Jewish Voice for Peace Call for Ceasefire in Gaza
30 Monday Oct 2023
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Scientists lay out a sweeping roadmap for transitioning the US off fossil fuels
Grist – October 17, 2023 – Tik Root
https://grist.org/energy/us-scientists-lay-out-a-sweeping-roadmap-for-decarbonization/
In a sweeping 637-page document, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine made 80 recommendations for how the United States can justly and equitably pursue decarbonization policies. It includes recommendations for everything from establishing a carbon tax to phasing out subsidies for high-emissions animal agriculture and codifying environmental justice goals. “This report addresses how the nation can best overcome the barriers that will slow or prevent a just energy transition,” said Stephen Pacala, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University and chair of the committee that authored the latest findings, which build on an earlier report released in 2021. He added that only about a quarter of the recommendations require congressional action, with many being targets at private institutions and federal agencies. There is also a recognition that some changes are unlikely to happen immediately…“All of these actions do, and need to, work together to help us achieve our climate goals.”
Comprehensive study of West Antarctic Ice Sheet finds collapse may be unavoidable
NBC News – October 23, 2023 – Evan Bush
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/west-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse-may-unavoidable-study-finds-rcna120993
The most comprehensive effort yet to predict how global warming will affect the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has found there is little humanity can do to stop its ice shelves from melting, which could collapse the sheet and raise sea levels by several feet in the coming centuries. The report, published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Communications, is a full-throated warning that one of the worst sea-level rise scenarios scientists have cautioned about since the 1970s is most likely in progress and that little can be done to stop it.,, All of the researchers agreed: Much higher seas are coming and policymakers must prepare now. “If we can plan ahead to reduce human suffering and save human lives, that’s better than closing our eyes when the ocean is on our doorstep,” Naughten, the study’s lead author, said.
The Real Cost of Plundering the Planet’s Resources
The New Yorker – October 23, 2023 – Elizabeth Kolbert
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/30/the-real-cost-of-plundering-the-planets-resources
Humanity mines, drains, and blasts more stuff out of the ground each year than it did in total during the roughly three hundred millennia between the birth of the species and the start of the Korean War. This comes with immense consequences, both ecological and social, even if we don’t attend to them… The industrialized world was built out of mountains of sand, iron, and copper, and it cannot operate without vast quantities of these or other materials. Colwell traces the problem back even further. Our special talent as a species is our ability to refashion raw materials—first rocks into tools, then, eventually, quartz into integrated circuits. We are, he suggests, Homo stuffensis, a creature “defined and made by our things.” We should change our ways—we must change our ways—but this long history is against us.
4 Ways SNAP Provides Key Benefits to Workers and Their Families
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – October 18, 2023 – Joseph Llobrera
https://www.cbpp.org/blog/4-ways-snap-provides-key-benefits-to-workers-and-their-families
SNAP plays an important role in supplementing workers’ low or fluctuating wages or helping them during periods of unemployment, as our recent report explains… Policymakers should recognize how SNAP serves workers and their families and reject proposals to make work requirements stricter. Indeed, given the strong evidence that the policy is a failure, policymakers should seek to eliminate it.
Ten statistics about the scale and impact of mass incarceration in the U.S.
Prison Policy Initiative – October 24, 2023 – Emily Widra
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2023/10/24/ten-statistics/
The United States’ reliance on incarceration outpaces most of the globe: every single state incarcerates more people per capita than virtually any independent democracy on Earth. But the sheer magnitude and impact of a system so large can be hard to fully comprehend. We looked back over some of the best criminal legal system research and chose these ten statistics as some of the most handy for advocates, policymakers, and journalists working to help the public appreciate just how far-reaching mass incarceration is in this country.
Police Diversion Programs Work. Here’s Why
Yes! Magazine – October 10, 2023 – Josephine Korchmaros
https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2023/10/10/police-drug-crimes-treatment
My team’s research shows that people who were offered substance abuse treatment, instead of being arrested, decreased their drug use more than people who were not offered substance abuse treatment and were arrested. On average, six months after their interaction with Tucson police, people who accepted diversion to a substance abuse treatment program used illegal drugs less frequently than people who had been arrested. In addition, diversion to substance abuse treatment in Tucson was as effective as arrest in decreasing criminal activity. That is why these programs may be an effective way to address the opioid epidemic.
The Best Books, Films, Magazine Stories, and Audio for Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
Slate – October 25, 2023 – staff
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/israel-hamas-war-background-reading-list.html
Background and history… Here at Slate we found ourselves looking to one another for guidance on what to watch, listen to, and read to better understand the current conflict. (It turns out our sister publication, Foreign Policy, had this same idea—their recommendations are incredibly thorough and worth checking out too.)… Read on for recommendations from all corners of our staff.
Thoughts on Israel and Gaza
Barack Obama’s blog space on Medium – October 24, 2023
https://barackobama.medium.com/my-statement-on-israel-and-gaza-a6c397f09a30
Even as we support Israel, we should also be clear that how Israel prosecutes this fight against Hamas matters. In particular, it matters — as President Biden has repeatedly emphasized — that Israel’s military strategy abides by international law, including those laws that seek to avoid, to every extent possible, the death or suffering of civilian populations. Upholding these values is important for its own sake — because it is morally just and reflects our belief in the inherent value of every human life. Upholding these values is also vital for building alliances and shaping international opinion — all of which are critical for Israel’s long-term security… We should choose not to always assume the worst in those with whom we disagree… If we care about keeping open the possibility of peace, security and dignity for future generations of Israeli and Palestinian children — as well as for our own children — then it falls upon all of us to at least make the effort to model, in our own words and actions, the kind of world we want them to inherit.
Is the Two-State Solution Dead?
Mother Jones – October 27, 2023 – Noah Lanard
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/10/two-state-solution-dead-one-state-reality-yousef-munayyer/
Under a one-state solution, Israel would cease to be a Jewish state and would instead become like the United States and other nations that are not organized on ethno-religious grounds. Abandoning this commitment to Zionism remains anathema to a large majority of Israeli Jews and American Jews. It would also be a major break from the longstanding push for a “two-state solution,” which would entail establishing a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish-majority state of Israel… In practice, many Israeli and American proponents of a two-state solution have not been willing to accept a Palestine that has true sovereignty. Beyond that, Israel has spent decades building settlements and other infrastructure designed to effectively annex much of the West Bank and render the possibility of a coherent Palestinian nation impossible. Israel’s current far-right government has expanded settlement construction and has treated the West Bank as part of a “Judea and Samaria” that Jews have a right to control… At some point, this is going to end. Afterward, I believe, we are going to be in a deeper one-state reality than we’ve ever been. The Israelis are going to be less and less inclined to ever relinquish control of territory. They are going to leave Gaza in a state of complete devastation and disarray. Palestinian politics is going to continue to be a mess, as well as Israeli politics. At the same time, the risks of failing to address this issue in a comprehensive and lasting way have never been higher. That is the morning after this. We have a choice to make about where we go from there.
US media is evading its responsibility to acknowledge the Gaza genocide
Prism – October 26, 2023 – Lara Witt and Tina Vásquez
https://prismreports.org/2023/10/26/us-media-genocide-in-gaza/
Dan Gillerman, the former Israeli ambassador to the UN, described Palestinians as “inhuman animals” in an interview with U.K. outlet Sky News on Wednesday. The journalist interviewing him allowed him to continue after his dehumanizing language. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated, “We are fighting against animals.” In failing to call out the use of these white supremacist framings of a civilized race’s conquest of a barbaric or uncivilized race, U.S. and other Western media is implicitly refusing to recognize Palestinians as human enough to have a genocide committed against them… In an analysis in Jewish Currents, Israeli Holocaust scholar Raz Segal called the occupation government’s actions a “textbook case of genocide.” In a follow-up interview with Democracy Now!, Segal also said that the Israeli state’s exceptionalism and comparisons of its Palestinian victims to “Nazis” are used to “justify, rationalize, deny, distort, disavow mass violence against Palestinians.” Segal is not alone… There have been massive protests across the U.S. demanding a ceasefire and an end to the occupation; thousands are marching and engaging in civil disobedience, yet there is barely any news coverage in the outlets countless Americans rely on.
Secret U.S. War in Lebanon Is Tinder for Escalation of Israel–Gaza Conflict
The Intercept – October 24, 2023 – Nick Turse
https://theintercept.com/2023/10/24/israel-lebanon-us-military-hezbollah/
Few Americans realize that the United States has long been embroiled in a wider war in Lebanon, and that U.S. forces may be a target there, as well… The U.S. has waged another “secret war” in Lebanon against Sunni terror groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, according to a former four-star commander who oversaw the effort… The Israeli–Palestinian conflict makes it all the more crucial that secret wars like the one carried out via the 127e program in Lebanon are subject to congressional oversight, said Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel in the Brennan Center’s liberty and national security program and author of the most comprehensive analysis of the 127e authority. “Already, we have seen U.S. forces in the region targeted over the United States’s political support for and arms transfers to Israel,” Ebright said. “Congress and the public must know where U.S. forces are deployed in the region and whether those forces are at risk of attack, particularly as Hezbollah in Lebanon contemplates joining the conflict against Israel.”
Jim Jordan’s Conspiratorial Quest for Power
The New Yorker – October 21, 2023 – Jonathan Blitzer
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/30/jim-jordans-conspiratorial-quest-for-power
How the Ohio Republican built an insurgent bid for Speaker on the lies of Donald Trump. [Long and well written piece – where the new House speaker comes from and where he aims to go.]
Speaker Big Lie
Steady (Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner blog site) – October 25, 2023
https://steady.substack.com/p/speaker-big-lie
If the elevation of Louisiana Representative Mike Johnson to the speaker’s gavel with unanimous Republican support counts as compromise within the party’s caucus, it reinforces what we already knew — this nation faces grave threats to its constitutional order, because one of our two major political parties has embraced autocratic extremism. This is not hyperbole. The person who rallied his party to make him second in line to the presidency was a cheerleader for the end of American democracy. There should be no normalization of this fact.
Election Denial, “Sexual Anarchy,” Noah’s Ark: All the Mike Johnson Details We Regret to Inform You Of
Vanity Fair – October 26, 2023 – Bess Levin
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/10/everything-to-know-about-mike-johnson
Herein, a running list of the absolute most WTF things the new Speaker has said and done on everything from the 2020 election to abortion to LGBTQ+ rights and more… On at least one occasion, he declared that doctors who perform abortions should be sentenced to “hard labor”:… “Experts project that homosexual marriage is the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic.”
Trump’s Court Whisperer Had a State Judicial Strategy. Its Full Extent Only Became Clear Years Later.
Propublica – October 23, 2023 – Andrea Bernstein and Andy Kroll
https://www.propublica.org/article/leonard-leo-wisconsin-documents-state-courts-republicans-judges
The Prosser and Gableman races were crucial skirmishes in Leo’s decadeslong, ambitious effort to shape American law from the ground up. It’s a project whose full dimensions are only now becoming clear. ProPublica detailed the arc of Leo’s activism in a recent story and podcast with “On The Media.” If Leo’s name sparks a note of recognition, it’s usually because he was Donald Trump’s judge whisperer and a leading figure in helping create the 6-3 conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court. Leo realized decades ago it was not enough to have a majority of Supreme Court justices; he would have to approach the legal system holistically if he wanted to bring lasting change. To undo landmark rulings like Roe v. Wade, Leo understood that he needed to make sure the court heard the right cases brought by the right people and heard by the right lower court judges… One result of this project is clear. Today, the practice of deploying every weapon in the American political arsenal, from nasty campaign ads to spending by groups whose donors are hidden, is now a routine aspect of campaigns for the judges who rule on state laws and, in 2024, might well decide the outcome of elections in battleground states.
Dear Maine
Steady – October 26, 2023 – Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner
https://steady.substack.com/p/dear-maine
Heartbreak. Loss. Anger. Again. Again. Again. Again. This time in Maine. Next time, somewhere else. Because there will be a next time. Another community left reeling. And asking why. More families shattered. What more is there to say? That hasn’t been said? Other than to remember that none of this should be deemed normal, or commonplace, or acceptable. We can do better. We must do better. There is no other choice except to condone the unconscionable.
ALEC’s Stand Your Ground Laws Have Created a Deadly Culture of Shoot-First Vigilantism
Portside – October 27, 2023 – Juliana Broad and Alice Herman
https://portside.org/2023-10-27/alecs-stand-your-ground-laws-have-created-deadly-culture-shoot-first-vigilantism
In early October, a Florida state senator introduced legislation to repeal the state’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law allowing individuals to use deadly force in self-defense outside their homes… “The data is clear: homicide rates and gun deaths are higher where these discriminatory, dangerous policies are on the books,” Sen. Shevrin Jones (D-34), the bill’s sponsor, told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). What’s less widely known is the pivotal role the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has played in ensuring the widespread adoption of such laws… “The National Rifle Association and the American Legislative Exchange Council have a stranglehold on Republican lawmakers here in Florida and across the country,” he continued. “These entities have traded campaign checks in exchange for fealty from legislators, and as a result, our communities are less safe.”
American Gun review: riveting and horrifying history of the AR-15
The Guardian – October 29, 2023 – Charles Kaiser
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/29/american-gun-review-history-ar-15
This year there have been 565 mass shootings in the US, including the latest horror in Maine – an average of nearly two a day. Those statistics make American Gun, a brilliant new biography of the AR-15, a particularly powerful and important book… The design was shaped by a simple military adage: “Whoever shoots the most lead wins.” Every detail of how the weapon went from a “counter-insurgency” tool in south-east Asia in the 1960s to the most popular way to kill American schoolchildren in the 21st century is included in this harrowing narrative.
U.S. Unions Winning Big Gains Amid ‘Great Reset’ in Worker Power
The Guardian – October 24, 2023 – Steven Greenhouse
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/24/us-unions-successes-contracts
Call it the Great Reset. Across the US, labor unions are winning surprisingly large contract settlements as workers have reset their expectations to demand considerably more than they did just a few years ago, and that has in turn pressured many corporations to reset – and increase – the pay packages they are giving in union contracts. The result has been a wave of impressive – sometimes eye-popping – union contracts over the past year, far more generous than in recent decades… Thomas Kochan, a longtime professor of industrial relations at MIT, put it another way: “All this reflects a a reset in expectations and wage norms for workers and for employers. “These successes,” Kochan continued, “are a reflection of the workforce’s strong expectations and the workforce’s demands to make up for lost ground due to inflation – and to signal that times have changed. The modest wage increases of the past will no longer be adequate to deal with our situation.”
International Pressure Is the Only Way to Halt Israel’s Devastation of Gaza
Truthout – October 28, 2023 – C.J. Polychroniou
https://truthout.org/articles/international-pressure-is-the-only-way-to-halt-israels-devastation-of-gaza/
Israel may kill off thousands of Hamas fighters and leaders by the end of their campaign, but they cannot defeat the resistance of which Hamas is just one component. As long as Palestinians live under blockade, occupation and apartheid, wherever they are, resistance will continue in all its forms… There absolutely is an alternative to all of this — but it involves international pressure aimed at bringing an end to the conditions that led to October 7 in the first place, namely Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its suffocating blockade of Gaza. As long as those conditions remain in place, as long as Palestinians are oppressed, resistance will continue. That is the plain reality of the situation. You want to end the cycle of violence? End Israel’s occupation, end Israeli apartheid, lift the blockade and give Palestinians the rights and freedom we are entitled to.
‘I Love You. I Am Sorry’: One Jew, One Muslim and a Friendship Tested by War
The New York Times – October 21, 2021 – Kurt Streeter
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/21/us/jewish-muslim-communities-israel-hamas-war.html
Everyone on hand was part of NewGround, a nonprofit fellowship program that has helped more than 500 Los Angeles Muslims and Jews learn to listen, disagree, empathize with one another — and become friends… When there’s a relationship, there are moments of softening that allow a little more slack in the discussion and a little more care.” The NewGround gathering at the park west of downtown Los Angeles was such a moment… “My generation has to make something different for the next. We don’t have to repeat the hurt on both sides.”
22 Sunday Oct 2023
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Pulled into darkness, turning toward the light is our responsibility
The Washington Post – October 15, 2023 – Danielle Allen
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/15/hamas-terrorism-israel-democracy-renovation/
What we need is this: a mutual commitment to one another and to our constitutional democracy, a shared commitment to going on together — via nonviolent methods of conflict resolution — with people we vehemently disagree with. That and only that, and never anything other than that, is what freedom feels like…. Here at home, we need somehow to discover anew in ourselves what it means to hold sacred the human being in front of us, even when we are political adversaries. We cannot recover civic strength among ourselves in the United States without that moral commitment to human dignity. And we cannot serve our allies well without that civic strength, a force that must be nourished by moral purpose. This moral commitment is and has ever been the only starting point from which more light than dark can be brought into the world.
Killed in Cop City
Rolling Stone – October 16, 2023 – Hilary Beaumont
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/manuel-teran-death-activist-cops-killed-questions-1234851631/
Manuel Teran gave up everything to live in the forest. Nine months after their death, their family searches for answers, and the state cracks down on their fellow protesters… As RICO charges hang over the Atlanta forest defenders, activists plan a November peaceful action to block construction, and have submitted a petition to hold a referendum on Cop City. Meanwhile, Teran’s family is suing the city of Atlanta to force it to release records. Belkis believes Teran was murdered — by the officers involved and officials who sent police into the forest. “It was not one person,” she says. “It was a system that wanted to suppress the freedom of the people.” [excellent long-form piece]
Scientists lay out a sweeping roadmap for transitioning the US off fossil fuels
Grist – October 17, 2023 – Tik Root
https://grist.org/energy/us-scientists-lay-out-a-sweeping-roadmap-for-decarbonization/
In a sweeping 637-page document, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine made 80 recommendations for how the United States can justly and equitably pursue decarbonization policies. It includes recommendations for everything from establishing a carbon tax to phasing out subsidies for high-emissions animal agriculture and codifying environmental justice goals. “This report addresses how the nation can best overcome the barriers that will slow or prevent a just energy transition,” said Stephen Pacala, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University and chair of the committee that authored the latest findings, which build on an earlier report released in 2021… the comprehensive approach makes for a particularly robust roadmap, and the National Academies could lend weight to policy pushes that are already in progress.
A Severe Drought Pushes an Imperiled Amazon to the Brink
The New York Times – October 17, 2023 – Ana Ionova and Manuela Andreoni
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/climate/amazon-rainforest-drought-climate-change.html
The drier conditions are accelerating the destruction of the world’s largest and most biodiverse rainforest where parts have started to transform from humid ecosystems that store huge amounts of heat-trapping gases into drier ones that are releasing the gases into the atmosphere. The result is a double blow to the global struggle to fight climate change and biodiversity loss. “This is a catastrophe of lasting consequences,” said Luciana Vanni Gatti, a scientist at Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research who has been documenting changes in the Amazon. “The more forest loss we have, the less resilience it has.” Recent studies have shown that climate change, deforestation and fires have made it harder for the Amazon to recover from severe droughts. And, Ms. Gattiwarned, the worst may be yet to come. The rainy season is expected to start in the next weeks and if the drought, which started in June, persists it would mark the first time such extreme conditions took hold in the Amazon’s driest period and continued into its wettest… Scarce rainfall, scorching heat and scalding water temperatures are battering the region all at once. “This is a crisis — a humanitarian, environmental and health crisis,” said Dr. Fleischmann. “And what scares us most is what lies ahead.”
Democratic Governors Block Bills For New Nuclear Power Plants
Huffpost – October 21, 2023 – Alexander C. Kaufman
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-nuclear-energy_n_6532accce4b00f9a71cc5381
In just the last three months, the Democratic governors of Illinois and North Carolina have vetoed bills to build new reactors in their states, warning that doing so would divert money and attention from a strategy of using renewable energy backed up, at least for now, with natural gas… If there is an easy explanation for the two moves, it may lay in voter opinions. “Democrats still register in polls as far less excited about nuclear energy than they are about renewable power,” said Jackie Toth, deputy director of the Good Energy Collective, a progressive pro-nuclear group. “So Democratic governors in Democratic states are still finding it a little harder to support nuclear even from a climate and air-quality standpoint.” Another part of the problem, she said, was the high price of completing the only new reactor built from scratch in the U.S. in a generation — the first of two 1,110-megawatt machines at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in northern Georgia, which came online in July after 14 years of billion-dollar delays.
The Impossible Dilemma of Gaza
The New Yorker – October 13, 2023 – Ruth Margalit
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/23/the-gaza-crisis
A military reoccupation will only incur further mass casualties at a time when Israel is still counting its dead, and take an unimaginable toll on Palestinian lives…. Israel faces an impossible dilemma: how to restore a measure of security and deterrence while also insuring the safe return of the hostages. But it risks falling victim to the optics of war by sending troops to reinvade Gaza, thereby creating an illusion of victory. As Israel’s former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett—hardly a dovish figure—put it on Tuesday, “We shouldn’t dance to the tune of Hamas, of Iran. We shouldn’t do the obvious.”
Is Elon Musk stifling honest debate over what’s happening in Gaza and Israel?
Robert Reich’s blog – October 11, 2023
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/office-hours-is-elon-musk-hobbling
For years, I’ve warned about the dangers of wealth concentrating in the hands of a few. Elon Musk is busy proving me right. Last October, he bought Twitter for $44 billion, fired most of its staff (including everyone who had tried to keep its content free from dangerous lies), and invited poisonous liars back on the platform, saying he was a “free speech absolutist.” And now — in the midst of a war between Gaza militants and Israel, when people around the world are desperate to know what’s happening — Musk has personally recommended that users follow accounts notorious for promoting lies… My point isn’t that Musk is antisemitic.. But it does offer another illustration of how he uses his vast wealth to control what people know. That’s the underlying problem — the increasing power of billionaires like Musk to determine what information users get. It’s a power that threatens our democracy. “X” is rapidly becoming a cesspool of odious lies, hate speech, and powerful voices (like Musk’s) arbitrarily directing people to misleading sources.
There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive.
The New York Times – October 14, 2023 – Peter Beinart
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/14/opinion/palestinian-ethical-resistance-answers-grief-and-rage.html
As Jewish Israelis bury their dead and recite psalms for their captured, few want to hear at this moment that millions of Palestinians lack basic human rights. Neither do many Jews abroad. I understand; this attack has awakened the deepest traumas of our badly scarred people. But the truth remains: The denial of Palestinian freedom sits at the heart of this conflict, which began long before Hamas’s creation in the late 1980s… Palestinians are not fundamentally different from other people facing oppression: When moral resistance doesn’t work, they try something else… Never in my lifetime have the prospects for justice and peace looked more remote. Yet the work of moral rebuilding must begin. In Israel-Palestine and around the world, pockets of Palestinians and Jews, aided by people of conscience of all backgrounds, must slowly construct networks of trust based on the simple principle that the lives of both Palestinians and Jews are precious and inextricably intertwined.
7 steps to end the cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine
Waging Nonviolence – October 12, 2023 – Mubarak Awad
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2023/10/mubarak-awad-7-steps-to-end-the-cycle-of-killing-in-israel-and-palestine/
I have spent my life advocating for Palestinians and Israelis to use nonviolent means to resolve their conflicts. Because Israel feared Palestinian unity and mass nonviolent action, I was expelled by the government in 1988. Since then, I have, on several occasions, personally advocated with Hamas leaders to abandon armed struggle and embrace nonviolent campaigns. Yet, today, Palestinians and Israelis are once again killing each other. I urge Hamas and the Israeli government to agree to an immediate ceasefire, including an immediate halt to rocket attacks towards Israel and Israeli military attacks on Gaza. Each party must stop using violence and must commit to living and working with each other as neighbors. Human life and dignity are precious. Vengeful attacks only deepen hatreds and mistrust. Here are some practical nonviolent steps:
What Hamas Wants
The Atlantic – October 16, 2023 – Yair Rosenberg
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/what-hamas-wants-israel/675648/
The straightforward explanation that the experts missed… Simply put, what Hamas did two weekends ago was not a departure from its past, but the natural culmination of its commitments. The question is not why Hamas did what it did, but why so many people were surprised. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, quick to discern anti-Semitism in any effort to merely label Israeli products from West Bank settlements, somehow overlooked the severity of the genocidal threat growing next door. Journalists like me who cover anti-Semitism somehow failed to take Hamas’s overt anti-Jewish ethos as seriously as we should have. Many international leftists, ostensibly committed to equality and dignity for Palestinians and Israelis alike, somehow missed that Hamas did not share that vision, and in fact was actively working to obliterate it… It is the refusal to disentangle Hamas’s anti-Jewish sadism from the legitimate cause of Palestinian nationalism that threatens the project and saps its support… century after century, the world produces new, tortuous justifications for why anti-Jewish bigots don’t really mean what they say—even though they do.
Palestine: the only solution is now the one-state solution
Counterfire – October 10, 2023 – John Rees
https://www.counterfire.org/article/palestine-the-only-solution-is-now-the-one-state-solution/
We repost John Rees’s article from 2014 on how the latest Israeli war on Gaza demonstrates where the solution to the conflict lies… Amid the slaughter and destruction in Gaza let us take a moment to remember how this happened. And to ask how is it happening for the third time in five years? Even more importantly we should ask what strategy can bring the Palestinians victory and prevent a future turn in this vicious cycle? These questions return us to a central debate among Palestinians and their supporters: should the struggle aim at a two-state solution in which Israel returns to the territory it occupied before its annexation of further Palestinian land in 1967 and a Palestinian state emerges on what is left, or should a totally new state come into existence in which Palestinians, Christians and Jews can once again live side by side as they did in the area of historic Palestine before the creation of the state of Israel?… Let’s look at the roots of this conflict… The Israeli state is in its essence an expansionist state. It was born in 1948 out of the dispossession of Palestinians, it cannot co-exist with an independent Palestinian state.
How Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood
Democracy Now! – October 20, 2023 – Tareq Baconi interviewed
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/20/divide_and_rule_how_israel_helped
In 2009, Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for over 20 years, told The Wall Street Journal, quote, “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation.” Another former Israeli official, Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev, said he was given a budget to help finance Islamist movements in Gaza to counter Yasser Arafat and his Fatah movement. Another former Israeli military official, David Hacham, said, quote, “When I look back at the chain of events, I think we made a mistake. But at the time, nobody thought about the possible results.” Your response, Tareq Baconi? When Hamas was established in 1987 and became a political party and a military party that was engaged in active resistance against Israel’s occupation, the policies within the Israeli government shifted, and obviously it became less open to allowing Hamas to function. However, that did not deter Israeli authorities from encouraging and promoting divide-and-rule tactics between the Islamist national movement, so Hamas, and secular nationalism around Fatah. And this has always been a tactic that the colonial forces have used globally, and obviously Israeli colonialism is no different. So it has directly and implicitly attempted divide-and-rule policies.
Gaza
Reader Supported News – October 20, 2023 – Sen. Bernie Sanders
https://www.rsn.org/001/gaza.html
There have been five wars fought between Israel and its neighbors in the last fifteen years. Over that time, and before, there have been thousands of diplomats from around the world working on a variety of plans to bring peace and stability to the region, and hundreds of conferences. They have all failed. Today, the situation in the area is more horrific, more brutal, more inhumane, and more dangerous than ever before. I wish I could tell you that I had some magic solution, or five-point plan to resolve this never-ending crisis. I don’t. But this I do know. The barbarous terrorist act committed by Hamas against innocent men, women, and children in Israel was a horrific act that must be strongly condemned by the entire world. There is absolutely no justification for shooting down hundreds of young people at a music festival, killing babies in cold blood and taking hostages. In my view, the state of Israel has the absolute right to defend itself against Hamas’ terrorism… But in the midst of the terrorism, the missiles and bombs being exploded daily, and a hospital in Gaza being destroyed, there is another humanitarian disaster that is unfolding. Today, as a result of an Israeli evacuation order, hundreds of thousands of innocent and desperate people in Gaza are facing inhumane and life-threatening conditions… In these very difficult times, we cannot turn our backs on these innocent men, women and children who are desperately trying to survive. That is not what this country must ever be about.
The Jewish Justice Movement Is Being Reborn
The Nation – October 19, 2023 – Dave Zirin
https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/jewish-voice-peace-protest-dc/
At the Jewish Voice for Peace rally, thousands of protesters made clear that they will no longer allow the suffering of the Jewish people to be weaponized against others.. On October 18, several hundred US Jews—along with a few allies—were arrested for sitting in the rotunda of the Capitol building. Aided by a melodious shofar, two dozen rabbis spoke about the moral urgency of the moment while thousands of fellow Jews chanted “Cease-fire now!” outside the building… In many places, Jewish silence on the oppression of Palestinians has reigned for too long. But at this moment of crisis, protesters said what perhaps had gone unspoken at family gatherings or in places of worship: that we have had enough, that we will no longer allow the suffering of our people—the pogroms, the Holocaust, or the Hamas killings—to be weaponized against others. Our history gives us an extra responsibility to speak out for those facing the specter of genocide.
How Can the World Stand By and Witness Israel’s Slaughter in Gaza?
Democracy Now! – October 19, 2023 – Amira Hass, Israeli journalist, interviewed
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/19/amira_hass_on_gaza_humanitarian_crisis
Revenge, I think, is not enough to explain what is happening. The Israeli government is carrying on the political program of the extreme fascist, messianic, religious, right-wing — settler right-wing party led by Bezalel Smotrich, who already, in 2017, said that he has a plan for Palestinians. They have three options, he told the Palestinians. You either give in and accept that you will never have a state, you will never be free, you will never have your right for self-determination materialized, and then you can live as a fifth-rate, sixth-rate, whatever, individuals in this — in Israel. The second option for you is to emigrate, as we call sometimes by transfer, by willing — willful transfer, expulsion by consent. And the third option, if you don’t agree to give in and if you don’t agree to emigrate and you resist, the Israeli army will know what to do with you. And this is what is happening now both in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel is carrying out the plan, the political plan, of these extreme fascist settlers, colonizing right wing.
Biden’s Historically Illiterate and Hypocritical Speech on Ukraine and Gaza
Informed Comment – October 20, 2023 – Juan Cole
https://www.juancole.com/2023/10/historically-illiterate-hypocritical.html
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Union Commission, said of Putin’s actions in Ukraine, “Russia’s attacks against civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes. Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming – these are acts of pure terror. And we have to call it as such.”… Yet the Netanyahu government is acting even more harshly and illegally toward the women, children and other innocent noncombatants of Palestinian Gaza than Russia has acted toward those of Ukraine, bad as Russian behavior has been. The Israeli goal is explicitly the complete destruction of civilian infrastructure and the collective punishment of Palestinian civilians for the actions of a few Hamas cadres.
State Department official resigns, citing ‘destructive’ decisions in Israel-Hamas war
Politico – October 18, 2023 – Andrew Zhang
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/18/state-department-official-resigns-citing-destructive-decisions-in-israel-hamas-war-00122380
“I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued — indeed, expanded and expedited — provision of lethal arms to Israel — I have reached the end of that bargain.”… “This Administration’s response — and much of Congress’ as well — is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia,” Paul wrote in his statement. “That is to say, it is immensely disappointing, and entirely unsurprising.” In a statement to POLITICO, Paul outlined several actions that he believes the Biden administration and Congress could take to better address the ongoing crisis, including recognition of a Palestinian state as the start of a diplomatic process, rather than an eventual goal, and better recognition of human rights risks in arms transfers. The U.S. should not provide “arms into a conflict where there is a blatant risk — supported by a lengthy historical record — of likely and disproportionate civilian harm,” he wrote.
3 Key Insights for Building a Powerful and Loving Movement Against Oppression in Palestine-Israel
Portside – October 21, 2023 – Rae Abileah and Nadine Bloch
https://portside.org/2023-10-21/3-key-insights-building-powerful-and-loving-movement-against-oppression-palestine-israel
As an international network of artist-activist-trainers who created a toolbox documenting the key strategies and tactics that have inspired centuries of people-powered victories, we offer these three insights that can help ground you in this destabilizing moment, and can help guide effective, meaningful action… We know if we do nothing, the situation gets worse. If we step into our power, we could potentially build a better future. People around the world are contesting with large-scale mobilizations — amounting to a people’s shock action. We hope to see you beyond the fray of the Facebook wars. We’ll meet you in the streets, the halls of Congress, at artistic vigils mourning the loss of life, and in meaningful dialogue with your family, colleagues, friends and local leaders. Amidst the horrific headlines, skewed mainstream media coverage and institutional Western hypocrisy, we are seeing moving examples of beautiful trouble sprouting around the globe.
15 Sunday Oct 2023
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The Pope’s Journey to Climate Outrage
Portside – October 11, 2023 – David Wallace-Wells
https://portside.org/2023-10-11/popes-journey-climate-outrage
In 2015, Pope Francis came out as an environmentalist, with his landmark encyclical Laudato Si, later called by Bill McKibben “the most important document yet of this millennium” and by Pankaj Mishra “arguably the most important piece of intellectual criticism in our time.”… Since Laudato Si, the pope writes, “I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.” In his new exhortation, he invokes the immediate urgency of faster action, takes pains to offer point-by-point rebuttals of climate denial and climate complacency, including corporate complicity and widespread greenwashing, attacks the “technocratic” worldview he sees behind planetary exploitation, defends climate protesters by describing them as filling a vacuum of global leadership, and calls out “the ethical decadence of real power.”
How criminalisation is being used to silence climate activists across the world
The Guardian – October 12, 2023 – Nina Lakhani, Damien Gayle and Matthew Taylor
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/12/how-criminalisation-is-being-used-to-silence-climate-activists-across-the-world
Scientific experts are unanimous that there needs to be an urgent clampdown on fossil fuel production, a major boost in renewable energy and support for communities to rapidly move towards a fairer, healthier and sustainable low-carbon future. Many governments, however, seem to have different priorities. According to climate experts, senior figures at the UN and grassroots advocates contacted by the Guardian, some political leaders and law enforcement agencies around the world are instead launching a fierce crackdown on people trying to peacefully raise the alarm. “These defenders are basically trying to save the planet, and in doing so save humanity,” said Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders. “These are people we should be protecting, but are seen by governments and corporations as a threat to be neutralised. In the end it’s about power and economics.”
It’s clearer than ever that we’re pushing the Amazon rainforest to its dreaded demise
Vox – October 8, 2023 – Benji Jones
https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/23904829/amazon-rainforest-deforestation-tipping-point
The largest tropical forest on Earth, the Amazon stores more than 120 billion tons of carbon, which — if unleashed into the atmosphere — would supercharge climate change. It’s also home to a mind-boggling number of plant and animal species, many of which have served as the basis for medicines to fight ailments like cancer and hypertension. That’s what makes this so alarming: The Amazon forest is dying. Decades of deforestation, wildfires, and rising temperatures are pushing the forest toward a critical threshold of destruction beyond which large parts of the rainforest will dry out and turn into a savanna, releasing massive quantities of carbon in the process… If there’s any good news here, it’s that this problem is made by humans, and so it can be corrected by us, too. Bochow put the solution plainly: “Stopping deforestation now is the only way.”
How Cities And States Are Curbing Gas-Powered Lawn Equipment
Next City – October 11, 2023 – Cinnamon Janzer
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/how-cities-and-states-are-curbing-gas-powered-lawn-equipment
Despite opposition, a growing number of cities and counties have successfully implemented complete or partial bans from gas-powered leaf blowers and lawn equipment — most notably Washington, D.C., which has a passed a strict ban on the use or sale of such equipment… Two years ago, in October of 2021, California governor Gavin Newsom signed a law that required state regulators to ban the sale of new gas-powered small off-road engines — a broad category of engines that includes lawn equipment — by January 2024. One of the most important elements of the first-of-its-kind phaseout bill, according to one of its authors, Assemblymember Marc Berman, was securing $30 million in funding to help California’s landscaping professionals — particularly small businesses — make the transition at a reduced cost.
‘Genuinely Shocked They Aired It’: CNN Interview Cuts Through Pro-Israel Propaganda on Gaza
Common Dreams – October 9, 2023 – Julia Conley
https://www.commondreams.org/news/cnn-interview-palestinian
Palestinian human rights advocates and historians called an interview broadcast on CNN late Sunday a “must-watch” for anyone seeking the broader context for the violence that erupted over the weekend, as Palestinian politician and advocate Dr. Mustafa Barghouti told anchor Fareed Zakaria that the surprise attack by Hamas followed decades of occupation and apartheid as well as the killings of thousands of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in recent years… While condemning violence against civilians, Barghouti said the fighting has evolved as “the direct result of the continuation of the longest occupation in modern history” and used the same term accepted by the United Nations, thousands of academics, and international human rights experts—apartheid—to describe the system Palestinians have been forced to live under. “There is one way to stop any violence and that is to end the Israeli occupation,” said Barghouti… “We should all have equal life, we should have all peace, we should all have justice, and we should live in dignity,” he added. “The main way to achieve that is to end occupation, end the system of apartheid that I am sure no Jewish person can be proud of. Time has come for that and time has come for justice and freedom.”
A Message From Iran
The Atlantic – October 8, 2023 – Kim Ghattas
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/iran-hamas-israel-gaza-attack/675582/
The Hamas attack against Israel is not only a massive Israeli intelligence and military (as well as a U.S. intelligence) failure, but also a dramatic success for Iran’s axis of resistance from Yemen to Gaza. For Palestinian civilians living under siege in Gaza, or suffering under occupation in the West Bank, the overpowering of the mighty Israeli military may bring some satisfaction. They will recall how Palestinians, including underage boys, have been dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers. But they will have also seen the footage of Israeli civilians gunned down at bus stops and mothers pleading for the lives of their children. Hamas may think it has taken revenge, but its victory will be costly and short-lived. The group cannot long sustain what it began today… Hamas is most certainly not on its own now: Iran likely took part in the decision to launch the surprise attack against Israel. But Palestinian civilians will still be left to fend for themselves under Israeli retaliation, and to pay the price while Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah play a regional game.
Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology
The Atlantic – October 10, 2023 – Bruce Hoffman
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/hamas-covenant-israel-attack-war-genocide/675602/
How many Israelis, or Jews, or anyone else for that matter, have read the 1988 Hamas Covenant or the revised charter that was issued in 2017? With 36 articles of only a few paragraphs’ length each in the former, and 42 concise statements of general principles and objectives in the latter, both are considerably shorter and more digestible than the 782-page original German-language edition of Mein Kampf. Moreover, unlike Hitler’s seminal work, which was not published in English until March 1939, excellent English translations of both the original Hamas Covenant and its successor can easily be found on the internet… The original covenant spells out clearly Hamas’s genocidal intentions. Accordingly, what happened in Israel on Saturday is completely in keeping with Hamas’s explicit aims and stated objectives. It was, in fact, the inchoate realization of Hamas’s true ambitions. The most relevant of the document’s 36 articles can be summarized as falling within four main themes.
As US Pledges More Support for Israel, Global Call for Cease-Fire to Prevent Further Bloodshed Grows
Common Dreams – October 10, 2023 – Julia Conley
https://www.commondreams.org/news/cease-fire-israel-palestine
In the Netherlands, the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) said Monday that the IDF, officials in the right-wing Israeli government, and Hamas must immediately “stop targeting civilians, launching unlawful attacks, and using indiscriminate weapons.” “Civilian harm from all parties, including the intentional targeting of civilians and civilian objects, is alarming and indicates violations of international law, including possible war crimes,” said the group. “The U.N. Security Council (UNSC) should call for an immediate de-escalation, use their influence over leaders on all sides to ensure they exercise maximum restraint when using force, and avoid a further spillover of the conflict in the region. The UNSC should request safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and all affected conflict areas.”
Israeli Human Rights Group Denounces Netanyahu’s ‘Criminal Policy of Revenge’
Common Dreams – October 10, 2023 – Jake Johnson
https://www.commondreams.org/news/btselem-israel-gaza
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem on Tuesday condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials in Israel for implementing a “criminal policy of revenge” in the wake of Hamas’ deadly attack, making a dire humanitarian situation worse by intensifying the unlawful blockade of Gaza and bombing civilian areas of the occupied enclave… B’Tselem’s latest statement comes a day after it denounced Hamas’ massacre of Israeli civilians as a “shocking crime whose horrifying dimensions are slowly becoming clear.” On Tuesday, the group said that “even in the face of horror and terror—intentionally harming civilians, their property and civilian infrastructure is always prohibited.” The new statement describes Israeli’s massive wave of airstrikes and its total blockade of the Gaza Strip—which is home to 2.3 million people, roughly half of whom are children—as “war crimes openly ordered by top Israeli officials.”.. “Acts of revenge are prohibited by basic moral principles and by the provisions of international law that Israel is obliged to uphold,” the group added.
Israel-Hamas war: A political scientist explains why the very subject of peace is now unthinkable
The Conversation – October 10, 2023 – Samy Cohen
https://theconversation.com/israel-hamas-war-a-political-scientist-explains-why-the-very-subject-of-peace-is-now-unthinkable-215317
the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been dead for a long time, at least since Ehud Olmert’s two-state peace plan in 2007. Now we’re no longer hammering the last nail in the coffin; we’re throwing the coffin into the sea. In other words, the very subject of peace has disappeared. What we are seeing today is that even the most moderate Israeli population no longer believes in the possibility of peace. They have seen the images of the massacres of civilians committed by Hamas on 7 October, and they have seen Palestinians on the West Bank loudly celebrating the carnage. A friend of mine, who lives in the south of Israel, near the Gaza Strip, has been a tireless campaigner for the peace camp for decades; this morning she gave an interview to a website in which she said: “I can’t talk about peace any more.” If even such committed people give up, you can imagine the state of the rest of society. We’re in for some very dark years. There will be no turning back.
Across Israel, Jews and Arabs Join Forces to Help War Victims and Prevent Riots
Reader Supported News – October 13, 2023 – Netta Ahituv and Nadin Abou Laban
https://www.rsn.org/001/across-israel-jews-and-arabs-join-forces-to-help-war-victims-and-prevent-riots.html
In Haifa and Jaffa, joint Jewish and Arab patrols seek to prevent violence on both sides. In the south, Bedouin residents risk their lives to search for victims of Hamas terror. In the shadow of war, Arab-Jewish solidarity initiatives emerge… Only a diplomatic solution, without a siege or an occupation, will bring hope and a different future. And also without collective punishment and most importantly without harming civilians, both here and there. Because the number of civilians being killed on both sides is unfathomable.”
The Gaza Strip: Why the History of this Densely Populated Enclave is Key to understanding the Current Conflict
Informed Comment – Haaretz – October 13, 2023 – Maha Nassar
https://www.juancole.com/2023/10/populated-understanding-conflict.html
The more than 2 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are part of the 14 million-strong global Palestinian community. About one third of Gaza’s inhabitants trace their family’s roots to land inside the Gaza Strip. The remaining two-thirds are refugees from the 1948 war and their descendants, many of whom hail from towns and villages surrounding Gaza… The Palestinians of Gaza trend young: nearly half the population is under 18. The enclave is also very poor, with a poverty rate that stands at 53%. Despite this grim economic picture, education levels are quite high. Over 95% of Gazan children ages 6-12 are in school. The majority of Palestinian students in Gaza graduate from high school, and 57% of students at the prestigious Islamic University of Gaza are female.
International Labor Statements on Gaza
Portside – October 12, 2023
https://portside.org/2023-10-12/international-labor-statements-gaza
lobal labor organizations offered different views on the violence engulfing Gaza and Israel, but the call for peace and justice for all — Palestinians and Israelis — predominated… All efforts must be made to protect civilians from a humanitarian catastrophe and call on the UN and international community to exercise influence to safeguard civilians’ accrss to basic needs, water, food, medicine and energy. and demand to “end the vicious circle of bloodshed, hatred and polarisation in the Middle East.” … The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has urgent maximum restraint and has called for “all diplomatic efforts … to avoid a wider conflagration”.
As Israel and Gaza erupt, the US must commit to ending the violence — all the violence
The Hill – October 8, 2023 – Phyllis Bennis, a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and serves as the international adviser for Jewish Voice for Peace. Her books include “Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer.”
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4243830-as-israel-and-gaza-erupt-the-us-must-commit-to-ending-the-violence-all-the-violence/
Right now, we need U.S. support for the UN as it calls for an immediate ceasefire. And then we need a serious U.S. commitment to ending the violence — all the violence. That means ending Washington’s enabling of Israeli violations, and instead demanding real accountability for violations of human rights and international law, real moves to end the occupation and apartheid system and real moves to demand equality for all living under Israeli control.
Abandoning the Poor
Tom Dispatch – October 8, 2023 – Liz Theoharis
https://tomdispatch.com/abandoning-the-poor/
Extreme economic inequality, characterized by a small class of the very wealthy and a broad base of poor and low-income people, may be particularly evident in cities like New York, but it’s a fact of life nationwide. In September 2023, the wealth of America’s 748 billionaires rose to $5 trillion, $2.2 trillion more than in 2017, the year the Trump administration passed massive tax changes favoring the rich. The new 2022 census data offers a very different picture of life for the nation’s poor in those same years. In fact, the numbers are eye-popping: between 2021 and 2022 alone, the overall Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) rose by nearly 5%, while child poverty doubled in size… Will we continue to condemn tens of millions of us to cruel and unnecessary poverty, while feeding the drive to authoritarianism or even an all-American version of fascism, or will we move swiftly and compassionately to begin lifting the load of poverty and so strengthen the very foundation of our democracy?
Basic income is less radical than you think
Vox – October 13, 2023 – Oshan Jarow
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/10/13/23914745/basic-income-radical-economy-poverty-capitalism-taxes
I’ve been following debates on guaranteed income for almost a decade, and one thing that’s stood out is that universal basic income (UBI), a regular cash payment to all citizens with no strings attached, is like a Rorschach test. Some people see UBI as a “capitalist road to communism” or a world free of work. Others see everything from a means of unleashing the population’s creative potential to a policy that would undermine human agency and erode “psychological capital.” Some see it as a way to shore up the welfare state. Others, a way to bulldoze it… Radical ideas have their place. They can stretch our collective imagination, and keep us from falling victim to the belief that there are no fundamental alternatives to the present arrangement of our world. But basic income doesn’t have to be one of them, and shedding that association offers at least two payoffs. It could bring basic income further into the realm of pragmatic policy analysis, where wonks of all stripes present their views on whether or not the programs’ tradeoffs are worth it. Second, for those who want to elevate their sights on radical possibilities that might exceed political realities, why not dream bigger?
Deadly biography of AR-15
The Harvard Gazette – October 6, 2023 – Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/10/excerpt-from-american-gun-the-true-story-of-the-ar-15/
Excerpted from “American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15” … Viewed as example of American ingenuity, prized military weapon exploded in popularity, best known now as tool to kill innocent people… Something has to change, and true change has to focus on the core issue: How do we as a society keep this weapon out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have such a gun? Solutions will require trial-and-error efforts, patience, compromise, and abandonment of fiercely held positions. This is the extraordinary story of the AR-15 rifle, the American gun.
Should Money Decide Who is Kept in Jail? More Locations Are Saying No.
The Marshall Project – September 30, 2023 – Jamiles Lartey
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/09/30/california-los-angeles-county-bail-reform
Starting tomorrow, the arrest process for most criminal defendants in Los Angeles will look very different. An administrative change by the county court means that people accused of most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies who would have been taken to jail and charged cash bail to get out will, instead, generally be released with an order to appear in court at a later date… Nationwide, bail reform efforts — which started gaining steam in the mid-2010s — have frequently encountered profound political resistance… But in Illinois, months of legal challenges over bail reform finally gave way on Sept. 18, when the state became the first to fully abolish cash bail. Under the changes, people may only be detained pretrial if a judge determines they present a flight risk or public safety threat…
Suffering in the Shadows
Tom Dispatch – October 12, 2023 – Priti Gulati Cox and Stan Cox
https://tomdispatch.com/suffering-in-the-shadows/
Humanitarian Calamities That Aren’t on the World’s Agenda… Various versions of the aphorism “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography” have been making the rounds ever since the rise of U.S. imperialism in the late 1800s. The quip (which, despite legend, appears not to be attributable to Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, or any other famous person) has proven all too accurate when the war in question directly involves American troops. When, however, non-U.S. combatants and civilians suffer and die from conflicts relatively unrelated to Washington’s “strategic interests,” our media outlets tend to avert their eyes, aid agencies get stingy, and Americans learn no geography whatsoever. Oh, and given this country’s power and position on this planet, millions suffer the consequences of that neglect.
There Are No Rules
The Atlantic – October 9, 2023 – Anne Applebaum
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/israel-war-hamas-terrorism-ukraine-russia/675590/
The “rules-based world order” is a system of norms and values that describe how the world ought to work, not how it actually works. This aspirational order is rooted in the idealistic aftermath of the Second World War, when it was transcribed into a series of documents: the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Genocide Convention, and the Geneva Conventions on the laws of war, among others. In the more than seven decades since they were written, these documents have frequently been ignored… Nevertheless, these documents have influenced real behavior in the real world… Begin to see the bigger picture: We are heading into an era when there is no order, rules-based or otherwise, at all… Open brutality has again become celebrated in international conflicts, and a long time may pass before anything else replaces it.
How Voters Can Protect Democracy—Today and Tomorrow
Yes! Magazine – October 12, 2023 – Chris Winters
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2023/10/12/2024-vote-election
When one party has firmly turned against democracy, then every election has the potential to be the last election. Elections become existential for our constitutional republic… Voting is not an independent exercise of popular will, as much as we’d like it to be. It is an activity that occurs within different systems and has different effects: In the Senate, votes determine the winner. In the race for the White House, they often, but not always, determine the winner. And in the House, more often than not, the votes are a foregone conclusion. What matters—what does achieve results—is not how one individual votes, but rather the number of individuals who do in each jurisdiction. Turnout not only matters, it’s the whole ball game.
As ominous threats rise, the U.S. is mired in moronic, clownish politics
The Washington Post – October 13, 2023 – George F. Will
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/13/global-threats-unserious-united-states-politics/
As the world becomes more ominous, clownishness among Republican presidential aspirants — let’s attack Mexico! — becomes more insufferable. Ron DeSantis promises gas at $2 a gallon — cheaper in inflation-adjusted terms than when the price was 26 cents in 1948. At a July event, a crazed New Hampshirite told Vivek Ramaswamy that the Federal Reserve is “adding zeros to the bank accounts to the media or maybe your political opponents.” Ramaswamy’s response included this: “You’re correct to point out what very few people are aware of. Absolutely, that happens.” In the world beyond Iowa and New Hampshire, events are turning and turning in a widening gyre. Chaos, the métier of the Republican front-runner, is rising. Last week, the world spun into a new level of dangerousness. This coming week, any Republican aspirant worthy of the office she or he seeks will at last forthrightly stand against Trump’s siren call of isolationism.
Columbus Day Celebrates a Christian Doctrine That Authorized Centuries of Violence — and Continues to Threaten American Democracy
Religion Dispatches – October 5, 2023 – Robert P. Jones
https://religiondispatches.org/columbus-day-is-a-celebration-of-a-christian-doctrine-that-authorized-centuries-of-violence-and-continues-to-threaten-american-democracy/
Although many of us were erroneously taught that “Columbus discovered America,” he never set foot on soil within our national borders and famously didn’t comprehend that he had encountered lands unknown to Europeans until his third voyage in 1498. But by tethering their story to Columbus, early leaders of the United States magically endowed the fledgling nation with a three-hundred-year pedigree, a genesis story whose “in the beginning” implied its birth was the outworking of Providence. They invented a past that gave their present holdings, and their rapacious ambitions, the veneer of divine inevitability. The sweeping power of this narrative strategy, however, lay not just in the epic voyages of Columbus, but in a religious doctrine he relied upon and indeed helped crystallize: the Christian Doctrine of Discovery… The principal question for determining whether any newly discovered peoples had human rights Europeans were bound to respect was this: “Are they Christian?” If the answer was negative, Indigenous people were categorized as “enemies of Christ” whose lands were subject to occupation and whose goods were subject to confiscation. If Indigenous people resisted the imposition of European authority, the new arrivals carried the permission of the crown and the blessing of the church to “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery” or to kill them outright… If we’re to finally embrace our identity as a pluralistic democracy, we can’t abide an ongoing celebration of a worldview that erodes that commitment. But if instead we pause each year to honor Indigenous people alongside George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr., that observance will reorient us to the ongoing work of achieving the yet unfulfilled promise of our democracy.
End War Before It Ends Us
Common Dreams – October 15, 2023 – Robert C. Koehler
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/end-the-war-before-it-ends-you
Humanity’s cancer shows up in Israel and Palestine. Missiles fly, hell makes global headlines, thousands of people die, many of them (oh God, of course) children. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declares: “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly. . . . We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed.” That’ll show ’em! Revenge rules. Kill the human animals, even if they’re toddlers. Here’s the vicious cycle of war: One side commits a heinous crime against humanity — e.g, Hamas fires missiles into Israel, killing more than 700 people. This justifies an even more heinous response from Israel, firing its own (far more sophisticated) missiles into Gaza, declaring war on a trapped population of people in the “open air prison” of Gaza. Both sides feel justified as they continue to commit crimes against humanity — you know, look what they did! The essence of war is dehumanization… We live in a world that remains trapped in the consciousness of war. The only way to deal with harm and danger is to inflict it yourself. They just killed our children, so we’re gonna kill theirs. Whoever kills the most children wins, or so it seems. Is a different way of thinking possible at the level of geopolitics? Is a world without war possible?… We have to learn to value and connect with one another, even, or especially, when it’s the last thing we can imagine doing. This may well be the primary task of being human. If we don’t end war, it will certainly end us.
08 Sunday Oct 2023
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There’s still a chance for America to reach net-zero, but it requires drastic action
Grist – October 5, 2023 – Lyric Aquino
https://grist.org/economics/theres-still-a-chance-for-america-to-reach-net-zero-but-it-requires-drastic-action/
To reach net-zero, the U.S. will need to focus on making electric vehicles more accessible to consumers, decarbonizing buildings, and increasing the use of clean energy. That’s according to a new report from ICF Climate Center, a global advisory and technology services provider. “Through a combination of new investment, incentives, policies, and mandates, it’s possible to put the U.S. on a path toward a net-zero economy,” wrote the authors of the report. “Transitioning to a net-zero economy would be costly and complex, but by navigating this intricate web, the U.S. could weave a future that sidesteps the worst impacts of climate change.”… The authors suggest making renewable energy 85 percent of the country’s total electricity generation. To do so would require minimizing the use of other sources like natural gas, coal, and fossil fuels from an estimated 60 percent in 2022 to nearly zero in 2050. That way, by 2050, most of the U.S.’s energy generation would come from renewable wind, solar, and hydro sources, with the rest coming from low- or zero-carbon dispatchable or reliable resources.
Ingenious solar distiller makes fresh water from seawater for less than 1¢ a gallon
The Daily Kos – September 30, 2023 – community
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/30/2196209/-Ingenious-solar-distiller-makes-fresh-water-from-seawater-for-less-than-1-a-gallon
It’s pretty easy to get the salt out of seawater. All you have to do is boil it, freeze it, or just wait for rain! But those things take a lot of energy and/or time that many of us don’t have to spare. So people have been working on low-cost and low-energy-input ways to do it, such as solar desalination. We seem to have hit on a really good one here, thanks to a collaboration between MIT and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). I couldn’t even cram all the benefits of this thing into my diary title… Oh, and because it doesn’t accumulate salt, it can process water containing up to 20% salt (seawater has only 3.5% salt, and salt-saturated water has about 26%). Other solar desalination devices can’t even operate with water that salty. That means you can use this kind of device to process the wastewater from existing desalination systems, to get even more fresh water.
Student activists are pushing back against big polluters — and winning
NPR – October 4, 2023 – B.A. Parker, Rebecca Hersher, Courtney Stein, Bilal Qureshi, Dalia Mortada, Neela Banerjee and Arielle Retting
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/04/1197954102/student-activists-climate-change-baltimore
Taysia is a part of a group of student activists fighting against a very different kind of danger in their neighborhood: air pollution and climate change. Lots of 18-wheeler trucks with their diesel exhaust and noise pass through the neighborhood. Curtis Bay is also home to a junkyard where they crush cars, an old landfill, chemical manufacturing plants, and mountains of coal. These are not the kinds of neighbors anyone wants, and that’s why — all over the country — polluters like these often end up in neighborhoods like South Baltimore, with mostly working class, poor people and people of color. The mountains of coal are the focus of a growing opposition movement called Free Your Voice, led by South Baltimore teenagers — young people of color who are spearheading a call for climate justice.
Students Across the U.S. Launch Green New Deal for Schools
Ecowatch – September 27, 2023 – Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
https://www.ecowatch.com/students-green-new-deal-schools.html
Students at more than 50 high schools across the United States are launching a Green New Deal for Schools campaign, with the hope of getting climate policies enacted that will require school districts to add climate education to their curriculums and plan for climate disasters. The ultimate goal of the initiative, organized by the youth climate justice organization Sunrise Movement, is for federal legislation to be enacted to implement climate education policies in schools nationwide. “The Green New Deal for Schools will transform public schools in America to face the climate crisis and ensure all students receive safe and high-quality education – no matter their zip code or the color of their skin,” said 17-year-old Adah Crandall, one of the heads of the campaign, as reported by The Hill. “Our generation is on the front lines of this fight and it’s time for our school districts to take real action.”
The Slow-Motion Equivalent of a Nuclear War?
Tom Dispatch – October 1, 2023 – Tom Engelhardt
https://tomdispatch.com/the-slow-motion-equivalent-of-a-nuclear-war/
These days, despite an all too “hot” war in Ukraine in which the U.S. has, at least indirectly, faced off against the crew that replaced those Soviet cold warriors of yore, the new Cold War references are largely aimed at this country’s increasingly tense, ever more militarized relationship with China. Its focus is both the island of Taiwan and much of the rest of Asia. Worse yet, both countries seem driven to intensify that struggle… As a start, keep in mind that the two great powers facing off so ominously against each other have long faced off no less ominously against the planet itself. After all, the United States remains the historically greatest greenhouse gas emitter of all time, while China is the greatest of the present moment (with the U.S. still in second place and Americans individually responsible for significantly more emissions than their Chinese counterparts). The results have been telling in both countries… think about the fact that the planet’s two greatest carbon emitters, China and the United States, now fully knowledgeable about what they’re doing, can’t seem to imagine working together in any fashion to deal with a catastrophe that may prove, in the decades to come, the slow-motion equivalent of a nuclear war… Isn’t it time for the American and Chinese leaderships to cut the war-like posturing and together face a world in desperate danger, for the sake, if nothing else, of all our children and grandchildren who don’t deserve the planet we’re heating up for them in such a devastatingly rapid fashion?
The Future of Techno-War
Tom Dispatch – October 3, 2023 – William D. Hartung
https://tomdispatch.com/ai-goes-to-war/
On August 28th, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks chose the occasion of a three-day conference organized by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA), the arms industry’s biggest trade group, to announce the “Replicator Initiative.” Among other things, it would involve producing “swarms of drones” that could hit thousands of targets in China on short notice. Call it the full-scale launching of techno-war… The vision Hicks put forward to the NDIA is, you might already have noticed, untethered from the slightest urge to respond diplomatically or politically to the challenge of Beijing as a rising great power. It matters little that those would undoubtedly be the most effective ways to head off a future conflict with China… the time to start pushing back against yet another misguided “techno-revolution” is now, before automated warfare increases the risk of a global catastrophe. Emphasizing new weaponry over creative diplomacy and smart political decisions is a recipe for disaster in the decades to come. There has to be a better way.
Army War College Report Predicts Mass Casualties in Near-Peer Fight Against [Russia]
Simplicius The Thinker – October 2, 2023
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/army-war-college-report-predicts
The paper made the rounds due to some startling admissions, which we’ll get to. But what’s most important to understand is that it represents a general shift in thinking that’s propagating throughout the entire sphere of the Atlanticist West, and was released in concert with several other key thinktank pieces and policy shift announcements from the EU, NATO, etc., which holistically represent an internal panic deep within their structures, resulting in an urgent need for a strategy change. And this point is one of the central themes of the War College paper itself. Its opening preamble can be summarized in a single sentence: the current time period marked by the Ukrainian conflict represents the largest “inflection point” in 50 years of military history… Turning back to the War College report, we now come to the most eye-opening part which has been making the rounds across the internet. The stark admission that facing such an unprecedented high-intensity war as the Ukrainian conflict, the U.S. can expect to suffer 3,600 casualties per day:.. The final section of the War College report reiterates the call for major shifts in learning and training from this historic “inflection point.” It believes the erstwhile AirLand Battle doctrine will now become an AI land battle doctrine thanks to what Russia has taught them
ALEC Gala to Face Protest From Pro-Democracy Groups
Sludge – October 2, 2023 – Donald Shaw
https://readsludge.com/2023/10/03/alec-gala-will-face-protest-from-pro-democracy-groups/
ALEC is an industry-funded membership organization for state legislators, lobbyists, and corporate executives. Though the group bills itself as nonpartisan, the vast majority of its legislative members are Republicans…. The group’s influence is immense. According to its website, ALEC’s membership includes nearly one-quarter of all state legislators in the United States and hundreds of businesspeople… “This isn’t how our democracy was supposed to work, and we need Congress to step up and pass the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to curb ALEC’s power and put the people, not corporations, in charge of our democracy,” said Svante Myrick, president of the progressive group People For the American Way, one of the organizers of the protest. “We’re here to call out ALEC and its corporate sponsors and unite in the fight for the rights of people, workers, voters, and the planet,” said Tefere Gebre, program director of Greenpeace USA, another group involved in the protest.
We Don’t Talk About Leonard
Propublica – October 6, 2023 – Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll and Ilya Marritz
https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-podcast
The conservative legal movement in the United States is more powerful than ever. One largely unknown man has played a significant role in pushing the American judiciary to the right: Leonard Leo… Historians and legal experts say there is no comparable figure in American jurisprudence. To the extent Leo is known, it’s for his role helping to install the conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court. But his reach extends far beyond that. Decades ago, he realized it was not enough to have justices on his side. Those jurists needed to decide the right cases, brought by the right lawyers and heard by the right lower court judges. He built a machine to do just that.
Is California’s ‘Cop Campus’ the Next Cop City Fight?
The Daily Beast – September 29, 2023 – Kelly Weill
https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-californias-cop-campus-the-next-cop-city-fight
The city of San Pablo, California, has approximately 30,000 residents and a city budget of $66.4 million. The city’s new proposed police training center is expected to cost $43.6 million. On Saturday, protesters plan to march in opposition to the San Pablo Police Department Headquarters and Regional Training Center. The project, dubbed “Cop Campus” by critics, is a proposed 42,000 square-foot development, complete with a virtual reality simulator and 20-lane gun range… That fledgling “Stop Cop Campus” movement comes alongside a “Stop Cop City” movement in Georgia, where a proposed $90-million police training facility has attracted large protests… “The fight against Cop Campus is one of the several movements spurred by the struggle to stop building ‘Cop City.’
Fascism in America: a long history that predates Trump
The Guardian – September 30, 2023 – Rich Tenorio
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/30/fascism-in-america-book-trump
A new book examines the history of far-right authoritarian US groups – and ways the public has chosen to look away… According to an illuminating new anthology, “Fascism in America: Past and Present,” edited by Gavriel D Rosenfeld and Janet Ward. In 12 chapters plus an introduction and epilogue, the co-editors and their contributors make the case that fascism has existed on US soil for well past a century and remains disturbingly present today… “Ultimately, this is an American story,” Ward said. “You can’t – you shouldn’t – look at fascism solely as an outside influence into the US … it needs to be looked at from within, as well as something coming in from without.”… As to whether America is on the precipice of another such ugly moment, the co-editors are hoping democracy holds firm, just as it did in the second world war.
How Do We Survive the Constitution?
The New Yorker – October 4, 2023 – Corey Robin
https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/how-do-we-survive-the-constitution
In “Tyranny of the Minority,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue that the document has doomed our politics. But it can also save them… Studying how democracy was undermined elsewhere, Levitsky and Ziblatt defined the threat of Trumpism as an attack on the Constitution, the rule of law, and institutions. They also claimed that these pillars were less sturdy than people supposed. The Constitution was riddled with holes. Restrictions on Presidential prerogatives were not written down. Institutions designed to check extremists, whether specified in the text (a bicameral legislature) or not (political parties), were vulnerable to extremists. Most worrisome of all, the ligaments joining these parts, what Levitsky and Ziblatt called “norms,” were frayed. Two norms in particular—tolerance of one’s opponents and forbearance in the exercise of power—were foundational to constitutional democracy… Within a month of its publication, in January, 2018, “How Democracies Die” hit the Times best-seller list. It’s easy to see why. The book gave voice to liberals who felt betrayed not by their country but by its voters, the gate-crashers who put Trump into power. Levitsky and Ziblatt’s readers believed in norms, trusted élites, and valued institutions, particularly the Supreme Court. They revered the Constitution. The problem was the half of the country that didn’t.
The Guantánamo Prison Camp may someday be Closed, but it Will leave a Permanent Scar on America’s Conscience
Informed Comment – October 6, 2023 – Karen J. Greenberg
https://www.juancole.com/2023/10/guantanamo-concentration-conscience.html
At times due to a failure of will, at times due to a failure of the system itself or the sheer complexity of the logistics involved, and at times due to acts of Congress or the courts, efforts to shut that prison have been eternally stymied. Despite endless acknowledgements that what’s gone on there has defied domestic, international, and military law — not to mention longstanding norms of morality and justice — that prison persists. Recently, however, for those of us perpetually looking for a ray or even a glimmer of hope, there have finally been a few developments that seem to signal steps, however tiny, toward closure… The belated but increasingly accepted notion that torture renders trials impossible, now seemingly shared by the court as well as the defense teams, has become more than mere rhetoric. As Paradis commented to me, “No justice system worth the name permits even the whiff of evidence tainted by torture. We have revolted at the idea for more than a century in this country and even persuaded the world that it should do the same, such as when Ronald Reagan signed the Convention Against Torture.” Ironically, the acknowledgement of this reality may finally bring these cases to their conclusion. But so many years later, despite being determined to grasp every ray of hope, I suspect that, when it comes to the closing of Guantánamo, the sorrowful record of the past may overshadow the dreams of a better tomorrow.
Hail to the Fraudster in Chief
The New York Times – September 28, 2023 – Paul Krugman
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/28/opinion/donald-trump-fraud-case.html
Back in 2016, some observers warned conventional political analysts that they were underrating Trump’s chances because they didn’t appreciate how many Americans believed that he was a brilliant businessman — a belief based largely on his role on the reality TV show “The Apprentice.” What we now know is that the old joke was, in Trump’s case, the simple truth: He wasn’t a real business genius; he just played one on TV. But the truth is that this was obvious, to anyone willing to see, from the beginning of Trump’s political rise… The fact that so many Americans were and remain fooled should lead to some serious national soul-searching.
Pope signals openness to blessings for gay couples, study of women’s ordination
National Catholic Reporter – October 2, 2023 – Joshua J. McElwee and Christopher White
https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vatican-news/news/pope-signals-openness-blessings-gay-couples-study-womens-ordination
Pope Francis has expressed openness to Catholic blessings for same-sex couples, under the condition they are not confused with marriage ceremonies for men and women, in what could be a watershed moment for the global Catholic Church.
Angus Deaton on inequality: ‘The war on poverty has become a war on the poor’
The Guardian – October 7, 2023 – Chris McGreal
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2023/oct/07/angus-deaton-interview-book-economics-in-america
The Nobel prize winner… argues economists must get back to serving society… as Deaton describes in his unsparing new book, Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality, he soon realized he had run headlong into the libertarian monetarists of the Chicago School of Economics, and they were driving US policy. “There is this very strong libertarian belief that inequality is not a proper area of study for economists,” Deaton said. “Even if you were to worry about inequality, it would be best if you just kept quiet and lived with it.” Deaton persevered, building a reputation as a contrarian for scrutinising the prevailing orthodoxy that an unfettered free market would deliver greater economic equality and individual liberty, and that government intervention and regulation would undermine both. The result, said Deaton, is a predatory brand of capitalism in the US that enriches corporations and the wealthy at the expense of working people, deepens inequality of wealth and opportunity, and – although many Americans will deny it – is fuelling the rise of a class system.
Capital vs. labor under Biden
Robert Reich’s substack blog – October 5, 2023
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/capital-vs-labor-under-biden
Under Joe Biden, there’s been a monumental shift. Antitrust enforcement has surged. Efforts to form unions have been protected and encouraged. This shift has gotten lost under the mainstream media’s fixation with government spending, taxing, and the federal debt. This is too bad, because the shift has been one of Biden’s most important achievements… The struggle is not easy. Big corporations and Wall Street are appealing many of their administrative actions and successful court decisions. And, needless to say, big corporations and Wall Street have armies of lawyers whose job it is to enlarge the power of capital and suppress the power of labor. Yet I’m astounded at how much progress the three agencies, under these three leaders, have made in just over two and a half years. And how little the mainstream media have reported on the overall strategy — especially given how central it could become to the lives of average Americans.
The Great Medicaid Unwinding
The Nation – October 6, 2023 – Adam Gaffney
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/medicaid-unwinding/
Millions of Americans lost their coverage earlier this year when a pandemic-era policy expired. The consequences are detrimental to the very practice of medicine… Uniquely among high-income nations, we allow our residents to periodically, and protractedly, lose healthcare, and to suffer as a result. Achieving the goal of universal coverage is a moral imperative. Yet any vision of universal healthcare worthy of the name must provide seamless, cradle-to-grave healthcare to everyone. Without continuity, there is, far too often, no care at all.
What America Can Learn From Canada’s New ‘$10 a Day’ Child Care System
Portside – September 27, 2023 – Jackie Mader
https://portside.org/2023-09-27/what-america-can-learn-canadas-new-10-day-child-care-system
The “$10 a Day” child care initiative, as it’s known in British Columbia, has been life-changing for parents. In the five years since it launched, it has also provided some financial stability for child care programs in the province, which now receive operating funds directly from the government instead of relying solely on family-paid tuition. This idea — that parents should pay an average of $10 a day for child care and that public funds should underwrite child care programs — is now a cornerstone of a new national child care system rolling out across the country.
Nobody Does It on Their Own
Portside – October 4, 2023 – Renee Feltz
https://portside.org/2023-10-04/nobody-does-it-their-own
In Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream, Alissa Quart, head of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, lays bare the myth of self-sufficiency… when it was first used, the notion of bootstrapping ourselves to success was mocked: “When the concept of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps was first advanced in 1834 it was understood as surreal, intended to be seen as an outlandish act — how could anyone pull up their boots to lift their own bodies?” But by the time of President Reagan, she notes that “to be a self-made success meant you were morally good, and if you had failed to succeed, you were morally corrupt.” The burden of the American Dream can now be found in the common experiences of Americans and the “dystopian safety net” we have come to rely on, such as creating a GoFundMe to cover our healthcare costs or working for gig companies that exploit “the allure of individualism” and define their workers as “independent contractors.”… Quart writes. “Needing each other is our strength, not our weakness. Singular triumphs never existed in the first place.”
‘Unbreakable Solidarity Is Working’: UAW Wins Protections for GM Battery Plant Workers
Common Dreams – October 6, 2023 – Julia Conley
https://www.commondreams.org/news/uaw-gm-national-agreement
Sara Nelson, president of the President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, applauded the UAW’s securing of “major movement” from GM. “The pressure of smart, creative tactics backed up by unbreakable solidarity is working,” she said. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also congratulated Fain and the union and called on Stellantis and Ford to provide their own guarantees that workers making EV batteries at their plants would be covered by the UAW agreement.
Oppenheimer’s Other Project: World Government
Yes! Magazine – October 5, 2023 – Jane Shevtsov
https://www.yesmagazine.org/democracy/2023/10/05/oppenheimer-world-government
In a lengthier article published in 1946 in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Oppenheimer wrote, “The problem that we are dealing with,” in seeking to prevent atomic war, “is the problem of the elimination of war.” Proposals for addressing nuclear issues were to be judged on whether they also advanced this goal. The article was titled “The Atom Bomb as a Great Force for Peace”—not because of the simplistic and banal argument that the bomb would make war too horrible to contemplate, but because its control would lay the foundation for a world government that truly could abolish war… As politically unlikely as it might now appear, might something like a genuine world republic provide humanity with the kinds of tools it will require to get a grip on existential perils like the climate emergency, runaway artificial intelligence, and who knows what kinds of new weapons of mass extermination that Oppenheimer’s heirs will almost surely invent in the decades and centuries to come?
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Climate change: Six young people take 32 countries to court
BBC News – September 27, 2023 – Selin Girit
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66923590
They accuse the countries of insufficient action over climate change and failing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions enough to hit the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5C. The case is the first of its kind to be filed at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg. If it is successful, it could have legally-binding consequences for the governments involved. The first hearing in the case is being held on Wednesday. Aged from 11 to 24, the six claimants argue that the forest fires that have occurred in Portugal each year since 2017 are a direct result of global warming… “I want a green world without pollution, I want to be healthy,” says 11-year-old Mariana. “I’m in this case because I’m really worried about my future. I’m afraid of what the place where we live will look like.”… The ECHR ruling would legally bind the 32 governments at once to increase their climate actions by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and phasing out fossil fuels.
These Cities Are Depaving For A Cooler Future
Next City – September 1, 2023 – Lucy Sherriff
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/these-cities-are-depaving-for-a-cooler-future-removing-asphalt
The Depave movement has spread across the United States and Canada in recent years as climate-related extreme heat and flooding have made some cities rethink the wisdom of all that heat-absorbing, impervious surface area… Replacing asphalt with greenery has benefits beyond lowering temperatures and reducing flood risk. It’s also associated with lower stress levels, a reduction in noise, fewer traffic-related injuries and even restoration of local biodiversity. It can also improve air quality: asphalt releases hazardous air pollutants into communities, especially in extreme heat and direct sunlight… “It’s about changing attitudes towards concrete,” she said. “We’ve been missing an opportunity to embrace nature in the city, and I’m just trying to get people to look at the world around them and dream of something different.”
How Long Can America’s Climate Hypocrisy Last?
The New York Times – September 27, 2023 – David Wallace-Wells
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/27/opinion/environment/how-long-can-americas-climate-hypocrisy-last.html
The country’s move away from coal has helped lower its emissions by nearly 20 percent since 2005, a more impressive decline than most Americans realize and many climate advocates acknowledge. But if the two poles of climate policy are “keep it in the ground” and “drill, baby, drill,” it’s not clear which pole the United States has been closer to… Which is why both increasingly frustrated climate activists and more accommodating moderate figures have been taking a much more confrontational line against the fossil fuel industry: After years focused on climate awareness and the provision of renewable energy, more and more of those concerned about warming are arguing that genuinely pursuing global goals means turning to the problem of fossil fuel supply… I found it so striking earlier this month when the attorney general of California, with almost giddily enthusiastic support from Gov. Gavin Newsom, filed suit against major oil companies for tens of billions of dollars of climate damages… “The oil industry has been playing each and every one of us in this room for fools.”
Indigenous women are showing us how to fight for environmental and human rights
The Guardian – September 25, 2023 – V (formerly Eve Ensler)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/25/indigenous-women-brazil-fight-environment-human-rights
I was invited to the third Indigenous Women’s March in Brasília, the capital of Brazil, earlier this month. The last occupation of Brazil’s legislature was in January 2022, when a group of rightwing thugs, imitating the January 6 riot in the US, attempted to kill Brazilian democracy. This was the exact opposite… What I experienced during my recent time in Brazil was nothing less than a radical re-imagining of the country’s future, but it also felt like the beginning of what many Indigenous women there are calling for – a much broader and more global agenda, a “reforesting” of politics and the mind. Before I had not been terribly hopeful; I am now.
Netanyahu Shows Map of ‘New Middle East’—Without Palestine—to UN General Assembly
Common Dreams – September 22, 2023 – Brett Wilkins
https://www.commondreams.org/news/netanyahu-map
“Netanyahu made clear with his little map today what normalization really seeks: eliminating Palestine… from the region and legitimizing greater Israel, all with the blessing of Arab regimes,” one critic said… Netanyahu used the maps in an attempt to illustrate the increasing number of Arab countries normalizing relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords brokered by the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump… Critics have countered that peace between apartheid Israel and Arab dictatorships has come at the cost of advancing Palestinian rights.
40 years ago today, one man saved us from world-ending nuclear war
Vox – September 28, 2023 – Dylan Matthews
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/26/17905796/nuclear-war-1983-stanislav-petrov-soviet-union
The Soviet Union’s missile attack early warning system displayed, in large red letters, the word “LAUNCH”; a computer screen stated to the officer on duty, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, that it could say with “high reliability” that an American intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) had been launched and was headed toward the Soviet Union… But Petrov did not report the incoming strike. He and others on his staff concluded that what they were seeing was a false alarm… The sheer threat of these weapons hanging over us creates psychological uncertainty that is inherent to nuclear brinkmanship, as Petrov himself demonstrated… while Petrov clearly showed admirable bravery — and everyone alive today should be thankful he did — his decision also underscores an unknowable question: When the moment seems to come, will a national leader or the officers below them actually push the button? The fate of billions could depend on the answer.
Gaga Over Putin
Steady – September 22, 2023 – Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner
https://steady.substack.com/p/gaga-over-putin
Today, the Republican Party has become the Party of Trump, a man who, as president, instigated arguably the greatest threat to the continuation of American democracy since the firing on Fort Sumter. It shouldn’t be lost that some of the MAGA insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6 brought along the Confederate flag, a symbol ubiquitous at Trump rallies. But this week reinforced another reality about the modern GOP — there’s a faction within the party, including its leader and likely presidential nominee, who have a soft spot for a murderous autocrat who despises freedom, peace, and global stability. These days, the acronym GOP could also stand for Gaga Over Putin… Trump, Putin, and a sizable wing of the Republican Party are swept up in each other. A grand old party, if your idea of a party is cheering the end of freedom and democracy.
Here’s Why Arkansas’ New Anti-Transparency Law Should Piss You Off
The Daily Beast – September 15, 2023 – Beryl Lipton
https://www.thedailybeast.com/arkansas-new-anti-transparency-law-should-piss-you-off
Public outcry helped stop the state’s worst proposed amendments to weaken Freedom of Information laws. But the new law still makes it harder to hold the government to account… Under the guise of “security concerns,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders made a brash attempt this week to gut her state’s public records law. And then an unexpectedly beautiful thing happened. Members of the public on the political left and right, in the media and in labor and from all walks of life, united to assert their right to know. For hours, Arkansans spoke up against politicians’ nasty attempts to kneecap their ability to hold the government accountable. They pushed their legislators to revise their proposals to limit the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
‘Watershed moment’: activists speak out about ‘Cop City’ conspiracy charges
The Guardian – September 25, 2023 – Timothy Pratt
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/25/atlanta-cop-city-conspiracy-charges-activists
The same law used to charge Donald Trump is being wielded against protesters in a historic prosecution of 61 defendants… “It’s no exaggeration to call this a watershed moment in the history of civil liberties in the US,” said Will Potter, author of Green Is the New Red, which details the federal government’s legal campaigns against environmental activists… All those who spoke with the Guardian invoked the solidarity and mutual aid that has characterized the movement as a source of hope in a case that may take years to litigate… The indictment’s framing was “silly”, said Potter – “but the reality is, in the eyes of the government, these concepts are a threat to state power”… “We’re living proof that the power of collective action and solidarity can shake the foundation of the police state,” she said. “And that scares the hell out of them.”
Major human rights, press freedom groups condemn RICO charges against ‘Cop City’ activists
Saporta Report – September 28, 2023 – John Ruch
https://saportareport.com/major-human-rights-press-freedom-groups-condemn-rico-charges-against-cop-city-activists/sections/reports/johnruch/
The Center for Constitutional Rights called [it] a “ludicrous and terrifying” new level of criminalizing speech, even in comparison to international examples. “Attorney General Carr has fabricated an expansive racketeering conspiracy from a jumble of scraps — a zine encountered on the forest floor, a flyer posted on a mailbox, reimbursements for bathrooms for a public event in a park — almost all of which are protected by the First Amendment,” said the organization in the press release. Community Movement Builders (CMB), an Atlanta organizer involved in the protest movement, was among the signers. “The only conspiracy here is the one between the state and the city to unjustly charge organizers,” said CMB founder Kamau Franklin in the press release.
Americans, Stand With the UAW and Me and Fight Out-of-Control Corporate Greed
Reader Supported News – Fox News – September 26, 2023 – Bernie Sanders
https://www.rsn.org/001/americans-stand-with-the-uaw-and-me-and-fight-outofcontrol-corporate-greed.html
The fight the UAW is waging has everything to do with the outrageous level of corporate greed and arrogance on the part of senior executives in the auto industry and their masters on Wall Street. This is an industry that had to be bailed out by U.S. taxpayers in 2008. As part of the bailout autoworkers were forced to make painful economic concessions. Today, however, the Big Three are enjoying record-breaking profits. During the first six months of this year, they have made $21 billion in profits – up 80% from the same time period last year. And, over the past decade, the Big Three have made $250 billion in profits… In 1937, the UAW played a historic role in American history. The autoworkers of that time had the extraordinary courage to take on the greed and power of the auto industry and formed their union. Their successful sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan, ignited a grassroots movement across the country that helped create an American middle class which became the envy of the world. Now in the year 2023 – 86 years later – the UAW, once again, is helping to lead the effort to rebuild and grow a middle class that has been beaten down by their corporate bosses for far too long. Their fight against corporate greed is the fight to improve the lives of every worker in America.
The UAW Strike May Be a Watershed for the US Labor Movement
Jacobin – September 25, 2023 – Barry Eidlin
https://jacobin.com/2023/09/uaw-strike-shawn-fain-big-three-drum-administration-caucus-history
The strike represents a dramatic departure from the union’s recent history in other ways as well, with leadership actively working to involve members in the contract campaign, and President Fain declaring that the union is fighting “for the good of the entire working class.” The leadership’s new approach is due in large part to the election of Fain and other officers associated with Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), a union reform caucus that earlier this year swept out the corrupt old guard that had dominated UAW for over seventy years… This is the first time that the UAW has run anything like a contract campaign to prepare workers and get them involved. This is the first time that the UAW leadership has actually tried to inform members about negotiating… There is this greater mood of militancy among a broad swath of the working class. There was a minor strike wave in 2018, but it was almost entirely in education. Now the strikes are happening across all sorts of industries.
“This Fight Is Global”: Workers Around the World Are Standing With Striking U.S. Autoworkers
In These Times – September 26, 2023 – Jeff Schuhrke
https://inthesetimes.com/article/uaw-strike-international-solidarity-mexico-brazil-union-labor
“The world is watching, and the people are on our side,” UAW President Shawn Fain said last Friday. ?“From South Africa to Malaysia, we continue to receive letters and messages of strength and support, encouraging our members to hold the line and win big?—?and we will.” Such global solidarity is not simply a boost to the strikers’ morale, but is also a critically strategic part of the UAW’s fight to reverse the decades-long race to the bottom, where multinational corporations like the Big Three automakers move production to wherever they can exploit workers the most.
Automakers Don’t Need to Choose Between Labor and Climate
The Nation – September 27, 2023 – Lucy Dean Stockton
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/automakers-dont-need-to-choose-between-labor-and-climate/
Labor organizations and climate activists share a common goal: a new economy that pays workers fairly and doesn’t destroy the earth. Both groups realize that an equitable economy is a path both to empowering workers and protecting the climate. They understand that predatory wealth extraction like stock buybacks are obstacles. Trevor Dolan, the industry and workforce policy lead at climate advocacy group Evergreen Action, explained, “Climate groups stand in solidarity with workers, because this is an inflection point in the green energy transition.” A major energy transition could mean millions of new jobs. Experts estimate that it would require a $275 trillion investment by 2050 to fully transform our economy. Dolan noted that the UAW fight is one of the first major opportunities to prioritize equitable economic development in the renewable economy: “The UAW sees the energy transition. They just want their fair share. They stand in solidarity with us, too.”… Banning stock buybacks, excessive shareholder dividends, or skyrocketing executive compensation would reset company incentives and free up trillions of dollars for workers and climate. There are enough resources to implement transformational technology and ensure that workers can live dignified lives. Labor organizers and climate activists have a common enemy: a billionaire class intent on hoarding resources for themselves.
The Origins of the Socialist Slur
The Atlantic Magazine – September 26, 2023 – Heather Cox Richardson
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/american-socialism-racist-origins/675453/
[The] intersection of race and economics was not new to the second half of the 20th century. It reached back into the past to resurrect an argument made by former Confederates during the Reconstruction years to overturn federal protection of Black rights after the Civil War. Some of today’s Republicans are in the process of making that argument reality. Their insistence that all their opponents are socialists goes hand in hand with their effort to suppress Black and brown voting. When former President Donald Trump insists that the country has fallen to communism and “Marxists,” what he’s really saying is that a government in which racial minorities have a say is illegitimate… There is a long-standing fight over whether support for the modern-day right is about taxes or race. The key is that it is about taxes and race at the same time: Since Reconstruction, white supremacists have argued that minority voting means socialism, and that true Americans stand against both. In recent history, that argument has led Republican-dominated state legislatures to make voting harder for people of color, and to rig the system through gerrymandering. Three years ago it led Trump and his supporters to try to overturn the results of a presidential election to keep their opponents out of power. They believed, and insist they still believe, that they had to destroy the government in order to save it.
Who elects these clowns, exactly? As it turns out, almost none of us.
The Washington Post – September 29, 2023 – Karen Tumulty
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/29/house-shutdown-primaries-voters/
Why does the House keep finding itself in a situation in which a handful of clownish nihilists are calling the shots for their supposed leaders — and risking the economic stability of the country while they are at it?,,, Members of Congress know that playing to instincts and impulses of their populist bases are their surest tickets to reelection, and that they will have little protection if they don’t. You can blame aggressive gerrymandering, which plays a big role. But Wasserman and others say the greater driver of this realignment is a self-sorting of the electorate into like-minded communities, where Democratic voters are concentrated in cities that have turned deeper blue while Republicans are spread out across exurbs and rural areas that have become more reliably red. Whatever the reason, the reality is that the vast majority of congressional elections are decided in the primaries. And that, as it turns out, puts outsize power in the hands of a tiny minority of highly engaged and intense partisans who bother to show up and vote in those often overlooked contests… And that means a tiny — and utterly unrepresentative — slice of Americans is deciding who gets a seat in the U.S. House… tinkering with the system can go only so far, so long as voters themselves are too apathetic to recognize how politics actually works in a polarized country and to take their own responsibilities seriously. It starts with understanding that, increasingly, the elections that matter don’t take place in November.
Local School Boards: The New Culture War Zone
Groundtruth Project – September 29, 2023 – Alana Campbell
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/8d568b7d40a640c3878fd893926c4529
These days school board meetings are anything but boring. Indeed, they have become a new frontline in the culture wars in America. They are often a place of heated debates laced with vitriol and protests that can teeter on violence. Our colleague, Alana Campbell, who composes story maps that explore coverage by our corps members around the world, wrote this week, “School boards have now become the epicenter of a national struggle, pitting teachers, parents, students, and activists against one another.”
The sheer joy of fixing something rather than throwing it away
The Boston Globe – September 27, 2023 – Veronique Greenwood
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/09/27/opinion/diy-repair-boston-fixit-clinic/
Repairing what’s broken is far from mainstream at the moment. Many of us live in what’s been called a throwaway culture, in which everything from bedsheets to phones to furniture is given up for lost at the first sign of wear, with devastating environmental consequences. Part of the problem is that so much stuff is of such poor quality. Since the rise of mass production, manufacturers have purposely degraded their own products so consumers will have to buy replacements, a policy called planned obsolescence… Activists are needed, because companies that make cars, electronics, and appliances, to name a few products, have a vested interest in making repair hard… “There are numerous ways items are designed now to thwart repair and hold you captive to the manufacturer’s ecosystem,” Mui says. The methods can seem absurd.. People who want to be able to care for their belongings — the “right to repair,” as this idea is known — will have to fight for it.
How do you prepare a city like New York for major floods?
Vox – September 30, 2023 – Ellen Ioanes
https://www.vox.com/2023/9/30/23897392/new-york-city-flood-rainfall-climate-change-eric-adams
Of course, New York City isn’t the only place that suffered from yesterday’s storms; parts of the northeast can expect heavy rainfall over the coming week, according to CNN. In fact, unusual rainfall has had an impact throughout the US this year, and flooding has devastated areas of Libya, Pakistan, and China over the past year. “Everywhere is susceptible to these impacts,” University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann previously told Vox’s Li Zhou. “The western, central, and eastern US, Europe, and Asia — with one of the best examples being the Pakistan floods last year which displaced more than 30 million people.”… Weather events like Friday’s are going to cause much more damage to places like New York City unless and until we learn to “live with water,” as McPhearson put it, which requires political, financial, and social mobilization on a significant scale… In cities like Rotterdam and Copenhagen, public space has been reimagined as part of the cities’ climate mitigation plan while still serving its original purpose… To be prepared for future storms requires a massive political, financial, and time investment, as well as the understanding that the “new abnormal,” as Mann said, is happening right now.
How radical should you be when you’re trying to save the planet?
Vox – September 28, 2023 – Avishay Artsy
https://www.vox.com/23892818/climate-change-activism-radical-protest-civil-disobedience
Dana R. Fisher, a professor at American University, studies climate policymaking and climate activism. Her forthcoming book, “Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action” (Columbia University Press, 2024), investigates this growing radical flank and uses data to explain the increasing use of civil disobedience within the climate movement… In my new book, I actually talk specifically about the civil rights period and the civil rights movement, which was also this broad-based movement. The civil rights movement started out as working through much more traditional institutional channels in the hope of ending Jim Crow and also to give Black Americans the vote. And younger activists or younger members of the movement got extremely frustrated with that and basically decided they needed to do more, and they decided to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience. So we saw sit-ins… And it was that process that led to more radicalization of more activists because they saw predominantly Black young people being beaten up on national television. But in addition to that, it also mobilized and motivated sympathizers to get involved in supporting the movement. And that is what a lot of scholars who study the civil rights movement say is the reason why the civil rights movement was successful, but also why we saw this big shift in policymaking in the United States. I think that we could see something very similar happen around the climate crisis, but we’re going to see a lot more civil disobedience before that happens, for sure.
The Radicalization of Climate Activism
Yes! Magazine – September 29, 2023 – Chuck Collins
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2023/09/29/climate-activism-radical
In 2022, on Earth Day, a 50-year-old Buddhist named Wynn Bruce self-immolated on the steps of the United States Supreme Court Building, just as the high court was poised to weaken laws regulating carbon emissions. Bruce’s action was motivated by a deep concern about climate change. The story of Wynn Bruce is not well known. But as it becomes clear that our political system is incapable of responding to the scale of the climate emergency unfolding before us, radical actions like Bruce’s will continue. In the coming years we are going to witness an overall escalation of activist tactics in response to the climate crisis… We can still shift the trajectory away from the worst-case scenarios if we act decisively in the next seven years, dramatically reducing fossil fuel consumption and implementing a wide range of mitigation and adaption strategies. But the first step is to stop the pipeline, if you will, of new fossil fuel infrastructure for extraction and burning. The fossil fuel industry and its leaders will not voluntarily make these changes.