It’s So Hot
Bill McKibben’s blog – November 19, 2023
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/its-so-hot
Yesterday, Nov. 18, 2023, the planet’s temperature went past the 2.0 degree Celsius barrier for the first time. It’s temporary—but it’s a terrible reminder that we’re now in the desperate end game for global warming. And yet no one noticed because—unavoidably—the world’s attention is riveted on the horrors in Gaza… on a rapidly heating planet the world cannot afford to have its attention endlessly diverted. We talk about the “ancient” nature of the Mideast conflict, and indeed it’s been contested for several thousand years. But this year saw the hottest temperatures in 125,000 years—which is to say, we’re now experiencing in real time heating that outpaces anything from a very long ways before human history. We have almost no time to slow that heating—theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we need to cut emissions in half in the next six years to have an outside shot at holding temperatures to anything like a livable level. And that means that we’ve got a duty to move on the things that are preventingaction. One, clearly, is the fight over Palestine… Even if all you cared about was this one region in the world, you’d want and need to do something about climate change. Because the land here, theoretically so sacred to all sides, is in danger of turning into an uninhabitable desert.
Greenhouse gases soared to another record and there’s ‘no end in sight’
The Washington Post – November 15, 2023 – Justine McDaniel
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/11/15/greenhouse-gases-record-high-co2/
There is “no end in sight” for growth in greenhouse gas emissions, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned, reporting that global concentrations for carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide climbed to new highs last year. The emissions of these heat-trapping gases broke records as the planet continued on a trajectory that scientists have said will probably lead to major and irreversible damage to ecosystems and communities. “We are seeing new, extremely high levels of the three main gases,” which drive the rising global temperature and extreme weather events, WMO senior scientific officer Oksana Tarasova told The Washington Post… “Despite decades of warnings from the scientific community, thousands of pages of reports and dozens of climate conferences, we are still heading in the wrong direction,” WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
World stands on frontline of disaster at Cop28, says UN climate chief
The Guardian – November 25, 2023 – Fiona Harvey
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/24/un-top-climate-official-simon-stiell-cop-28-dubai
World leaders must “stop dawdling and start doing” on carbon emission cuts, as rapidly rising temperatures this year have put everyone on the frontline of disaster, the UN’s top climate official has warned. No country could think itself immune from catastrophe, said Simon Stiell, who will oversee the crucial Cop28 climate summit that begins next week. Scores of world leaders will arrive in Dubai for tense talks on how to tackle the crisis. “We’re used to talking about protecting people on the far-flung frontlines. We’re now at the point where we’re all on the frontline,” said Stiell, speaking exclusively to the Guardian before the summit. “Yet most governments are still strolling when they need to be sprinting.”
Oil Giant Shell Makes Billions Killing Climate and Spends Millions to Crush Its Opponents
Common Dreams – November 25, 2023 – Andy Rowell and James Marriott
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/big-oil-shell-climate-activism
Whenever Shell cuts a climate commitment or threatens its critics, it loses its social license to operate. Day by day, it looks like a corporate Dodo. It may not happen tomorrow or even in the next decade, but Shell’s days are numbered. A just, equitable future does not include the bully boys from Shell who still threaten their critics. In our collective future, they will become extinct.
Texas board rejects many science textbooks over climate change messaging
The Daily Kos – The Texas Tribune – November 20, 2023
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/20/2206689/-Texas-board-rejects-many-science-textbooks-over-climate-change-messaging
A Republican-controlled Texas State Board of Education on Friday rejected seven of 12 proposed science textbooks for eighth graders that for the first time will require them to include information on climate change. The 15-member board largely rejected the books either because they included policy solutions for climate change or because they were produced by a company that has an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policy. Some textbooks were also rejected because SBOE reviewers gave the books lower scores on how well they adhered to the state’s curriculum standards… In 2021, Texas lawmakers prohibited state funds, such as the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, from contracting with or investing in companies that divest from oil, natural gas and coal companies. The SBOE’s discussions this week have reflected those trends, with board members voting against books that they said were written by companies with environmentally-friendly corporate policies or that went too far in teaching students how to advocate for climate solutions. Others wanted more emphasis on religion, or argued that scientific theories should not be taught as fact.
Actual U.S. Military Spending Reached $1.537 Trillion in 2022—More than Twice Acknowledged Level
The Monthly Review – November 1, 2023 – Gisela Cernadas and John Bellamy Foster
https://monthlyreview.org/2023/11/01/actual-u-s-military-spending-reached-1-53-trillion-in-2022-more-than-twice-acknowledged-level-new-estimates-based-on-u-s-national-accounts/
For decades, it has been recognized by independent researchers that actual U.S. military spending is approximately twice the officially acknowledged level.,, It is no wonder, then, that, taking the ten countries with the highest military spending in the world in 2022, he United States—based on its actual military spending as shown here—accounts for more than 70 percent of the total.
Israel’s Mission Impossible
The Shipler Report – November 20, 2023 – David K. Shipler
https://shiplerreport.blogspot.com/2023/11/israels-mission-impossible.html
This conflict is a clash of nationalisms, overlapping claims to land, a miasma of hateful images, and a tangle of causes and effects. It should go without saying that no cause justifies these effects. No assault can legitimize the intimate atrocities by Hamas. No atrocity can validate the whirlwind of devastation unleashed by Israel. Yet on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, the methodology is dictated by the misinterpretation of raw experience and the dehumanizing image of the other: That Jews understand only violent “resistance.” That Arabs understand only the language of force. An Israeli taxi driver summed it up in 1988, during the Palestinians’ first intifada: “We should go to the Arabs with sticks in hand, and we should beat them on the heads; we should beat them and beat them and beat them, until they stop hating us.”
‘Separating Jews and Palestinians Cannot Work’: Planning a Binational Confederation
Reader Supported News – Haaretz – November 25, 2023 – Ofra Rudner
https://www.rsn.org/001/separating-jews-and-palestinians-cannot-work-planning-a-binational-confederation.html
“A Land For All starts with the recognition that two peoples live in the space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and both of them see the whole territory as their homeland. The Jews and Palestinians who live in this land are entitled to equal civil and national rights, and therefore we propose two independent states – Israel and Palestine – in the 1967 borders [i.e., before the Six-Day War when Israel took the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights], sharing freedom of movement and residence, in order to enable everyone to realize their connection to the entire land. “Within this framework, joint institutions would be established for the two states, and Jerusalem would be an open city, the capital of both states. With a special and equal regime in it.” … “In a sense. We need to understand that the old idea of separation cannot work. We need to find a language of hope, positive values, equality, partnership and mutual respect. We need to do the work of persuasion. And yes, there is also an element here of waiting for the moment of truth.”… I think that, in the obsession with nationalism, we’ve forgotten what Judaism is as a way of being and a culture. We need to go back and think about Judaism as a culture and as an option for living alongside other communities.”
A Realistic Plan for Lasting Peace between Israel and Palestine
LA Progressive – November 21, 2023 – William Kelleher
https://www.laprogressive.com/the-middle-east/lasting-peace-between-israel-and-palestine
Here are four scenarios to consider, and perhaps discuss:.. Outsiders Do Nothing. Of course, if good people do nothing, then the worst of us are likely to prevail. .. The One State Solution. The odds are that Israel would NEVER agree to such a scheme… A Confederation. As to how it would get started, it seems unrealistic that the two, currently warring, sides would ever agree to surrender to a third party any of their power to govern themselves… A United Nations Partition. Like a judge imposing a settlement on divorcing spouses, a UN imposed partition would be a realistic solution because it would be backed by an overwhelming power to enforce it… Human life is too precious to be wasted in war. We who believe in that principle of value can get the peace process started by demanding that our federal officials, especially President Biden, instruct our UN ambassador to cooperate with the other members of the UN Security Council and use its mighty power to bring a lasting peace to the Middle East.
An Open Letter on the Misuse of Holocaust Memory
The New York Review of Books – November 20, 2023 – Omer Bartov, Christopher R. Browning, Jane Caplan, Debórah Dwork, Michael Rothberg, et al.
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/11/20/an-open-letter-on-the-misuse-of-holocaust-memory/
Appealing to the memory of the Holocaust obscures our understanding of the antisemitism Jews face today and dangerously misrepresents the causes of violence in Israel-Palestine… It is understandable why many in the Jewish community recall the Holocaust and earlier pogroms when trying to comprehend what happened on October 7—the massacres, and the images that came out in the aftermath, have tapped into deep-seated collective memory of genocidal antisemitism, driven by all-too-recent Jewish history. However, appealing to the memory of the Holocaust obscures our understanding of the antisemitism Jews face today, and dangerously misrepresents the causes of violence in Israel-Palestine. The Nazi genocide involved a state—and its willing civil society—attacking a tiny minority, which then escalated to a continent-wide genocide. Indeed, comparisons of the crisis unfolding in Israel-Palestine to Nazism and the Holocaust—above all when they come from political leaders and others who can sway public opinion —are intellectual and moral failings. At a moment when emotions are running high, political leaders have a responsibility to act calmly and avoid stoking the flames of distress and division. And, as academics, we have a duty to uphold the intellectual integrity of our profession and support others around the world in making sense of this moment.
History of ‘The Institute for Palestine Studies’ (IPS)
The Institute for Palestine Studies
https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/about/history
The Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS) was established in Beirut in 1963 as an independent non-profit research institution, unaffiliated with any political organization or government. The creation of the institute, the first of its kind in the Arab world, occurred at a time when the Palestine Question was regaining its central place in inter-Arab politics and when Palestinian identity was regaining its vitality… In an environment where Israel and its supporters had a virtual monopoly over the Israeli-Palestinian narrative, they considered that their specific role pertained to the realm of knowledge and values, and thought it necessary to initiate a sustained collective effort that would preserve, develop and disseminate an accurate account of the conflict from its origins in the nineteenth century onwards, and provide a powerful case for Palestinian historical rights.
Never Forget: Jews and Muslims have Often imagined themselves in History as Siblings and Allies
Informed Comment – November 25, 2023 – Anouar Majid
https://www.juancole.com/2023/11/imagined-themselves-siblings.html
The Moroccan-Israeli historian Michel Abitbol couldn’t have been clearer: “The transformation of Judaism following its encounter with Islam affected all aspects of Jewish life profoundly and irreversibly.” The great scholar of Jewish thought Maimonides (whose face graces the Israeli sheqel as seen above), wrote his classic Guide to the Perplexed in Judeo-Arabic. It is common today to talk about a Judeo-Christian tradition to distance the West from Islam, but one can more appropriately talk about a Judeo-Muslim one… The great Iraqi poet Ma’ruf al-Russafi wrote: “We are not, as our accusers say, enemies of the Children of Israel in secret or in public/How could we be, when they are our uncles, and the Arabs are kin to them of old through Ishmael?” … Just like Moroccan Jews in Israel and Muslim Moroccans are united by their love for their ancestral land, a better appreciation of the common heritage uniting Jews and Muslims could also help lessen tensions and establish a more durable foundation for peace.
Israel Must Loudly Arrest the Murderous West Bank Settlers
Slate – November 3, 2023 – Fred Kaplan
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/11/israel-west-bank-palestinians-settlers-violence.html
Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, settlers there have killed more than 120 Palestinians and injured at least 2,000. They have forcibly expelled more than 800 Palestinians from their homes, blown up their generators and solar panels, and burned down tents of Bedouin herders. Again: This has been going on not in Gaza but in the West Bank—which is governed by the Palestinian Authority, not by Hamas. Some of those killed were members of militant groups, but most were attacked simply because they were Palestinians. In any case, they had nothing to do with Hamas’ attack on Israel from Gaza… Israeli officials must do all this in part for Israel’s own sake—vigilante groups cannot be allowed to go on rampages in a democratic country—but, even more, to dissociate the Israeli government from these killings, to make clear that it does not equate Palestinians with Hamas and that it is committed to protecting innocent Palestinians in the West Bank.
West Bank’s settler violence problem
The Conversation – November 21, 2023 – Dana El Kurd
https://theconversation.com/west-banks-settler-violence-problem-is-a-second-sign-that-israels-policy-of-ignoring-palestinians-drive-for-a-homeland-isnt-a-long-term-solution-217177
The escalation of violence in the West Bank is neither arbitrary nor disconnected from the violence in Gaza. Instead, as a political scientist who studies Palestinian politics, I believe it should be understood in the broader context. The proliferation of armed settlers in the West Bank, the expansion of illegal settler outposts and now the increasing violence and forced displacement all stem from the same underlying policy that led to the 16-year blockade of Gaza: an Israeli policy of ignoring Palestinian national claims altogether… while the public has understandably been focused on the unprecedented destruction in Gaza, the deadly assaults by Israeli settlers on West Bank Palestinians are part of the larger picture. They should be understood as yet another manifestation of the dynamics driving recent trends in Israeli politics: a policy of nonengagement with Palestinian national claims.
Justice for the Palestinians and Security for Israel
The New York Times – November 22, 2023 – Bernie Sanders
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/opinion/bernie-sanders-israel-gaza.html
This is a humanitarian catastrophe that risks igniting a wider regional conflagration. We all want it to end as soon as possible. To make progress, however, we must grapple with the complexity of this situation that too many people on both sides want to wave away… Here are my thoughts as to the best way forward and how the United States can rally the world around a moral position that moves us toward peace in the region and justice for the oppressed Palestinian population… To achieve the political transformation that Gaza needs, new Palestinian leadership will be required as part of a wider political process… Israel must also commit to end the killings of Palestinians in the West Bank and freeze settlements there as a first step toward permanently ending the occupation. Those steps will show that peace can deliver for the Palestinian people, hopefully giving the Palestinian Authority the legitimacy it needs to assume administrative control of Gaza, likely after an interim stabilization period under an international force… The United States must make clear that while we are friends of Israel, there are conditions to that friendship and that we cannot be complicit in actions that violate international law and our own sense of decency. That includes an end to indiscriminate bombing; a significant pause to bombing so that massive humanitarian assistance can come into the region; the right of displaced Gazans to return to their homes; no long-term Israeli occupation of Gaza; an end to settler violence in the West Bank and a freeze on settlement expansion; and a commitment to broad peace talks for a two-state solution in the wake of the war.
The War in Gaza Has Galvanized the Global Indigenous Solidarity Movement
Common Dreams – November 25, 2023 – Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/gaza-indigenous-solidarity-movement
For decades, the struggle for national liberation in Palestine was rightly understood to be part and parcel of a global struggle for liberation, mainly in the Global South. And since national liberation movements were, per definition, the struggle for Indigenous people to assert their collective rights for freedom, equality, and justice, the Palestinian struggle was positioned as part of this global Indigenous movement.,, things began to change in recent years, with the revival of Indigenous movements around the world, from the Black struggle in the U.S. to the Indigenous people resurgence in North and South America, to the ultimate rise of an actual global movement, centered around landless societies and Indigenous rights, which heavily invested in global solidarity and intersectionality, allowing it to multiply its powers several times over. The common element of “decolonization”—in all its manifestations—has created intersectional links among various struggles around the world, which allowed the Palestinian struggle for liberation to fit perfectly into the new global narrative… The war in Gaza has galvanized global solidarity movements, especially those who are invested in Indigenous rights. All of this is reminiscent of the height of the anticolonial national liberation movements of decades ago.
Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024
The Economist – November 16, 2023
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/11/16/donald-trump-poses-the-biggest-danger-to-the-world-in-2024
This is a perilous moment for a man like Mr Trump to be back knocking on the door of the Oval Office. Democracy is in trouble at home. Mr Trump’s claim to have won the election in 2020 was more than a lie: it was a cynical bet that he could manipulate and intimidate his compatriots, and it has worked. America also faces growing hostility abroad, challenged by Russia in Ukraine, by Iran and its allied militias in the Middle East and by China across the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea. Those three countries loosely co-ordinate their efforts and share a vision of a new international order in which might is right and autocrats are secure… Victory would confirm his most destructive instincts about power. His plans would encounter less resistance. And because America will have voted him in while knowing the worst, its moral authority would decline.
Rachel Maddow on Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Shared Obsession
Rolling Stone – November 18, 2023 – Tim Dickinson
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/rachel-maddow-prequel-donald-trump-elon-musk-1234886350/
Rachel Maddow’s new book explores a dark episode of American history, one that flies in the face of our sanitized national narrative about the United States being the unalloyed champion of democracy that crushed foreign fascism during World War II. Prequel examines the rise of home-grown fascism in America in the 1930s and 40s — as well as notorious infiltrators from Hitler’s government who cultivated and funded the movement, even capturing hearts and minds among members of the U.S. House and Senate. The book lays out terrifying plots by fascist militant groups — with names like the Silver Shirts and the Christian Front — and highlights a cadre of would-be America Fuhrers, strongmen who wanted to rule as authoritarians at here home. Most importantly, Pequel introduces readers to a forgotten cast of American heroes who fought back, working to expose these dark machinations, and who ultimately defanged and defused America’s domestic fascist movement. Maddow spoke again with RS this week, diving into the dark themes and brave characters of her book — and the stark resonance of its lessons amid the increasingly naked fascist threats in America’s contemporary politics… There’s a reason that everybody’s starting to use some of the same red-hot language to describe what we are seeing. It feels like we’re at a “break glass in case of emergency” moment.
The connection between neofascism and capitalism
Robert Reich’s blog – November 20, 2023
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-connection-between-neofascism
As an ever-greater portion of the nation’s total wealth goes to the top, it’s hardly surprising that ever more of that wealth is corrupting American politics. Most of that money is not supporting American democracy. Increasingly, it is supporting Donald Trump and his anti-democracy allies. There is a certain logic to this. As more and more wealth accumulates at the top, the moneyed interests fear that democratic majorities will take it away through higher taxes, stricter regulations (on everything from trade to climate change), enforcement of anti-monopoly laws, pro-union initiatives, and price controls. So they’re sinking ever more of their wealth into anti-democracy candidates… Democracy is compatible with capitalism only if democracy is in the driver’s seat, so it can rein in capitalism’s excesses. But if capitalism and its moneyed interests are in charge, those excesses grow to the point where they are able to extinguish democracy and ride roughshod over the common good. Hence the reason Trump’s neofascism, and the complicity of today’s Republican Party with it, are attracting the backing of some of the richest people in America.
The Recent Explosion of Untruth Is a Warning of Things to Come
Common Dreams – November 26, 2023 – Will Bunch
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/explosion-of-untruths
“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” — George Orwell, 1984… In the ever-shrinking world of a free and fair media, the recent weeks have brought an explosion of untruth and a stepped-up war on reality. With democracy increasingly staring into the abyss both at home and abroad, propaganda and censorship are the double-edged sword of rising dictatorship. And now with violent hacking coming from both sides of the blade, it is indeed an increasing struggle to cling to the dream of truth-flavored sanity… It’s not just that the newest generation of chest-thumping strongmen are harnessing the electrons of the 21st century to hypercharge their modern Ministries of Untruth, but that the guardians of the actual truth—the newsroom grand poobahs, an American president who claims he ran to save democracy—are passively watching it slip from our hands. After Niagara Falls, and Texas, and Gaza, it’s way past time for anyone to think that “it can’t happen here,” because it’s happening now. And the next 12 months may be our last chance to show that we are not going mad, that the people want the truth, and that we will stop fact-based journalism from sliding down Orwell’s memory hole for good.
The Decision That Could End Voting Rights
The Atlantic – November 21, 2023 – Adam Serwer
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/voting-rights-act-section-2-court/676060/
The right to vote free of racial discrimination was won by blood and sacrifice, those of both the soldiers who fought to preserve the Union and the enslaved and formerly enslaved, and inscribed in the Constitution as the Fifteenth Amendment, so that sacrifice would not be in vain. But that right is also very inconvenient for the modern Republican Party, which would like to be able to discriminate against Black voters without interference from the government. Yesterday, a three-judge panel from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the law that made America a true democracy for all of its citizens, does not allow private parties to bring lawsuits challenging racial discrimination in voting, which is how the law has worked since it was passed. The decision would effectively outlaw most efforts to ensure that Americans are not denied the right to vote on the basis of race as the Fifteenth Amendment demands. “It’s hard to overstate how important and detrimental this decision would be if allowed to stand: the vast majority of claims to enforce section 2 of the Voting Rights Act are brought by private plaintiffs, not the Department of Justice with limited resources,” the election-law expert Rick Hasen wrote on his website. “If minority voters are going to continue to elect representatives of their choice, they are going to need private attorneys to bring those suits.”… The fate of the right to vote free of racial discrimination is in the hands of powerful conservative men who, like the justices at the twilight of Reconstruction, have never considered it all that significant.
Moving from Punishment to Accountability
Yes! Magazine – November 22, 2023 – Kung Li Sun
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2023/11/22/murmurations-prison-abolition-accountability
The path forward, it seems, is a return to what was—and what remains, as an undercurrent—once abundantly present on this land: reciprocity, democracy, and collectivism. Abolitionists see the revolutionary possibilities of this moment. It is now possible and necessary, per Ruthie Wilson Gilmore, to Change Everything. Abolition’s goal is not a better justice system, but a world free of prisons, police, and justices of the King’s peace altogether. The work is not to reform, but to dismantle. The bend toward such a radically different world is not assured. It will, in fact, be vigorously and violently resisted by the existing system, which will use the criminal justice system, its most powerful weapon, to try and crush attempts to replace it. Case in point: the RICO indictment of StopCopCity activists cites mutual aid and collectivism as evidence of criminal conspiracy… In the spirit of gong’an, (in Zen, a koan) we know that we don’t know. This paradoxical riddle will first disorient us. And from this disoriented place, our commitment is to be diligent in practice—to be creative, and brave, and try wildly different things, and learn from the many inevitable failures, and try something else, and yet again something else. These are the million experiments Mariame Kaba encourages us to try—experiments we can and must undertake with a radical lack of certainty. In this way, we just might fumble our way into building not only a true system of accountability, but a whole new world.
This Thanksgiving, Consider the Wellbeing of Family Farmers
Portside – November 23, 2023 – Tommy Enright
https://portside.org/2023-11-23/thanksgiving-consider-wellbeing-family-farmers
The call for a new, comprehensive five-year farm bill echoes loudly. Wisconsin Farmers Union is raising its voice, emphasizing the urgent need to address issues plaguing family farmers and the agricultural sector as a whole… WFU’s commitment to modernizing the farm bill reflects a keen awareness of the challenges faced by farmers in today’s rapidly evolving agricultural landscape. Growing concentration in the agricultural sector, dairy oversupply, the decline of small and mid-sized farms, soil and water health concerns, and the looming threats of climate change demand a comprehensive legislative approach… This Thanksgiving, let’s not only savor the meal on our plate but also reflect on bolstering the farmers that produced it. By supporting initiatives that prioritize the well-being of family farmers, we can ensure that future generations continue to enjoy the rich harvests that have come to define this quintessential American holiday.
Healing From Colonization on Thanksgiving and Beyond
Yes! Magazine – November 21, 2023 – Edgar Villanueva and Hilary Giovale
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2019/11/27/thanksgiving-colonial-gap-heal
Edgar Villanueva and Hilary Giovale share an ancestral bond that is far from unique, but one that is rarely acknowledged. Edgar is a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. For generations, his family has lived in the same region where Hilary’s ancestor received a land grant after his family migrated from Scotland in 1739. Now 280 years later, Edgar and Hilary reach across the Thanksgiving table to bridge the painful colonial gap… [Edgar:] As a Native American, I’m often troubled by the way that Americans approach Thanksgiving. By holding onto an idealized image of a harmonious feast between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag, we’ve overlooked the brutality that Native people have faced since the arrival of Europeans. For many Native Americans, Thanksgiving is a day of mourning and remembrance—a reminder of the genocide of our people, the loss of our way of life, and the theft of our ancestral lands… When we build bridges from the ashes of the colonial gap, the ensuing relationships are things for which we can really be grateful at Thanksgiving and beyond.
A Message of Thanksgiving
Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner blog – November 21, 2023
https://steady.substack.com/p/a-message-of-thanksgiving
We should balance a recognition of the immense challenges we confront with an understanding that there are also harvests of hope. All our lives represent a blend of triumph and defeat, happiness and disappointment. But some of us face far greater struggles than others. That is why Thanksgiving is ultimately about much more than a personal state of thankfulness. It is about creating a society that supports one another… It might be hard to remember sometimes, but there is a lot of goodness in this world. It far outweighs the bad. Sadly, it is just a lot easier to be destructive than productive. And that is what makes the progress this nation has seen over the course of its short history all the more remarkable. We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. There are powerful forces trying to push us backward. But with thanksgiving in our hearts and determination in our actions, we can forge a brighter future, if we do it together.