the West Bank he witnessed segregated streets - well-maintained ones for Israelis, rutted pot-holed ones for the Palestinians, checkpoints for Palestinians that sometimes "appear out of the blue", and most notably separate justice systems.  "If you are arrested as a Palestinian, you can just be taken. In another political context, we would call those hostages, because nobody has to say why you’re taken, nobody has to say what you were taken for, nobody has to inform your family. You are under the jurisdiction of the military."

The mainstream media reaction to his book was about as expected.  One CBS interviewer grilled him about what was not in the book - the Intifadas, for example, and stunningly stated that the book "would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist."  Coates reply: "there is no shortage of that perspective in American media, [and] I am most concerned always with those who don’t have a voice, with those who don’t have the ability to talk...what I saw in Palestine, what I saw on the West Bank, what I saw in Haifa, in Israel, what I saw in the South Hebron Hills, those were the stories that I have not heard."

Occupied Palestine: A Primer (May 22, 2024)

*The invasion was justified by the Bush Administration on the basis of the existence of weapons of mass destruction.  These weapons were never found. The media were accomplices in this deception, accepting the statements of government officials and Iraqi dissidents without being given even a shred of credible evidence.

The second book, The False White Gospel by the Evangelical theologian Jim Wallis, unveils how far the rantings of the so-called Christian nationalists are from the actual message of Christianity.  On the one hand, the media have not been as complicit in spreading the lies as they have been regarding Israel.  On the other hand, few voices in organized religion have made a point of contradicting the very un-Christian message of the nationalists.  

The Christian nationalist movement includes many Evangelical Christians, who are among Trump's biggest supporters. Some of them even consider Trump to be sent by God to save America.  Trump plays to their gullibility as well as their prejudices.  In July, he called upon "Christians" to vote for him: "Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians."

Unlike most Evangelicals who are falling in line and spreading the word about their savior Donald Trump, the Reverend Jim Wallis gets it.  He understands that the Old Testament prophets were great advocates for social justice.  He understands that the message of the Gospels is one of  forgiveness, compassion, self-sacrifice, and concern for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable and the marginalized.  In his most recent book, he compares six well-known Biblical texts to White Christian nationalist beliefs. His conclusion: White Christian nationalists follow a Bible that’s full of holes.**

“White Christian nationalism has cut out of their Bibles all of the Scriptures that lead faith to justice,” Wallis writes. “When is the last time you heard a white Christian nationalist MAGA pastor talk about justice from the pulpit — justice for the poor, for the immigrants, for those being discriminated against? The only words that relate to ‘justice’ are predictions of punishment for all those who oppose their political agenda.”

In CNN's interview [link below], Wallis riffs on Jesus becoming a victim of identity theft in America, on compassion for immigrants at the southern border, and on how White Christian nationalism is an old form of heresy that turns  on its head "the most inclusive and inviting, welcoming vision in the history of the world for all people".  He closes the interview with the observation that "Jesus said, you’ll know the truth and the truth will set you free. But the opposite of truth is not just lying, it’s captivity.  A whole lot of good people are captive to these notions of White supremacy and White minority rule." Hopefully, some can be persuaded of the truth and freed from these false notions which hold them captive.

The Religious Left (September 23, 2020)

**Wallis tells this story of an unusual theological experiment that changed his life. Wallis and several friends wanted to know how many scriptures in the Bible dealt with issues such as poverty, oppression and justice. So they took a pair of scissors and cut out every biblical verse mentioning the poor. “When we were done, all of those verses had fallen to the floor — about two thousand verses in total,” Wallis recalled. “We were left with a Bible full of holes”, a Bible that now resembled a block of Swiss cheese more than a book. 

Harris barely leading; Trump slowly surging

POSTED OCTOBER 11, 2024

On November 5, Americans will go to the polls to elect the President, the members of the House and 34 of the nation's 100 Senators. Here's what the polls are saying four weeks before the election.  

House of Representatives

A party must win 218 seats to control the House of Representatives.  The Cook Political Report has 207 House districts solidly, likely or leaning Republican; Democrats, 202. The Democrats are in a slightly better place than they were a month - reducing the "solid, likely, leaning" gap to 5, down from 7.   Twenty-six  races are rated toss-up. 

Of the twenty-six tossups, 14 are in districts currently held by Republicans; 12 in districts currently held by Democrats.  From the most recent polls, Democrats have the edge in 15 districts, Republicans in 5.  The remaining six districts were even or had no polls available.  Splitting this latter group evenly, the final tally shows the Democrats with a chance to take back the House.  

Democrats 220

Republicans 215

A word of caution: In most cases, the leads in these toss-up races are paper thin, swing from one candidate to the other, and can change in a matter of days.  Turnout in these swing districts will be the key to controlling the House.

Senate

Democrats and independents that caucus with them have 23 Senate seats to defend; the Republicans, just 11.  With a slim majority in the Senate and the retirement of Joe Manchin, Democrats will have to win all 22 of their remaining open seats and win the Presidency to retain control of the Senate.

Of these 34 races, the Cook Political Report has this breakdown

Democrats (23 to defend) : Solid/Likely/Leaning Democratic 18, Toss up 3, Solid/Likely/Leaning Republican  2

Republicans (10 to defend): Solid/Likely/Leaning Republican 11

Of the 3 toss up races: Democrats are leading in all 3 states, all be it by a thin 1% margin in each race.

If the polls hold through the final weeks, Republicans will take control of the Senate, with the final composition being:

Republicans 51

Democrats 49

Harris v Trump

Kamala Harris is maintaining a 2.5% lead over Trump in the national popular vote.  But as we all know, the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada will determine the winner of the electoral college and thus the Presidency  These votes have a combined 93 electoral votes.  Harris will need to win 44 of these electoral votes to become President; Trump, 51.  The latest polls:

Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes) - Harris by 0.6%.  Trend since mid-September...Trump has closed the gap from 1.5% to 0.6%.

Georgia (16 electoral votes) - Trump by 0.9%.  No significant movement since mid-September.

North Carolina (16 electoral votes) - Trump by 0.6%. Trend since mid-September...Trump has increased his lead by 0.5%.

Michigan (15 electoral votes) - Harris by 0.6%.  Trend since mid-September...Trump has reduced the gap from 2.5% to 0.6%.

Arizona (11 electoral votes) - Trump by 1.4%. Trend since mid-September...Trump has increased his lead by 1%.

Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) - Harris by 0.5%.  Trend since mid-September...Trump has reduced the gap from 2% to 0.6%.

Nevada (6 electoral votes) - Harris by 0.7%.  No significant movement since mid-September.

Harris is leading in four swing states that have a total of 50 electoral votes, but none by a margin greater than 0.7%.  She will need to maintain that lead if she is to win the election.  This may not be easy...over the past month, Trump has cut into her small lead in all of these states except Nevada.  

Most notable is the 1.9% reduction in the gap that Trump has achieved in Michigan, the starting point of the Uncommitted Movement.  Should Kamala Harris lose Michigan because of her continued failure to distance herself from Biden's genocide-abetting Gaza policy [link below left], she will lose the election in a replay of Hubert Humphrey's 1968 loss to Richard Nixon.  Humphrey waited too long to veer from Johnson's disastrous Vietnam War policy.  

Republicans, for their part, are counting on a surge in another state, Pennsylvania, to push Trump over the finish line. [link below right]  Pennsylvania, like Michigan, has seen a narrowing of the gap between the candidates.  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently declined to hear two lawsuits on election laws - one brought by Republicans and one brought by voting rights groups. The reason cited was that it's too close to the Nov. 5 presidential election and tens of thousands of people are already casting votes. 

No one but the United States can stop Israel's crimes

POSTED OCTOBER 10, 2024

As Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government continue to militarily ravage Occupied Palestine and Lebanon, the failure of the United States to use its considerable leverage to stop Israel's crimes against humanity is obvious to all the world except us.  More than one year into the genocide, the Biden Administration shows no sign of comprehending the enormity of what has happened there and what is on the horizon and no sign of a moral backbone to stop it.   The only thing that will stop Israel is to demand an immediate ceasefire, to condition all current and future military aid on its compliance with international law, and to impose a complete arms embargo if they do not do agree to the ceasefire and to conform to international law, including recent rulings by the International Court of Justice.  

For an example of what Biden could have done as the scale of the genocide grew, he could have taken a lesson from Ronald Reagan.  Reagan not only did not veto UN resolutions but actively intervened when Israel threatened its neighbors. The Responsible Statecraft post [below left] notes Reagan's courage in holding Israel accountable several times including this on Lebanon:

In August 1982, when Israeli forces advanced beyond southern Lebanon and began shelling the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Beirut, Reagan responded with an angry call to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, demanding a halt to the operation. In addition, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Reagan intervened directly when Israel threatened to blow up the Commodore Hotel in downtown Beirut, which housed more than 100 western reporters. As David Ottaway, who was then the Washington Post Middle East correspondent and was in the building, pointed out, the Israeli defense minister did not like the media coverage the invasion was getting and wanted to close down the media center. 

The article is from May 2021.  

The proverbial handwriting was already on the proverbial wall just months into the Biden presidency.

President Biden has taken a lot of heat from lawmakers in his own party for not being tough enough on Israel for its violence in Gaza and in East Jerusalem this month. Interestingly, my old boss President Ronald Reagan could not be accused of the same, and actually set a precedent for holding Tel Aviv to task, without breaking the special bond between the United States and Israel. It can be done.

President Biden certainly deserves credit for the role he and his administration played in getting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the Egyptian-brokered deal that led to a ceasefire in the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas...However, by blocking the draft UN Security Council statement that called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and refusing to back legislation sponsored by some 28 Democratic senators to block a $735 million package of precision-guided weapons to Israel, Biden risks undermining the role Washington can play in enhancing long-term prospects for peace in the region. 

Waging Non-Violence offers one suggestion on how to convince more people of the enormity of the genocide and the need for an immediate ceasefire - specifically, disseminate graphic images of the war more widely.

The scenes that Palestinian journalists have risked their lives to capture are haunting: young children shaking with fear after surviving airstrikes; lying in pools of blood on crowded hospital floors; lifeless, in the arms of their inconsolable parents. These photographs and videos, which stream out of Gaza endlessly, speak for themselves. Anyone who has seen them, and has a semblance of a moral conscience, will understand the moral necessity of an immediate ceasefire.  [highlight mine]

Anyone, that is, except many of our politicians, some of whom are in AIPAC's pocket, some of whom are anti-Palestinian, some of whom want war with Iran, and some of whom are afraid or unwilling to use the only leverage we have to stop Israel's crimes against humanity - an arms embargo.