Campaigning for Democracy And Socialism |
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Putin and Russia have been at the top of the news in the past 10 days for a variety of reasons.
This morning, Feb 16, we learned of the death of Aleksei Navalny, age 47, in a remote Siberian prison above the Arctic Circle. No cause of death was yet given, but we know for sure only a few years ago, Navalny survived an attempt to kill him with a nerve toxin, unavailable to anyone outside certain circles.
Navalny was imprisoned for a list of crimes, including, at the top, his opposition to Putin's 'special military operation' against Ukraine (In Russia, you can be busted simply for calling it a 'war). But Navalny committed a much greater 'crime,' leading an antifascist opposition to Putin's rule, one offering a different vision of both Russia's past and a for a different and more democratic future. It's worth noting that minor parties are allowed in Russia's elections. But they need to carefully observe an unwritten rule: always remain 'minor' and not too critical of the new tsar at the top. Whatever other charges were made against him, breaking this one made Navalny a subject of imprisonment and assassination plotting. In our theoretical piece this week, we offer a Navalny article published in 2022. Make what you will of it. We'll also include a report on Boris Kagarlitsky's recent re-imprisonment.
But a second matter, the topic of our weekly cartoon above, also put Putin on page one. Tucker Carlson had made his way to Moscow to interview Putin, not quite knowing what to expect. At the opening, Putin offered him a choice, did he want 'a show' or 'a dialogue.' Tucker chose the latter, although it might be better described as a two-hour monologue.
Our major media outlets plucked out a few juicy bits about Ukraine, but mainly panned Putin's talk as 'boring medieval history.' But as Marxists, we're quite interested in history, both our own views of it and the views of our adversaries, both domestic and abroad. So boring or not, we looked it over.
For starters, Putin reminded us that Russia's history was long, over 1000 years, much richer, by implication, than any 250-year-old youngsters still wet behind the ears. What was more interesting is how he told it, not as a history from below but from the top. It was a tsarists' version of history (note that 'Tsar' is derived from the Russian version of 'Caesar'). For those of us familiar with Lenin's account of the the Russian Empire as 'a prison house of nations,' the first thing we'll note in Putin's account is the absence of the term, replaced by Russia as 'family,' and a family that kept gathering a variety of lost relatives back into the fold, and thus welcome at family reunions.
Putin starts in the 900s CE, but really attributes the first in-gathering of relatives to Tsar Ivan IV, aka 'The Terrible,' 1547-1584, the first to be named 'Tsar of all Russia,' meaning he asserted dominance over the entire prison of nations and started the streltsy (standing army) and the oprichniki (secret police) to make it so. For curious reasons, Putin brushes over the first tsars, including the various Vladimirs. Most likely, the reason was they were Swedes or too intermarried with Swedes, and vassals of Swedes. The Swedes called the people in the area they dominated 'the Rus,' which is how Russia got its name.
So Putin plants a flag with Ivan IV and briskly moves forward, weaving a tale that quickly brings Ukraine into Russia's fold. It's not really a separate country, you see, even the name simply means 'lands on the edge' of the Empire. In brief, for Russia to be Russia again, this wayward cousin needs to brought back to sit at the family reunion table. Those asserting otherwise are expressing the views of the Germans and, later, the Nazis who occupied that 'part of Russia' for a spell. Can a negotiated settlement with Ukraine bring an end to the conflict there? 'Of course,' Putin tells Carlson. But not without 'DeNazifying' the territory. Elsewhere, Putin had dismissed Lenin's position on 'self-determination, including the right to secede,' for all the imprisoned nations under the tsars, as simply a 'mistaken' viewpoint
Much of this was reported, in bits, about Carlson's interview. But one fascinating piece was not, and it says something about Putin's views of fascism and World War 2. Today it's widely held, both by the left and others as well, that WW2 got its start with 'appeasement' at Munich followed quickly by the Third Reich's takeover of Czechoslovakia and adsorption of Austria, followed quickly by Hitler's invasion of Poland, knowing full well this meant war with the UK and others in Europe.
But according to Putin, we would be wrong. Here's what he told Tucker:
"So before World War II, Poland collaborated with Hitler and although it did not yield to Hitler’s demands, it still participated in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia together with Hitler. As the Poles had not given the Danzig Corridor to Germany, and went too far, pushing Hitler to start World War II by attacking them. Why was it Poland against whom the war started on 1 September 1939? Poland turned out to be uncompromising, and Hitler had nothing to do but start implementing his plans with Poland.'
So the Poles started it by refusing to give up Gdansk. Hitler had no choice. In a way, Putin is telling us about today. Applying the same logic, his 'little green men' (aka, Russian volunteers with their insignias removed and sent into the Dombas circa 2014), just wanted Ukraine's easternmost provinces (for starters). But the stubborn 'Nazified' rulers in Kiev refused to give them up, and thus they started the war, leaving Putin no choice. Putin, you see, is fighting fascism and defending Christendom.
Nice try, Vlad, but no cigar--at least from this corner of the left. What's truly amazing about our time, however, is the emergence of the GOP as Putin's ally. Ideologically, they share a contempt for democracy, especially if it means practicing consistent democracy regarding sexuality and gender roles. Pussy Riot, the Russian girl rockers, got busted for that.
It's easier to understand if we look at Trump's past using the well-known tool, 'follow the money.' Long before Trump aimed at being POTUS, he was in bed with Russian oligarchs. After Trump's failures in Atlantic city casinos, they bailed him out from near bankruptcy. At first, all Trump wanted was a hotel in Moscow and beauty pageants there. But Putin, the KGB expert on handling 'assets,' aimed higher. Keep this naive mark on a leash. We have bigger plans for him.
So long story short: we now have a Trump bloc in Congress willing to hand over Ukraine and even consider wrecking NATO. The old curse attributed to ancient Chinese seers is: 'May you live in interesting times.' For those of us who cut our political teeth in the years of Cold War, the political terrain today is certainly something we never imagined. But here it is, and it's wise to deal with it, and not deny or minimize it.
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WE ARE INVITING FEEDBACK!
Please send us your letters, comments, queries, complaints, new ideas. Just keep them short and civil. Longer commentaries and be submitted as articles.
DIFFICULTY READING US?
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We're going to try something new, and you are all invited.
Saturday Morning Coffee!
Started in August 2022, then going forward every week.
It will be more of a hangout than a formal setting. We can review the news in the previous days' LeftLinks or add a new topic. We can invite guests or carry on with those who show up. We'll try to have a progressive stack keeper should we need one.
Most of all, we will try to be interesting and a good sounding board. If you have a point you would like to make or a guest to invite, send an email to Carl Davidson, carld717@gmail.com
Continuing weekly, 10:30 to Noon, EDT.
The Zoom link will also be available on our Facebook Page.
Meeting ID: 868 9706 5843
Let's see what happens!
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Yo, WE, the 52nd contingent of the Venceremos Brigade is excited to share with you all the brigade application. You can fill out the application at bit.ly/VB52application!
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Join Us This Sunday
at 4pm ET/1pm PT
Join us Sunday at 4pm et/1pm pt. The Reparations Movement Continues to Build Momentum at the Local, State, and Federal Levels.
Reparations Advocate Jeffrey Trask will give us an update and let us know how we can support the cause.
We want to know how Progressives can Triumph in 2024 and Beyond. RSVP Now!
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Confirmed speakers
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Ajamu Baraka (Coordinating Committee Chairperson, Black Alliance for Peace)
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Bahman Azad (President, US Peace Council)
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Sara Flounders (Co-director, the International Action Center)
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Danny Haiphong (Youtuber; Author, 'American Exceptionalism and American Innocence')
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Dee Knight (DSA International Committee's Anti-War Subcommittee)
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Lee Siu Hin (Founder, China-US Activist Solidarity Project)
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Charles Xu (Writer and researcher, Qiao Collective)
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Radhika Desai (Convenor, International Manifesto Group)
- Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament
- Communist Party USA International Department
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The Quest for
Governing Power:
2024 Elections and Beyond
All sessions will take place
Wednesdays in March 2024
at 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Civic Engagement & Leadership Development Seminars
CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies @CUNYSLU
All sessions will be held via Zoom.
Special Note for LeftLinks Readers:
March 27, 2024 -
6:30pm - 8:30pm (ET)
Session #4: "Re-Making Elections: New Rules for Winning" Guest speakers:
Maria Poblet - co-editor, Power Concedes Nothing; Executive Director, Grassroots Power Project
Max Elbaum - co-editor, Power Concedes Nothing; Member, Convergence Magazine editorial board
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Christine Geovanis, 1959-2024,Presente!
Christine Anne Geovanis, communications director of the Chicago Teachers Union and a lifelong and passionate advocate for social justice, has died.
Born in South Chicago Community Hospital in 1959 to Thomas Geovanis, a former steelworker who became a Chicago City Colleges professor, and Rita Geovanis, nee Van Curen, who became an Early Childhood Education teacher and director, Chris grew up in the Roseland and Austin neighborhoods, where she attended Brennan and Ella Flagg Young schools. Chris completed elementary school at Charles E. Piper and graduated from Morton West High School in Berwyn.
The eldest of five siblings, Chris began her social justice work at a very young age, canvassing door-to-door for progressive political candidates and defending the rights of Palestinians to their homeland during elementary and high school. During two years at the University of Chicago, she honed her critical thinking, writing, and speaking skills, and she continued to develop her strong artistic skills through classes at U. of C. and at The Art Institute of Chicago.
While working for the University of Chicago in the 1980s, she also used her writing talents to help non-profit organizations and small community-based organizations find grant money for their programs. She became an ardent supporter of community-focused political candidates, many of whom were undermined and whose campaign workers were physically harassed by the Daley political machine. She worked for Chuy Garcia in one of his earliest campaigns and organized precinct turnout for Miguel Del Valle during one of his re-election campaigns for the Illinois State Senate.
Chris had a 17-year career in Cook County Government in employee communications. In 2017 she began working for the Chicago Teachers Union as Communications Director. Her messaging helped rally broad support for teachers during the 2019 strike. She also helped the Union communicate its focus on educational equity throughout the district. Chris enjoyed warm relationships with many of the education reporters in the city and suburbs, while serving the interests of CPS teachers and staff under CTU presidents Karen Lewis, Jesse Sharkey, and Stacy Gates.
A superb baker and cook, Chris held a Master Gardener certificate and created an enormous garden, growing herbs, strawberries, tomatoes, beans, and much more. She also drew and painted in pastels, pencils, and oils.
In 1992, she met the love of her life and her collaborator in social justice work, Dick Reilly. Together over 27 years, they started HammerHard MediaWorks and Chicago Indymedia, two alternative news media sites providing community-driven journalism free of corporate interests. They also helped found Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism, a mainstay organization mobilizing opposition to the US invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq in 2003. ...Read More
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Black Antifascism
in Spain and Beyond:
Reframing the Experience
of Black Volunteers in the
Spanish Civil War
Join Us!
Monday, February 26, 2024
3 PM ET / 12 PM PT
Online Event!
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If We Burn: Mass Protest
and Political Strategy
for the 21st Century
Tue, Feb 20
@ 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
What can the last fifteen years of worldwide mass protests teach us about strategy and organization for socialism? Street protests and organizing from Seattle WTO to Occupy and on to George Floyd Black Lives Matter demonstrated new tactics, new generations of activists, and new lessons about the future. Likewise, worldwide protests from the Arab Spring to Latin America, Europe, and Hong Kong also struck hard and have brought many important lessons. Join us for reading and discussion probing three connected themes:
I. Mass street protest since Occupy.
We will analyze the rich legacy of largely leaderless mass mobilizations as well as new labor struggles, locally and globally, over the last fifteen years.
II. Crowdsourcing the Revolution: Digital possibilities, real-world limitations in networked movements.
How has digital communications media changed the organizing landscape since the Arab Spring? A critical assessment of the politics and practicalities of digital networking and communication for effective political strategies.
III. From mass mobilization to accumulating power against capitalism: new long-term strategy for socialism.
What remains important, and what has changed in connecting strategy and organization?
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A review of Michael Zweig's 'Class, Race, and Gender: Challenging the Injuries and Divisions of Capitalism'
By Jeff Crosby
LIBERATION ROAD
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Last Week's Saturday Morning Coffee
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News of the Week, Plus More
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Donald Trump exits New York State Supreme Court on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. JEENAH MOON/GETTY IMAGES
How Jack Smith Became the Worst Part
of Trump’s Historically Lousy Week
The former president’s legal woes have packed headlines, but the special counsel’s filing in the January 6 case has somehow flown under the radar.
By Michael Tomasky
The New Republic
Feb 16, 2024 - The big headlines Friday morning concerned Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and the combative testimony Thursday she offered concerning her affair with Nathan Wade. But that wasn’t the big story of the week on the Donald Trump legal front. In fact, it may have been about fifth.
What’s bigger? Let’s start with Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to deny Trump’s attorneys’ bid to delay pretrial motions in the case she’s hearing, about Trump’s removal of classified documents from the White House. Cannon, you’ll recall, was appointed by Trump. After the documents case landed so unserendipitously in her lap, she made a series of nakedly pro-Trump rulings; the 11th Circuit vacated one order of hers that would have helped Trump delay the proceedings. She also blocked federal investigators from examining the material seized by the FBI, a decision eviscerated by legal experts. So maybe she’s gotten the message that she’d better be a real judge, not a sycophant.
Trump also was dealt a blow this week when Juan Merchan, the judge in the Stormy Daniels hush-money trial, dismissed another attempt at delay by Trump’s lawyers. That trial will start, as scheduled, on March 25.
And—no, it doesn’t stop!—another judge, Arthur Engoron, is supposed to hand down his decision in the penalty phase of the civil suit brought by the New York attorney general against the Trump Organization. AG Letitia James is seeking $370 million. There are reasons to think that that number may be on the low end of where Engoron will land.
But for my money, the worst part of Trump’s week came in the filing by special counsel Jack Smith to the Supreme Court in response to the Trump team’s request for a stay on that trial, which is the January 6 insurrection case. In a 40-page filing, Smith and his attorneys dismantled Trump’s arguments one by one. Smith had until February 20 to file this response, but he did it eight days early and he means business:
- “The charged crimes strike at the heart of our democracy. A President’s alleged criminal scheme to overturn an election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power to his successor should be the last place to recognize a novel form of absolute immunity from federal criminal law. Applicant seeks a stay to prevent proceedings in the district court from moving towards trial, which the district court had scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024, before applicant’s interlocutory appeal necessitated postponement of that date. Applicant cannot show, as he must to merit a stay, a fair prospect of success in this Court.”
Why is this filing so important? Three reasons. First, Smith urges the Court to act quickly. He still wants the trial to start in March. If the Court agrees, picture it: Trump on trial in two separate courtrooms, on charges that strike precisely at the heart of the two biggest manifestations of his moral turpitude: In New York, as a private citizen, as a man, who treats women like garbage; in Washington, as a public, um, servant who mocks the Constitution and believes that no law applies to him. It will be perfect stereo spectacle for Americans to spend the spring observing.
Second, while it’s true that we’re dealing with a very politicized Supreme Court here, and it’s obviously that at least two justices (Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas) will rule for Trump on just about anything, Smith’s response makes a very strong set of arguments that should appeal to at least some of the Court’s conservative originalists. “The Framers,” Smith writes, “did not provide any explicit textual source of immunity to the President.”
And third: The Smith case is the most important of all, for the simple reason that inciting the January 6 insurrection is the worst thing Trump has done. Granted there is stiff competition for his most mortal sin. But egging on a crowd to overthrow the government and hang your own vice president still takes the cake. If Smith succeeds in convincing the Supremes to expedite this case and goes on to win a pre-election conviction, that ought to seal Trump’s fate. Some recent polls have shown that swing state swing voters would be highly disinclined to vote for Trump if convicted of a crime. ...Read More
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Photo: President Joe Biden speaks at the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C., February 12, 2024. MICHAEL BROCHSTEIN/SIPA USA VIA AP IMAGES
Trump to the Rescue
Yes, it’s a low bar, but Biden is the picture of cognitive clarity compared to Trump.
By Robert Kuttner
The American Prospect
Feb 12, 2024 - The press has belatedly acknowledged that the special counsel’s report on President Biden’s alleged memory lapses was a crude hit job. But the intended damage has been done.
Media attention is now obsessed with Biden’s age and cognitive capacity. That in turn revs up public concerns. Meanwhile, Biden’s handlers try to keep him out of spontaneous settings where he might commit one of his trademark gaffes.
Though Biden is prone to slips of the tongue, on the whole he is all there mentally and fully involved in very challenging policy dilemmas. One can fault him for specific policy choices, most notably his blank check to Netanyahu, but that is a separate issue. It has everything to do with a long-standing bias in America’s Mideast policy and nothing to do with presidential comprehension.
The problem is that the relentless drip-drip of stories that Biden is too old for the job reinforces public perceptions and concerns. While Biden can’t change his age or his appearance, there are some things he can do. He can sit for extended one-on-one televised conversations with serious journalists and demonstrate his grasp of complex public issues. He can take more risks than his handlers want in spontaneous public events.
If this strategy works, the Biden-is-too-old issue will start to fade. If it doesn’t work and he can’t handle these formats, that is useful data and Democratic leaders will get more serious about asking Biden to step aside.
In the meantime, Biden has one not-so-secret weapon—Donald Trump. Unlike Biden’s occasional slips, Trump’s off-the-cuff lunacy demonstrates either extreme recklessness or advancing dementia or both. The latest example is his comment about NATO at a political rally on Saturday in South Carolina.
Trump complained about “delinquent” payments by some NATO countries and recounted a supposed past conversation with the head of “a big country” about an attack by Russia on such countries. “No, I would not protect you. In fact I would encourage them [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay,” Trump said he told the leader.
Biden, several leading Republicans, and key Europeans all expressed outrage. There will be more comments like these, in which Trump comes across as unhinged. And the more that the election becomes a one-on-one comparison, the more the contrast will favor Biden.
Let’s see: momentarily mixing up Mexico and Egypt. Or deliberately and willfully abandoning Europe to Putin. Which one is cognitively impaired?
Needless to say, I wish Biden (or some other Democratic incumbent running for re-election) were 61 rather than 81. But put Biden up directly against Trump and the contrast isn’t even close. ...Read More
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Photo: An Israeli flag can be seen inside Gaza Strip, looking in from the Israeli side of the border, on November 11, 2023 [Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters]
The Anatomy Of Zionist Genocide
What are the motivations behind Israel’s genocidal acts in Gaza, and what is the way forward?
By Yoav Litvin
al-Jazeera
Dec 21, 2023 - On October 7, Hamas fighters breached the Gaza prison fence, launching a coordinated attack on at least seven Israeli military installations and more than 20 surrounding residential communities. Over 1000 Israeli citizens, both civilian and military, as well as dozens of foreign nationals, were killed in the attack. Some 240 others were taken captive.
Caught off guard and in disarray, the Israeli military responded to the attack in a frenzy, firing indiscriminately on breached localities, slaying Israeli captives alongside Hamas fighters in the process. It took the Israeli forces nearly a day to recapture all lost territory and secure the Gaza perimeter.
Following Hamas’s unprecedented incursion, Israel’s public relations apparatus launched a misinformation campaign aimed at inciting fear and fury and began to spread unverified atrocity propaganda. The campaign, involving tales of babies being “beheaded en masse”, “burned” and “hung on a clothesline”, helped transform the Israeli public’s shock into genocidal tribalism and diverted attention from Israel’s political, intelligence and military blunders that paved the way for the attack in the first place. The campaign also helped the government garner crucial public support for mass mobilisation of reserve units which made the consequent full-scale ground invasion of the Gaza Strip possible.
After securing unconditional military, political and diplomatic backing of its imperial sponsors in the West, most notably in Washington, and under the pretext of countering Hamas and rescuing captives, Israel then initiated what has since been accurately described as an AI-guided “mass assassination campaign” in Gaza.
Ten weeks on, most of Gaza is now destroyed, nearly 20,000 Palestinians are dead with many more still under the rubble, and the world continues to watch a genocide unfold in real time. Examining these events through a behavioral-neuroscientific lens could offer insights into the Zionist settler colonialist dynamic in general and the particular motivations behind Israel’s current genocidal acts in Gaza, as well as potential paths forward.
The pillars of Zionist propaganda
In response to historical trauma, Jewish people have a deep fear of anti-Semitism. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this fear, along with disdain for oppressors, led to the formation of autonomous Jewish self-defense groups in various geographies.
Zionism, a European colonial movement, recognized the potential of this dynamic. It syncretized Jewish longing for safety and self-defense with white supremacist, messianic and fascistic ideologies. This synthesis birthed a new, nationalist Jewish identity that equates Jewish safety with the construction of an exclusivist homeland in Palestine through the displacement of the region’s Indigenous populations.
Settler colonial endeavors typically depend on depicting the targeted territory as “uninhabited”, and its existing inhabitants as inhuman barbarians unworthy of any land.
This portrayal allowed Zionists to displace the Indigenous population of Palestine without moral qualms, portraying the establishment of Israel not as the destruction of a people but as the construction of a “villa in the jungle”.
Within the Israeli society grounded in land and resource theft, offensive aggression under the guise of “self-defense” (as in “Israel Defense Force”) has been rewarded and reinforced from the very beginning and consequently became a routine part of life. By reinstating fear and hijacking trauma associated with past and present negative experiences of Jewish people, Zionist leaders ensured the settler population’s continued support for aggressive, expansionist, hegemonic, genocidal policies and shielded their corruption and other criminal endeavors from public scrutiny.
To maintain Israel’s violently oppressive status quo and expand the territory of the settler colony, Zionists opportunistically conflated their colonial ideology with Judaism.
Citing divine dispensation, radical, far-right settlers have been encouraged to seize hilltops on Palestinian land, expel those living there, and form illegal outposts. These outposts are later fortified by the Israeli military and eventually “legalized” by the Zionist state.
Beyond justifying violent land theft, the conflation of Zionism and Judaism serves to delegitimize Indigenous resistance by equating any criticism of Zionism or Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians as an attack on Jews. Further, it hinders anticolonial resistance by portraying a political struggle over land and resources between occupying settlers backed by imperial forces and an Indigenous-occupied people as a supposed ancient religious “conflict” between equals.
This conflation encourages Zionist appropriation and exceptionalization of Jewish victimhood. Israeli hasbara presents the Holocaust as an unparalleled genocide, granting Jews special victim status. This narrative justifies privileges, discounts and allowances for Israel as the “Jewish state” constructed to ensure the safety of Jews, at the expense of Indigenous Palestinians. Notably, Zionist revisionism often neglects and downplays Nazi crimes against other oppressed groups, including communists, socialists, Roma, disabled individuals, LGBTQI and African Germans.
The liberal wing of Zionism serves to whitewash the reactionary core of the movement and conceal its true objectives – expansionism and apartheid. Misleadingly, Liberal Zionists portray Zionism as an ideology aligned with democratic, progressive values and human rights, falsely projecting a genuine commitment to peace, justice and full integration into the Middle East.
Fear and genocidal fervor
Until October 7, Israel upheld its founding aspiration, enforcing a doctrine of endless occupation while oscillating between implicit and explicit forms of genocide, the latter often described as “mowing the lawn” in reference to Israel’s periodical attacks on Gaza since its 2005 “withdrawal” from the besieged Palestinian enclave. During this time, Israeli Zionists reaped the benefits of Palestinian land and its resources in a modern, affluent, supposedly democratic consumer paradise, fostering robust connections and identification with white US and Europe and oil/cash-rich Gulf monarchies, rather than its immediate neighbors.
On October 7, intense fear and shock gripped Israeli society, presenting Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government with a golden opportunity to quash rising dissent against corruption, and please his coalition members with a genocidal land grab.
Fear in Israel is sustained through militarization, anti-Palestinian narratives, reframing resistance as “terrorism,” remembering past atrocities, focusing on perceived threats and promoting segregation, ie, apartheid. Chronic fear induces symptoms akin to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), making the Israeli population prone to aggression masked as “self-defense”.
The toxic mix of fear, dehumanizing propaganda, rewards for aggression and intense apartheid has bred a lack of empathy in Israelis toward Palestinians. Despite claiming the Gaza conflict as “self-defense”, Israeli leaders openly blame Palestinian society as a whole, essentially sanctioning collective punishment of civilians. Daily, Israeli institutional leaders mock Palestinian culture and cheerlead the torture, displacement and annihilation of Palestinians, revealing a disturbing genocidal mindset.
The path forward
On October 7, the carefully constructed Zionist facade of incremental genocide within a liberal/democratic framework collapsed, exposing Israel’s genocidal and fascistic core. Zionists in Israel and beyond did not mourn the end of this charade, and instead celebrated their newfound freedom to kill and destroy Palestinians without any restraint or pretense. This development not only poses a threat of elimination to the Palestinian people but since the Occupied Territories are used as a laboratory for the development and testing of new military technology and strategies, it could also set the stage for similar violent escalations against oppressed communities in the Global South as well as against BIPOC and immigrant communities within the Global North.
Israel’s genocidal behavior in Gaza and elsewhere in historic Palestine resonates with patterns seen in the Stanford prison experiment and the Milgram obedience study. In the latter, individuals, swayed by authority, had administered potentially lethal shocks to other participants.
For Zionists to break their addiction to aggression, they would need to go through a process of deprogramming and decolonization. This would require them to embrace the truth about the history and nature of Zionism, commit to sincere accountability, recognize the humanity of Palestinians, and empathise with their suffering and plight. Once the oppressive structure, Zionism, is disassembled, it can be effectively dismantled, paving the way for a process of rehumanization and reconciliation through the use of empathy. Liberation, reconciliation and an end to Israel’s genocidal violence can only be achieved within a steadfast and unwavering anti-Zionist framework that aligns with wider leftist, antiracist, anticolonial values.
Dedicated to the late Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Yoav Litvin is an Israeli-American doctor of psychology/neuroscience, a writer and photographer. His work can be found at yoavlitvin.com. ...Read More
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Just Say No To Netanyahu
Calls for ceasefire in Gaza grow louder
By Dave Anderson
Boulder Weekly
Feb 14, 2024 - On Feb. 1, a large crowd urged the Boulder City Council to pass a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. The Boulder Reporting Lab described a raucous and chaotic scene with five recesses and lots of chanting and shouted insults.
A majority of the council declined to take a stand, citing a city code provision. Councilwoman Lauren Folkerts sensibly suggested that the city’s Human Relations Commission advise the council on “how we can help our community engage in productive dialogue and healing given the trauma associated with this topic.”
It’s almost impossible to have a reasonable conversation about the conflict. People are afraid of being called anti-Semites or Islamophobes. But we need more than polite talks. Many Arab and Muslim Americans are saying they won’t vote for Biden because he is funding mass murder.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a roundtable discussion with Palestinian Americans about the situation in Gaza. A number of invitees refused to meet with him.
Dr. Tariq Haddad, a Virginia cardiologist, had initially intended to go to the meeting. Instead, he wrote a 12-page letter to Blinken saying “I cannot in good conscience meet with you today knowing this administration’s policies have been responsible for the death of over 80 of my family members including dozens of children, the suffering of hundreds of my remaining family, the famine my family is currently subjected to and the destruction of all my family’s homes.”
This war started with a killing spree of spectacular depravity on last Oct. 7 by Hamas and allied groups. The Center for Strategic and International Studies says it was the “third-deadliest terrorist attack since data collection began in 1970.” It was the most traumatic event in Israeli history.
Under the cover of rocket barrages fired from Gaza, they killed indiscriminately in the streets, houses, kibbutz communities and at a rave music festival. According to Israeli social security data, the final death toll is thought to be 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139. More than 240 hostages were taken.
President Biden warned Israel not to make the same mistakes the U.S. made after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Various analysts of terrorism said Hamas was deliberately provoking Israel into an emotional and horrific excessive retaliation.
It worked. In a recent speech at the Center for International Policy, Sen. Bernie Sanders said that in just four months of war, 27,000 Palestinians have been killed and 67,000 have been wounded. He noted that two-thirds of the dead and wounded are women and children and that 1.7 million — 80% of the population — have been driven from their homes. Many hundreds of thousands are facing starvation.
Sanders introduced a resolution to compel the State Department, within 30 days, to determine if Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. He was invoking a rarely-used provision of a decades-old law that prohibits security assistance to any country where the government engages in a “consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”
The resolution was voted down 72 votes to 11. Progressives in Congress have also introduced a resolution urging Biden to call for an immediate ceasefire.
On Feb. 11, The Washington Post reported that “President Biden and his top aides are closer to a breach” with Netanyahu than at any time since the war began. The article was based on interviews with 19 anonymous senior administration officials and outside advisers.
The president has known Netanyahu for more than 40 years and “has been largely reluctant to take his private frustrations public so far. … But he is slowly warming to the idea. … As Netanyahu continues to infuriate Biden officials with public humiliations and prompt rejections of basic U.S. demands.”
However, many of Biden’s allies say that “even a sharp rhetorical shift will have little effect unless the United States starts imposing conditions on its support for Israel.”
Biden has issued a national security memorandum aimed at ensuring that countries receiving U.S. weapons abide by certain guidelines. He also issued an executive order sanctioning four West Bank settlers for violence against Palestinians.
In February, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, told The Wall Street Journal that Biden was hampering Israel’s war effort.
“Instead of giving us his full backing, Biden is busy with giving humanitarian aid and fuel (to Gaza), which goes to Hamas,” he said. “If Trump was in power, the U.S. conduct would be completely different.”
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Photo: Pregnant woman receiving an ultrasound...FDA
The GOP’s Next Target? Prenatal Tests
The cruelty to women is the point
By Jessica Valenti
Abortion, Everyday via Portside
Feb 14, 2024 - For months, I’ve been tracking the anti-abortion movement’s quiet campaign to force women to carry nonviable pregnancies to term. Their plan includes changing legislation and medical guidelines, forcing doctors to lie to women about their pregnancies, and requiring that women meet with anti-abortion “counselors” before ending a doomed pregnancy.
These days, though, I’m keeping a close eye on another part of that broader strategy: attacks on prenatal testing. And this piece from Associated Press is a good reminder of why, exactly, conservatives are going after women’s ability to find out as much as possible about their pregnancies.
The AP piece looks at how important prenatal testing has become in post-Roe America, and how women—especially those in states with bans—are increasingly relying on early testing. Doctors say more and more patients are asking for early ultrasounds and more genetic screenings; the hope, obviously, is to catch any issues as quickly as possible.
The article gets into the various kinds of prenatal testing and ultrasounds that patients receive—and the massive problem of timing. Many of these tests aren’t done until after some states’ legal limit for abortion care. With ultrasounds, for example, you can’t see details of the fetus until a certain, later, point in pregnancy. Still, patients are asking for those ultrasounds at 10 to 13 weeks so they can have abortions under the wire if necessary.
The other issue is that genetic testing results can sometimes take weeks to come back—that’s time that patients don’t have when they live in a state with an abortion ban. North Carolina OBGYN Dr. Clayton Alfonso said, “More people are trying to find these things out earlier to try to fit within the confines of laws that in my mind don’t have a place in medical practice.”
The anti-abortion movement knew that all of this would happen after Roe was overturned—they knew that women would be desperate to get prenatal tests, and that the timing would be a big issue. That’s why prenatal testing is such a huge part of their campaign.
The short version is that the anti-abortion movement simply doesn’t want women to know what’s going on with their pregnancies. They’re ready to “counsel” those who get devastating diagnoses, but it’s even better for them if a pregnant person never finds out that there’s a problem to begin with.
That’s why anti-abortion activists are ramping up claims that prenatal tests are inaccurate, that the “testing industry” is corrupt, and that women need to be protected from genetic tests and ultrasounds. As such, their plan includes a few tactics:
Passing legislation that would require doctors to tell patients that “no test is 100% accurate” or that they might be ending a healthy pregnancy. (The cruelty is the point.)
Requiring that hospitals direct patients who are given fatal fetal diagnoses to anti-abortion “prenatal counselors” and groups, who will then give those patients fake or misleading information about the reliability of prenatal testing.
Spreading scare-tactics about prenatal tests to shame women out of taking them, using the language of “informed consent.” The idea is to dissuade patients who have gotten initial test results (like from bloodwork) from further testing. They’ll highlight the possible risk of miscarriage, and use language that suggests ‘responsible’ parents would never agree to tests like an amniocentesis.
In addition to all of these truly horrific policies, Republicans are also going to be pushing the FDA to reconsider the approval of some of prenatal tests. Mark my words. In the same way that they’ve been going after the FDA to repeal mifepristone approval, they are absolutely going to target prenatal tests.
Remember, it wasn’t so long ago that nearly 100 Republican lawmakers sent a letter to the FDA asking about the labeling requirements and regulatory measures around the tests. Sen. Steve Daines said, “It is unacceptable that the FDA is not conducting proper oversight on these inconsistent prenatal tests that often pressure women into making a life-ending decision for their baby.” ...Read More
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Photo: Prime Minister Petteri Orpo comments to Yle on initial information about Navalny's death from Warsaw, Poland. Sergei Gapon/AFP
Finland Reacts To Navalny's Death: A Memorial
Service Was Held In Uspenski Cathedral
There are many open questions that Russia has to answer, says Kimmo Kiljunen, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
By Pietu Heiskanen, Linda Tammela & Anne Orjala
YLE, Finland
Finland has reacted to the news of the death of Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny .
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (right) says in an interview that the responsibility for Navalny's death lies with Russia itself. Orpo conveyed his condolences to Navalny's family.
- - If the information is true, then yes, it will be a shock and an upset. It tells about what the Russian leadership is ready for. Russia is responsible for this.
Russian authorities announced Navalny's death today, Friday. He served a prison sentence in northwestern Siberia. The EU has considered the judgments to be political.
The President of the Republic Sauli Niinistö says he is equally sad and shocked. In his English-language X message, he commented that Russia is responsible for the incident.
Future president Alexander Stubb says that the information about Navalny's fate reached him at the Munich Security Conference, where Stubb is one of the participants. According to him, Navalnyi lost his life defending freedom and democracy in Russia.
Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen (coordinator) estimates that Navalnyi sacrificed his life for being a candidate.
- - Autocrats are apparently most afraid of people's freedom of choice, he says.
The chairman of the Parliament's foreign affairs committee, Kimmo Kiljunen (right), states that it is a great tragedy. According to Kiljunen, the matter raises many questions, but it is clear that Russia is responsible.
- - There are many open questions that Russia must answer.
Riikka Purra , chairman of the Basic Finns, and Minister of State Finance , has commented on Russia in the message service X in harsh words.
According to Purra, Navalny's work was not wasted.
Navalny was known as an opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin .
According to the Minister of Europe and Ownership Management Anders Adlercreutz (r.), the case shows that there is reason to be even more concerned about the state of Russian society.
Like the state leadership, he described the death as shocking and reiterated that Russia bears full responsibility.
According to Anna-Maja Henriksson, Minister of Education and RKP chairwoman, Navalnyi had to pay the highest possible price for his courage.
- - I hope that hope for something better could still live in Russia. Now it seems that one way or another those who think differently are being silenced, says Henriksson in the messaging service X.
Mika Aaltola, director of the Foreign Policy Institute, comments on Navalny as a brave Russian.
- - His memory will live on and burn for a better Russia, Aaltola commented in X.
A memorial service was held in the Uspensky Cathedral
Navalny is also commemorated in Helsinki's Katajanokka in Uspenski Cathedral. A panihida, i.e. a memorial service for the deceased according to the Orthodox worship tradition, was organized there. The leader of the Finnish Orthodox Church, Archbishop Leo, called to remember Navalny and his family in prayers.
In addition, people were seen in front of the Russian embassy on Friday remembering and honoring Navalny and protesting his death. ...Read More
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Photo via Greenleft
Boris Kagarlitsky Sentenced to Five Years
By Hank Reichman
The Blog of Academe Magazine
Feb 14, 2024 - I’m a historian of Russia by training, but I guess I didn’t realize that there’s apparently no double jeopardy rule, at least with respect to sentencing, in Russia. Turns out that I—and many others—celebrated too soon when back in December we learned of the release of renowned Marxist sociologist and university professor Boris Kagarlitsky after he paid a fine for “justifying terrorism” in comments he made about Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Today we discover that the Putin regime appealed that verdict and a military court has now sentenced Boris to five years in prison. Kagarlitsky, a professor at the Moscow Higher School of Economics and head of the Moscow think tank The Institute for Globalization Studies and Social Movements, had first been arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on July 25 of last year and imprisoned until his December trial.
Here are excerpts from the report published today in the Washington Post:
- A Russian military court on Tuesday sentenced Boris Kagarlitsky, a prominent sociologist, to five years in prison for criticizing the war in Ukraine—a shocking turnabout after another court originally ordered Kagarlitsky to pay a $6,500 fine but no prison time.
- The brutally toughened sentence was issued after an appeal from prosecutors, Russian state media reported, and it reflected a continuing harsh crackdown on the few dissident voices remaining in Russia after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
- Kagarlitsky is the editor in chief of the Marxist online publication Rabkor and a university professor who has been designated as foreign agent, a label Russian authorities have attached to many of those who have criticized the war.
- The previous court ruling, in mid-December, found Kagarlitsky guilty of “justifying terrorism” for an online post about a 2022 attack on the Crimean Bridge, but levied only the fine as punishment. In many instances, defendants found guilty of criticizing the war now receive longer prison terms than those convicted of crimes such as rape or assault.
- Prosecutors quickly appealed the verdict, arguing that it was “unjust due to its excessive leniency.” . . .
- On Tuesday, in a post on Telegram, Kagarlitsky said that he was “in a great mood as always” after the new sentence was issued, and that he plans to continue collecting materials for new books, “including descriptions of prison life.”
- “Anyway, see you soon. I’m sure everything will be very good,” he wrote. “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country.” . . .
- “This verdict is a blatant abuse of vague anti-terrorism legislation, weaponized to suppress dissent and punish a government critic,” said Natalia Zviagina, Amnesty International’s director for Russia. “By targeting Boris Kagarlitsky, a distinguished sociologist known for his critical stance against government policies, the Russian authorities are showing, once again, their relentless assault on all forms of dissent.”
In my post after Kagarlitsky’s arrest last July, I quoted from an appeal to Western progressives he published last year, in which he said, “As a matter of principle, Russian courts do not pass down acquittals (in this regard, the situation is much worse than in Stalin’s time), so any accusation, even the most absurd, is considered proven as soon as it is brought.”
That appeal continued, “when someone tells you that the Putin regime is a threat to the West or to the whole of humanity, this is complete nonsense. The people to whom this regime poses the most terrible threat is (aside from the Ukrainians, who are bombarded daily by shells and missiles) the Russians themselves, their people and culture, their future. . . . Stop identifying Putin and his gang with Russia. Realize at last: those who want the good of Russia and the Russians cannot but be irreconcilable enemies of this power.”
Hank Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay; former AAUP vice-president and chair of the AAUP Foundation; and from 2012-2021 Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, based in part on posts to this blog, was published in 2019. His Understanding Academic Freedom was published in October, 2021; a second edition is in preparation. ...Read More
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Digging Deeper into the Current Conjuncture: |
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Warn Voters About the Radicalism Beyond Trump
The Republicans are plotting to literally rewrite the Constitution to eliminate core rights and protections.
The Constitutional Convention, in the plain language of the leading organizer for it, aims 'to reverse 115 years of progressivism.'
By Nancy MacLean
The New Republic
Feb 15, 2024 - What should the Democrats run on? Alerting every voter to what is in store for them if the radical right succeeds in its endgame to enchain American democracy.
Lurking behind the full-frontal assault by Donald Trump and his enablers lies a more far-reaching threat. If the Republicans gain control of both Houses of Congress, expect a state-authorized Constitutional Convention to eviscerate core rights and protections most Americans hold dear.
Imagine living in a country without Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, the right to organize a union, civil rights enforcement, and clean air and water protections, let alone action to stop climate collapse. The Constitutional Convention, in the plain language of the leading organizer for it, aims “to reverse 115 years of progressivism.”
That’s big talk, 115 years.
Think it can’t be done?
Although the convention push has been all but ignored by the commentariat and national Democratic leaders, it has powerhouse backing. The Koch network and other dark-money donors are generously funding it. The corporation-underwritten American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has supplied “model legislation” and training to Republican state legislators.
Endorsers include Mark Meadows, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Sean Hannity, and many more. Convention of States Action (COS), the 501c(4) organization leading the campaign, whose head was a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, has recruited and deployed volunteers to lobby their legislatures. (It also offers training in “biblical citizenship.”) COS has held three practice conventions with legislators from nearly every state.
The Heritage Foundation—the 800-pound gorilla on the right—recently signed on in “a game-changing report” that such a convention would be “a potent check on federal power” and is “a worthy cause.”
That endorsement is likely to drive even more cash to add to the over $70 million in IRS-traceable contributions that groups solely focused on convening such a gathering have garnered from 2012 to 2022, in findings of the Center for Media and Democracy. That figure does not include contributions to ALEC, which has promoted the convention since 2013; its revenue hovers around $10 million annually.
Promoters have been methodically lining up authorizations from the states since the 2012 election showed them that most Americans reject the kind of society they seek, even Mitt Romney’s mild version. So strategists concluded that the only way to permanently entrench minority rule by plutocrats and theocrats is to encase it in a dramatically altered Constitution.
They count on most of us remaining in the dark until it is too late to stop their scheme.
So far, that’s proved a good gamble. How many of us know that there are two routes to amending the Constitution—the usual one, and the nuclear option never yet tried?
Under Article V of the Constitution, Congress “shall call a convention for proposing amendments” when it receives applications from two-thirds of the states. In reality, this is hard, because one party would need to control both houses of 34 state legislatures (or 33 plus unicameral Nebraska).
But ALEC has fabricated a claim built around the idea that enough states have made past calls for a convention, some going back decades, for the idea to proceed. It plans to use these outdated state resolutions to argue to the courts that they should force Congress to convene one.
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Fix the Insurrection Act Before Trump Uses it to Create a Police State
During the January 6th attack, militia members were glued to Trump’s Twitter feed, anxiously awaiting Trump’s proclamation of the Insurrection Act and instant deputization of them.
By Thom Hartmann
The Hartmann Report
FEB 14, 2024 - When Senator Tommy Tuberville (who just took Putin’s side on the Ukraine invasion) was meeting with the Trump family and team the night of January 5th in the DC Trump Hotel, plans had already been laid for the Proud Boys and other fascist street gangs to seize control of the Capitol to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s 7-million-vote victory.
The key would be invoking the Insurrection Act, a basket of laws dating from 1792 to 1874 that’s been used a bit over two dozen times, the first by George Washington and the most recent by President George HW Bush in response to the riots that erupted around the police beating of Rodney King.
The Act gives the president wide latitude to decide what is and isn’t an insurrection, and how to respond to one.
There is virtually no congressional or judicial oversight: this act is the single most powerful weapon a rogue president can use to execute a coup and seize complete control of the nation.
An insurrection, under the Act, is whatever the president says it is. It authorizes the president to put down any “unlawful combination” or “conspiracy” that “opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States.”
Trump could claim that even the smallest public demonstration against his policies that blocks traffic in the most obscure town is an insurrection and use that to put our entire country under military control.
Trump also doesn’t need to use the US military: the Act says he may put down an insurrection “by using the militia or the armed forces, or both, or by any other means,” which is particularly problematic as Congress has also defined a militia as “all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and … under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States…”
The law defining the militia, 10 US Code § 246, could thus include groups like the Proud Boys under a Trump interpretation. It was last updated in 1956 and references “the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.” Unofficial militias like the Proud Boys, in other words, that the president can call on.
If this tickles your memory from high school history class, it should: both Hitler, Pinochet, and Mussolini rose to power with volunteer “unorganized militias” (including the Brownshirts and Blackshirts) that were given full legal authority once their leaders seized control of the government.
During the January 6th attack on our Capitol, the militia members engaging in that armed attack were, the record shows, glued to Trump’s Twitter feed, anxiously awaiting Trump’s proclamation of the Insurrection Act and instant deputization of them.
Although reports vary, apparently some believed they’d be deputized and asked by Trump to hold the Capitol right up to and through inauguration day, January 20th, to prevent Joe Biden from being sworn into office.
It was an entirely possible scenario. Trump already had his Insurrection Act proclamation written and ready to go: his only problem was that he needed cooperation from Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley to implement it — and all refused to go along with him.
Next time he won’t be surrounded by men who respect our nation’s traditions and principles, which is why he’s promising to use the Act to “be a dictator” on his first day in office. ...Read More
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Photo: Giorgia Meloni (right) and Marion Maréchal Le Pen
Far-Right MPs Are Already Anticipating Big Gains In European Parliament
Polls predict a jump in support for the nationalists at the upcoming June elections, which could reach a quarter or more of the next European Parliament.
By Anna Maria Merlo
Il Manifesto, Italy
Feb 10, 2024 - Marion Maréchal Le Pen (Marine’s niece), the lead candidate of Reconquête! in the European elections, confirmed on Wednesday that her party, founded by Éric Zemmour, will be part of the ECR group in the European Parliament, of which Giorgia Meloni has been president since 2020.
MEP Nicolas Bay, who was elected with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in 2019 and then switched to the mixed group after joining Reconquête!, joined the ECR as of Wednesday. This announcement confirms that the large-scale political maneuvering on the far right has begun, based on polls predicting a jump in support for the nationalists at the upcoming June elections, which could reach a quarter or more of the next European Parliament.
The most realistic possibility is that they could represent a blocking minority. But the far right is dreaming of more, and is already counting its chickens before they hatch. The victory of the nationalists is not a given: there is the example of Poland, where the far right was defeated in the last election.
The nationalists in Strasbourg are divided into two groups, Identity and Democracy (ID) and European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), with a little more than 60 MEPs each. The ID group includes the Lega, the Dutch party of Geert Wilders (who, despite coming out on top in the legislative elections, is unable to form a government), the Austrians (on the rise once again), the Danes, the Belgians, and above all Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Germany’s AfD. The ECR group includes Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, the Polish PiS, the Spanish Vox and the Swedish Democrats.
Hungarian Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz has announced that it will join the ECR as well (it has 12 MPs who belonged to no group after being excluded from the EPP). The ECR’s goal is to become the third-largest group in the European Parliament (it is currently fifth), overtaking Renew (the liberals, now bolstered by Macron’s French MEPs, which, however, seem to be declining in the polls). The ID group also aims to move ahead of Renew.
The ECR has the goal of becoming the “pivot” of the new European Parliament, aiming to act as a bridge between the nationalists and the EPP, which is expected to remain number one, ahead of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D, where we find the PD). But at the moment, maneuvering is taking place and there is significant confusion. Within ID, there is conflict between the National Rally and the AfD: Marine Le Pen has distanced herself from the Germans after the recent revelations about the AfD’s willingness to pass laws to expel citizens who have acquired German nationality.
For Marine Le Pen, having such an ally destroys the process of “normalization” she is aiming for in France, with a view to a presidential election victory in 2027. But the move by her niece Marion Maréchal is putting Marine Le Pen in a difficult position, barring her from possibly moving closer to the ECR.
The ECR wants to swell up like the frog in La Fontaine’s fable, but it runs the risk of exploding before it gets as big as the proverbial ox: former Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki of PiS has said he wants to welcome Orbán with open arms, while Marion Maréchal has confirmed the entry of Reconquête! But the presence of these two new members goes against the path that Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the group’s largest set of MEPs, is envisioning: to come to an agreement with the PPE, detaching it from its traditional alliance with the Socialists (and the center), even to the point of joining the “Ursula majority.”
The current president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen of the EPP, is expected to confirm her candidacy on February 19, making it official at the European People’s Congress in Bucharest on March 6-7. But Orbán and Maréchal don’t share the foreign policy positions that could have acted as a bridge: they have differences with Meloni on NATO, both are against supporting Ukraine, Maréchal has said she is against new enlargements of the EU, and Orbán repeatedly threw a spanner in the works on the matter of the €50 billion for Kyiv. “There are always national peculiarities,” Maréchal said in justification.
Polls are showing Reconquête! at 6-7% in the European elections, while National Rally is at around 28%. Between the two far-right parties, there are differences on the economic and social front: Marine Le Pen is banking on her social orientation (National Rally became the top party in the votes of the working class, and it exceeded 42% in the presidential runoff), while the leader of Reconquête!, Eric Zemmour, who only got 7% in the presidential elections, is an ultra-neoliberal, as well as obsessed with “population replacement” in Europe. ...Read More
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Photo: Over 1000 people filled the plaza in front of Calgary City Hall to rally in protest of newly announced Alberta policies regarding children and LGBTQ rights on Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024. Gavin Young/Postmedia
Alberta Gender Policies Cause a Stir
By LBGT Courage Coalition & Gender Crossroads
FEB 12, 2024 - On Jan 31st 2024, Alberta’s United Conservative Party (UCP) Premier Danielle Smith posted a 7 minute long video on X announcing changes to gender policies in healthcare, school, and sports. This was followed up later in the week with a 33 minute press conference with a largely hostile press.
The policy changes
Set to soft music and lighting, Premier Smith’s X video started with reassurances to trans and gender diverse Albertans that she cares and supports them. She then went on to announce an array of changes for the upcoming school year, including that minors under the age of 16 would no longer be able to change their name or pronouns without parental consent. Minors above the age of 16 could change names/pronouns without parental consent but parents would need to be notified.
Smith then announced that puberty blockers and cross sex hormones will not be permitted for youth 15 and younger, essentially banning the use of puberty blockers. Cross sex hormones would be allowed for 16 and 17 year olds, with parental consent. Surgeries (top and bottom) would no longer be permitted for any minors.
In a surprise move that was not given much attention in the media, Smith also announced that her government was seeking to recruit a specialist in trans surgeries to provide care in-province to transgender adults rather than trans people having to journey to Quebec, as they currently still do.
Smith went on to announce changes to sex education in schools, requiring parents to opt-in to sex education lessons, and requiring government approval for lesson plans.
Regarding sports, Premier Smith indicated that transwomen would no longer be permitted to participate in women’s sports categories but that the government would work with sporting authorities to create co-ed sports opportunities so that everyone could participate.
The uproar
Unsurprisingly to anyone who is involved in trans discourse, the furor that erupted as a result of Smith’s announcement was swift and loud. Federal Employment Minister Randy Boissonault, an openly gay Liberal, protested that “this is our NATO moment. An attack on one of our communities is an attack on us all”.
Those who opposed the policies accused Premier Smith of opportunism, and of using this issue to distract the public from other more pressing concerns in the province. Premier Smith was accused of not engaging in public consultation prior to the announcement, and her detractors claimed she was ignoring the recommendations of medical experts and organizations such as the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) who came out with a statement against her policy. The most ardent accusations were that Premier Smith’s policies would lead to increased self-harm and suicide rates among transgender youth.
In a popular political podcast, Dr Joe Raiche, a psychiatrist in Calgary who works almost exclusively with gender diverse minors, argued that Premier Smith was developing a policy solution for a “problem that does not exist”. I find this claim particularly interesting, considering the uproar that followed Premier Smith’s announcement. Surely, if surgeries for minors are not actually occurring in Alberta, then banning them should not be a big deal? And what to make of another piece of research, that found that 62% of minors were receiving puberty blocker prescriptions at their first visit with a physician at a Canadian gender clinic?
The context
In Canada, many who support Gender Affirming Care (GAC) as currently practiced point to organizations like the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) to argue that scientific consensus backs up GAC as best practice for trans and gender-distressed individuals.
And that is the rub. If I had not myself had to navigate the gender medicalization system and if I was simply looking in from the outside, I would have also said that this is a perfectly reasonable stance to take: Listen to the experts. Listen to the healthcare organizations tasked with protecting the best interests of the public. Listen to doctors like Dr Joe Raiche, a seemingly well-spoken clinician who clearly cares about his patients.
But what do we do when respected clinicians like Dr Raiche make indefensible claims such as that “puberty blockers are 100% reversible”, or when esteemed organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) actively seek to suppress research looking into the evidence for pediatric medicalization.
Neither WPATH nor the AMA nor the APA have made any effort to acknowledge the experiences of a growing cohort of detransitioners, desisters, and disenchanted trans people. WPATH, in its most recent Standards of Care 8, barely mentions regret or detransition at all, and as of yet offers no medical guidelines for how to support someone who comes to realize that transitioning was not the right path for them. This, despite their decision to include an entire chapter on the healthcare needs of an even smaller cohort than detransitioners, eunuchs.
For years now, clinicians in the US and Canada have witnessed GAC spread virtually unchallenged as a best practice for gender distress. Many have held onto the hope that medical and healthcare institutions would eventually acknowledge the harms and change course. But that hasn’t happened yet. At least, not in Canada. We have seen other countries in Europe change course, after reviewing the evidence via systematic reviews.
The harms
In the meantime I have heard directly from people about their experiences of regret, I have met detransitioners, I have spoken with clinicians who had worked with them, and, most difficult of all, I have had to face my own feelings of betrayal at the professionals who persuaded me that medicalization was the only path forward for me.
When Premier Smith made her policy announcement — the most comprehensive of any province in Canada, though others have moved in a similar directions (e.g. Saskatchewan and New Brunswick) — I felt a sense of relief. I am a life-long liberal (in the classical sense) and have no great love for the conservative party Premier Smith represents. But this is not a left-right issue. This is a healthcare issue. And when the healthcare institutions themselves refuse to review best practices that are not based on evidence, what other choice is there than to turn to government for leadership and direction?
In speaking with friends and loved ones about my feelings about this issue, many have expressed fears that Premier Smith is simply using this issue — an issue that impacts a relatively small minority of people — to distract voters from other, more serious problems the province faces. Others have claimed that her pronouncements are a step closer toward restricting abortion rights. After all, if the government can interfere with the healthcare that a gender-distressed minor receives, what’s to prevent the government from dictating laws around abortion care too?
The view ahead
I am no politician and time will have to tell if the cynics are right. Politics aside, however, our medical institutions have failed a cohort of people who deserve a voice. Detransitioners, desisters, disenchanted trans people, and their loved ones, whistleblowers and concerned clinicians, have all had to endure the vitriol of illiberal activists who bully anyone who might offer a different narrative to their own.
With Premier Smith’s announcement, and more recent articles in the mainstream media emerging about the very real harms of current GAC practices, the hopeful part of me is starting to think maybe, just maybe, the bullies’ time is coming to an end. ...Read More
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New Journals and Books for Radical Education...
Use Changemaker for Your Holiday Gifts,
Thus Lending Us a Hand, Too!
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From Upton
Sinclair's 'Goose Step' to the Neoliberal University
Essays on the Ongoing Transformation of Higher Education
Paperback USD 17.00
This is a unique collection of 15 essays by two Purdue University professors who use their institution as a case-in-point study of the changing nature of the American 'multiversity.' They take a book from an earlier time, Upton Sinclair's 'The Goose-Step A Study of American Education' from 1923, which exposed the capitalist corruption of the ivory tower back then and brought it up to date with more far-reaching changes today. time. They also include, as an appendix, a 1967 essay by SDS leader Carl Davidson, who broke some of the original ground on the subject.
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The Man Who Changed Colors
By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
When a dockworker falls to his death under strange circumstances, investigative journalist David Gomes is on the case. His dogged pursuit of the truth puts his life in danger and upends the scrappy Cape Cod newspaper he works for.
Spend a season on the Cape with this gripping, provocative tale that delves into the
complicated relationships between Cape Verdean Americans and African Americans, Portuguese fascist gangs, and abusive shipyard working conditions. From the author of The Man Who Fell From The Sky.
“Bill Fletcher is a truth seeker and a truth teller – even when he’s writing fiction. Not unlike Bill, his character David Gomes is willing to put his life and career in peril to expose the truth. A thrilling read!” − Tavis Smiley, Broadcaster & NY TIMES Bestselling Author
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VVAW: 50 Years
of Struggle
By Alynne Romo
While most books about VVAW focus on the 1960s and 1970s, this photo-with-text book provides a look at many of actions of VVAW over five decades. Some of VVAW’s events and its stands on issues are highlighted here in stories. Others show up in the running timelines which also include relevant events around the nation or the world. Examples of events are the riots in America’s urban centers, the murders of civil rights leaders or the largely failed missions in Vietnam.
Paul Tabone: This is a must read for anyone who was in the war, who had a loved one in the war, who is interested in history in general or probably more importantly for anyone who wants to see how we repeat history over and over again given the incredible idiot and his minions that currently occupy the White House. To my fellow Viet Nam veterans I say "Welcome Home Brothers". A must read for everyone who considers them self an American. Bravo.
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A China Reader
Edited by Duncan McFarland
A project of the CCDS Socialist Education Project & Online University of the Left
244 pages, $20 (discounts available for quantity orders from carld717@gmail.com), or order at :
The book is a selection of essays offering keen insight into the nature of China and its social system, its internal debates, and its history. It includes several articles on the US and China and the growing efforts of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples.
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Taking Down
White Supremacy
Edited by the CCDS
Socialist Education Project
This collection of 20 essays brings together a variety of articles-theoretical, historical, and experiential-that address multi-racial, multi-national unity. The book provides examples theoretically and historically, of efforts to build multi-racial unity in the twentieth century.
166 pages, $12.50 (discounts available for quantity), order at :
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Photo: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny participates in a march in memory of Russian politician and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on the anniversary of his death in Moscow on Feb. 24, 2019. SEFA KARACAN/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
Alexei Navalny:
This Is What A Post-Putin
Russia Should Look Like
By Alexei Navalny
Washington Post Op-Ed
Sept 30, 2022 - What does a desirable and realistic end to the criminal war unleashed by Vladimir Putin against Ukraine look like?
If we examine the primary things said by Western leaders on this score, the bottom line remains: Russia (Putin) must not win this war. Ukraine must remain an independent democratic state capable of defending itself.
This is correct, but it is a tactic. The strategy should be to ensure that Russia and its government naturally, without coercion, do not want to start wars and do not find them attractive. This is undoubtedly possible. Right now the urge for aggression is coming from a minority in Russian society.
In my opinion, the problem with the West’s current tactics lies not just in the vagueness of their aim, but in the fact that they ignore the question: What does Russia look like after the tactical goals have been achieved? Even if success is achieved, where is the guarantee that the world will not find itself confronting an even more aggressive regime, tormented by resentment and imperial ideas that have little to do with reality? With a sanctions-stricken but still big economy in a state of permanent military mobilization? And with nuclear weapons that guarantee impunity for all manner of international provocations and adventures?
It is easy to predict that even in the case of a painful military defeat, Putin will still declare that he lost not to Ukraine but to the “collective West and NATO,” whose aggression was unleashed to destroy Russia.
And then, resorting to his usual postmodern repertoire of national symbols — from icons to red flags, from Dostoevsky to ballet — he will vow to create an army so strong and weapons of such unprecedented power that the West will rue the day it defied us, and the honor of our great ancestors will be avenged.
And then we will see a fresh cycle of hybrid warfare and provocations, eventually escalating into new wars.
To avoid this, the issue of postwar Russia should become the central issue — and not just one element among others — of those who are striving for peace. No long-term goals can be achieved without a plan to ensure that the source of the problems stops creating them. Russia must cease to be an instigator of aggression and instability. That is possible, and that is what should be seen as a strategic victory in this war.
There are several important things happening to Russia that need to be understood:
First, jealousy of Ukraine and its possible successes is an innate feature of post-Soviet power in Russia; it was also characteristic of the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin. But since the beginning of Putin’s rule, and especially after the Orange Revolution that began in 2004, hatred of Ukraine’s European choice, and the desire to turn it into a failed state, have become a lasting obsession not only for Putin but also for all politicians of his generation.
Control over Ukraine is the most important article of faith for all Russians with imperial views, from officials to ordinary people. In their opinion, Russia combined with a subordinate Ukraine amounts to a “reborn U.S.S.R. and empire.” Without Ukraine, in this view, Russia is just a country with no chance of world domination. Everything that Ukraine acquires is something taken away from Russia.
Second, the view of war not as a catastrophe but as an amazing means of solving all problems is not just a philosophy of Putin’s top brass, but a practice confirmed by life and evolution. Since the Second Chechen War, which made the little-known Putin the country’s most popular politician, through the war in Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, the war in Donbas and the war in Syria, the Russian elite over the past 23 years has learned rules that have never failed: War is not that expensive, it solves all domestic political problems, it raises public approval sky-high, it does not particularly harm the economy, and — most importantly — winners face no accountability. Sooner or later, one of the constantly changing Western leaders will come to us to negotiate. It does not matter what motives will lead him — the will of the voters or the desire to receive the Nobel Peace Prize — but if you show proper persistence and determination, the West will come to make peace.
Don’t forget that there are many in the United States, Britain and other Western countries in politics who have been defeated and lost ground due to their support for one war or another. In Russia, there is simply no such thing. Here, war is always about profit and success.
Third, therefore, the hopes that Putin’s replacement by another member of his elite will fundamentally change this view on war, and especially war over the “legacy of the U.S.S.R.,” is naive at the very least. The elites simply know from experience that war works — better than anything else.
Perhaps the best example here would be Dmitry Medvedev, the former president on whom the West pinned so many hopes. Today, this amusing Medvedev, who was once taken on a tour of Twitter’s headquarters, makes statements so aggressive that they look like a caricature of Putin’s.
Fourth, the good news is that the bloodthirsty obsession with Ukraine is not at all widespread outside the power elites, no matter what lies pro-government sociologists might tell.
The war raises Putin’s approval rating by super-mobilizing the imperially minded part of society. The news agenda is fully consumed by the war; internal problems recede into the background: “Hurray, we’re back in the game, we are great, they’re reckoning with us!” Yet the aggressive imperialists do not have absolute dominance. They do not make up a solid majority of voters, and even they still require a steady supply of propaganda to sustain their beliefs.
Otherwise Putin would not have needed to call the war a “special operation” and send those who use the word “war” to jail. (Not long ago, a member of a Moscow district council received seven years in prison for this.) He would not have been afraid to send conscripts to the war and would not have been compelled to look for soldiers in maximum-security prisons, as he is doing now. (Several people were “drafted to the front” directly from the penal colony where I am.)
Yes, propaganda and brainwashing have an effect. Yet we can say with certainty that the majority of residents of major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as young voters, are critical of the war and imperial hysteria. The horror of the suffering of Ukrainians and the brutal killing of innocents resonate in the souls of these voters.
Thus, we can state the following:
The war with Ukraine was started and waged, of course, by Putin, trying to solve his domestic political problems. But the real war party is the entire elite and the system of power itself, which is an endlessly self-reproducing Russian authoritarianism of the imperial kind. External aggression in any form, from diplomatic rhetoric to outright warfare, is its preferred mode of operation, and Ukraine is its preferred target. This self-generated imperial authoritarianism is the real curse of Russia and the cause of all its troubles. We cannot get rid of it, despite the opportunities regularly provided by history.
Russia had its last chance of this kind after the end of the U.S.S.R., but both the democratic public inside the country and Western leaders at the time made the monstrous mistake of agreeing to the model — proposed by Boris Yeltsin’s team — of a presidential republic with enormous powers for the leader. Giving plenty of power to a good guy seemed logical at the time.
Yet the inevitable soon happened: The good guy went bad. To begin with, he started a war (the Chechen war) himself, and then, without normal elections and fair procedures, he handed over power to the cynical and corrupt Soviet imperialists led by Putin. They have caused several wars and countless international provocations, and are now tormenting a neighboring nation, committing horrible crimes for which neither many generations of Ukrainians nor our own children will forgive us.
In the 31 years since the collapse of the U.S.S.R., we have witnessed a clear pattern: The countries that chose the parliamentary republic model (the Baltic states) are thriving and have successfully joined Europe. Those that chose the presidential-parliamentary model (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia) have faced persistent instability and made little progress. Those that chose strong presidential power (Russia, Belarus and the Central Asian republics) have succumbed to rigid authoritarianism, most of them permanently engaged in military conflicts with their neighbors, daydreaming about their own little empires.
In short, strategic victory means bringing Russia back to this key historical juncture and letting the Russian people make the right choice.
The future model for Russia is not “strong power” and a “firm hand,” but harmony, agreement and consideration of the interests of the whole society. Russia needs a parliamentary republic. That is the only way to stop the endless cycle of imperial authoritarianism.
One may argue that a parliamentary republic is not a panacea. Who, after all, is to prevent Putin or his successor from winning elections and gaining full control over the parliament?
Of course, even a parliamentary republic does not offer 100 percent guarantees. It could well be that we are witnessing the transition to the authoritarianism of parliamentary India. After the usurpation of power, parliamentary Turkey has been transformed into a presidential one. The core of Putin’s European fan club is paradoxically in parliamentary Hungary.
And the very notion of a “parliamentary republic” is too broad.
Yet I believe this cure offers us crucial advantages: a radical reduction of power in the hands of one person, the formation of a government by a parliamentary majority, an independent judiciary system, a significant increase in the powers of local authorities. Such institutions have never existed in Russia, and we are in desperate need of them.
As for the possible total control of parliament by Putin’s party, the answer is simple: Once the real opposition is allowed to vote, it will be impossible. A large faction? Yes. A coalition majority? Maybe. Total control? Definitely not. Too many people in Russia are interested in normal life now, not in the phantom of territorial gains. And there are more such people every year. They just don’t have anyone to vote for now.
Certainly, changing Putin’s regime in the country and choosing the path of development are not matters for the West, but jobs for the citizens of Russia. Nevertheless, the West, which has imposed sanctions both on Russia as a state as well as on some of its elites, should make its strategic vision of Russia as a parliamentary democracy as clear as possible. By no means should we repeat the mistake of the West’s cynical approach in the 1990s, when the post-Soviet elite was effectively told: “You do what you want there; just watch your nuclear weapons and supply us with oil and gas.” Indeed, even now we hear cynical voices saying similar things: “Let them just pull back the troops and do what they want from there. The war is over, the mission of the West is accomplished.” That mission was already “accomplished” with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the result is a full-fledged war in Europe in 2022.
This is a simple, honest and fair approach: The Russian people are of course free to choose their own path of development. But Western countries are free to choose the format of their relations with Russia, to lift or not to lift sanctions, and to define the criteria for such decisions. The Russian people and the Russian elite do not need to be forced. They need a clear signal and an explanation of why such a choice is better. Crucially, parliamentary democracy is also a rational and desirable choice for many of the political factions around Putin. It gives them an opportunity to maintain influence and fight for power while ensuring that they are not destroyed by a more aggressive group.
War is a relentless stream of crucial, urgent decisions influenced by constantly shifting factors. Therefore, while I commend European leaders for their ongoing success in supporting Ukraine, I urge them not to lose sight of the fundamental causes of war. The threat to peace and stability in Europe is aggressive imperial authoritarianism, endlessly inflicted by Russia upon itself. Postwar Russia, like post-Putin Russia, will be doomed to become belligerent and Putinist again. This is inevitable as long as the current form of the country’s development is maintained. Only a parliamentary republic can prevent this. It is the first step toward transforming Russia into a good neighbor that helps to solve problems rather than create them. ...Read More
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CHANGEMAKER PUBLICATIONS: Recent works on new paths to socialism and the solidarity economy
Remember Us for Gift Giving and Study Groups
Interested in Studying Gramsci? In a Serious way? We have a group that meets Sundays via Zoom, 11am-12:30pm, facilitated by Piruz Alemi. We go paragraph by paragraph, even line by line, reading aloud, then discussing, through The Prison Notebooks, using an online PDF. If you are interested contact Carl Davidson at carld717@gmail.com
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Treat someone to a wonderful book.
And treat yourself, too!
Powerful stories, wonderful gifts.
As they stand up, slow down, form unions, leave an abusive relationship or just stir up good trouble, the characters in this multi-generation novel entertain and enlighten, make us laugh and rage, and encourage us to love deeply, that we may continue the fight for justice.
"So much fiction is about escape and fantasy, but these powerful Tales of Struggle will enrich our real and daily lives." ─ Gloria Steinem
“What a wonderful story of class, class struggle and regular people. The story is about struggle and change, but also about joy and humor. Great work! ─ Bill Fletcher, Jr., author of Solidarity Divided
Price: $15.00
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Photo: MFDP meeting
History Lesson of the Week: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
A major roadblock to gaining voting rights in Mississippi and indeed, across the South, were the state Democratic Parties. “Dixiecrats” as southern Democrats were known, dominated state governments. A web of law, intimidation, official and unofficial force, and violence terrorizing Blacks seeking voting rights, kept Black people from voting. For all practical purposes, in Mississippi and across the South, the Democratic Party was “whites only.”
COFO’s voter registration projects helped to expose Black disenfranchisement, yet the organization’s efforts were ineffective in generating new Black voters in politically meaningful numbers. Much the same was true in other areas of the South where efforts aimed at expanding Black voter registration and political participation were unfolding. So, in Mississippi, COFO began discussing the ways and means of challenging the legitimacy of the state’s Democratic Party at the national level. As a first step, COFO workers organized a “freedom registration” and “freedom vote” in the fall of 1963. This was to prove that Blacks would register and vote if they could do so at unintimidating polling places; that apathy was not the problem, but violence, reprisal, and fear was.
In April 1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) was founded. Open to all without regard to race, it was a parallel political party designed to simultaneously encourage Black political participation while challenging the validity of Mississippi’s lily-white Democratic Party.
The MFDP decided to challenge the seating of the so-called “regular” state party at the national party’s convention being planned for August in Atlantic City, New Jersey. With the help of hundreds of young volunteers who came to Mississippi in the Freedom Summer of 1964, the MFDP slowly built up its membership and organized parallel precinct, county, and regional meetings. This culminated in a state convention to select delegates for the Atlantic City convention. The 68-person MFDP delegation included a wide variety of homegrown activists known for their determination and militancy in the face of harsh racial oppression. They included E.W. Steptoe, Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Gray, Annie Devine, Hartman Turnbow and Hazel Palmer, among others. Using ideas developed during the local, county, and regional meetings, the MFDP crafted a political platform. ...Read More
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The Expanding US Monroe Doctrine
Mexico Solidarity Project News
from Feb 7, 2024
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A sixth-grade teacher introduced Teri Mattson to pre-Spanish cultures in what is now Mexico and Central America. That inspired 40+ years of travel in that region. As a human rights activist, she participated in political and social justice delegations to Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela. In 2021 alone, Teri served as an accredited international election observer in Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela. Teri hosts and produces the podcast and YouTube program, WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean.
Spain first defeated and colonized the Indigenous civilizations of Latin America in the 1500s. When the US became a nation in 1776, what was their stance toward Latin America?
From the beginning, the US plotted to acquire the vast areas south and west of its borders. In 1786 Thomas Jefferson was asked why the US shouldn’t help the Spanish colonies gain their own independence. He replied by letter that he saw Spain’s rule as a holding action until the day the US was big and powerful enough to populate it and “gain it from (Spain) piece by piece.”
After roughly 50 years, the US saw its chance. Mexico freed itself from Spanish rule in 1821 — and the US quickly established its political and economic dominance over the new nation. Two years later President James Monroe announced the Monroe Doctrine.
Monroe said the US would safeguard newly independent Latin American countries from foreign meddling. They would halt the Spanish coming up from the south and Russian expansion coming down from the north along what was then Mexico’s Pacific Coast. Russia owned Alaska, and it had already expanded its fur trade all the way down to what today is Sonoma County.
So, allegedly, the intent of the Monroe Doctrine was to keep foreign powers out of this hemisphere, not about the right of the US to intervene in Latin American affairs?
Allegedly! But the Monroe Doctrine was just step one. The many corollaries added over the years demonstrate the Doctrine’s true intent.
The Hayes Corollary of 1878 was added first. European powers were talking about building a canal through Nicaragua, but the US didn’t want European ships to acquire a trade advantage. They wanted Colombia to permit the US to build a canal through Panama, which was then part of Colombia. When Colombia balked, the US aided and abetted a successful independence movement in Panama. The Panama Canal was built, and the US got control of a key international trade route.
In 1885 the Olney Corollary stated that the US could intervene in any dispute between a Latin American country and a foreign power. The British owned Guyana which neighbored Venezuela, and both countries laid claim to territory between them. The US stepped in and forced Britain to agree to the US as arbiter.
The US resolved the dispute in the name of Venezuela, but not for Venezuela — all US decisions were about what was best for US capitalists. The recent conflict between Venezuela and Guyana over the oil-rich Essequibo region has roots in that US-designed Treaty.
In 1902 the Roosevelt Corollary said that the US has the right to intervene in the internal affairs of a Latin American country if it failed to pay its debts. And in 1912, the Lodge Corollary proclaimed that the US had a right to intervene even in matters involving private interests, not just national governments. Mexico was planning to sell Magdalena Bay to private Japanese interests; the US stepped in and stopped the sale.
In the 20th century, the US intervened repeatedly. Between 1962 and 1968 alone, it played a role in 14 coup d’états in Latin America. When military interventions become less acceptable after Vietnam and Chile, the tool of economic sanctions was invented. NGO’s also play a role — under the guise of “humanitarian” aid, many dollars have been channeled to pro-US organizations and against democratically elected governments. This is happening in Mexico today.
In opposition to the Monroe Doctrine, Simón Bolívar had a different vision for the hemisphere, right?
Venezuelan Simón Bolívar’s original mission was to liberate Latin America from Spanish rule. Between 1810 and 1825 he led the revolutions that established Venezuela, Panama, New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia as independent countries. No wonder he is revered across Latin America. There are more statues of Bolívar than of anyone else in the world!
The Army of Simón Bolívar in battle
After liberation from Spain, the Bolivarian vision proposed a united bloc of independent Latin America nations against US dominance. The goal was to establish equilibrium between equal sovereign nations to achieve sustainable peace. Haiti was the first nation in Latin America to gain independence in 1804, and it financed Bolívar’s armies — there would be no slavery in the new Latin American republics.
In 1826, Bolívar organized the Panama Congress. On its agenda was denunciation of Spanish imperialism, independence for the Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Canary Islands, and the Philippines.
Unfortunately, the US was invited, and it didn’t agree with the demands. Moreover, they refused to participate if Haiti were invited — Southern slaveholders were panicked, fearing their own slaves would take power as they had in Haiti. In capitulation to the US, Haiti was dis-invited. The Monroe Doctrine has been firmly in place ever since. ...Read More
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Our Amazing Resource for Radical Education
From the settlers to the present, and how its consciousness is conflicted. Prepared by Carl Davidson and Rebecca Tarlau,
with some help from the DSA Rust Belt group.
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There are hundreds of video courses here, along with study guides, downloadable books and links to hundreds of other resources for study groups or individuals.
Nearly 10,000 people have signed on to the OUL for daily updates, and more than 150,000 have visited us at least once.
Karl Marx's ideas are a common touchstone for many people working for change. His historical materialism, his many contributions to political economy and class analysis, all continue to serve his core values--the self-emancipation of the working class and a vision of a classless society. There are naturally many trends in Marxism that have developed over the years, and new ones are on the rise today. All of them and others who want to see this project succeed are welcome here.
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Video for Learning: Frank Hammer: Why Did UAW’s Shawn Fain Endorse Biden After Calling for a Ceasefire?...45 min
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Harry Targ's 'Diary of a Heartland Radical' |
This week's topic:
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Tune of the Week: Beyoncé - TEXAS HOLD 'EM...4 min
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Photo: Scene from 'Dune: Part Two'
Film Review: ‘Dune: Part Two’
First Reactions Praise Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Spectacular’ Sequel: ‘Jaw-Dropping’ and Among the ‘Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Ever’
By Zack Sharf
Variety
Denis Villeneuve‘s “Dune: Part Two” has finally been unveiled and film journalists are showering the highly-anticipated sequel with praise for its incredible ensemble cast, breathtaking visual effects and more. The film, which follow’s 2021’s “Dune,” is being called “masterful,” “damn impressive” and full of battle scenes that rival Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.”
“‘Dune: Part Two‘ is damn impressive,” wrote The Playlist’s Gregory Ellwood. “Villeneuve crafts some truly VISIONARY moments. Austin Butler gives a truly transformative performance (and not talking makeup either). Very moving ending. A wee bit long? Yes. Did I forget I saw it the next day? Yes. Still, gonna be massive.”
Inverse editor Hoai-Tran Bui called the film “a triumph,” adding: “Even more immense than the first, but much more intimate — Denis Villeneuve manages to streamline the more alienating second half of the book into a riveting, action-packed epic. TWO TOWERS-level mastery of battle sequences. Zendaya is the star.”
“Incredible filmmaking,” wrote Collider’s Steven Weintraub. “Brilliant score. Entire cast was excellent. My only complaint was I wish it was longer. Not joking around. The movie is 2hr and 40 min(?) and I would have been happy to watch another hour.”
Uproxx’s Mike Ryan wrote that he was mixed on the first movie, but he added that “Part Two” is “phenomenal” and “up there with the greatest sci-fi movies I’ve ever seen.”
“Dune: Part Two” resumes the story of Paul Atreides (Chalamet) as he joins forces with the Fremen to save the galaxy from the Harkonnen empire, which is responsible for the death of Paul’s father. Chalamet is joined in “Part Two” by returning franchise cast members Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling and Javier Bardem. Newcomers to “Dune” are Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken and Léa Seydoux.
The first “Dune” movie was a box office hit with just over $400 million at the worldwide box office. Considering the movie opened at the same time it was made available to stream on Max, box office prospects for “Part Two” are way higher. Villeneuve has also been touting “Part Two” as a better movie, which is no small feat considering the first movie earned critical acclaim and 10 Oscar nominations, including best picture. It went on to win six prizes (original score, sound, film editing, cinematography, production design and visual effects).
“For me, this film is much better than Part One,” Villeneuve said at a press conference last year. “There’s something more alive in it. There’s a relationship to the characters. I was trying to reach for an intensity and a quality of emotions that I didn’t reach with Part One and that I did reach with Part Two. I’m not saying the film is perfect, but I’m much more happy with Part Two than I was with Part One. I can not wait to share it with the fans and the moviegoers.”
“Dune: Part Two” opens in theaters nationwide March 1 from Warner Bros. Check out more first reactions below. ...Read More
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Book Review: The Darkened Light of Faith
The Perfectionist Tradition
The African American perfectionists offered 'faith' instead of 'hope'—emphasizing the struggle to realize a vision of justice rather than passive assurance that it would prevail.
By William P. Jones
DISSENT
The Darkened Light of Faith:
Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought
by Melvin L. Rogers
Princeton University Press, 2023, 400 pp.
King: A Life
by Jonathan Eig
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023, 688 pp.
February 11, 2024 - In recent years, the United States has seen the entrenchment of an insurgent and overtly racist hard right, a retreat from fleeting but once seemingly sincere commitments to addressing the injustices of police brutality and mass incarceration, and a growing backlash against voting rights, affirmative action, and other gains of the civil rights movement.
How should we relate to history in a time like ours? Journalists Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Afropessimists Frank Wilderson and Jared Sexton, have exhorted us to face the facts that the United States was founded by slaveholders who defined democracy in opposition to Black people, and that hoping to change that reality is at best naïve and at worst a distraction from the more urgent project of learning to live and thrive in a white supremacist nation.
Meanwhile, many conservatives and progressives remind us that, from the founding, Black and white Americans have challenged the racial limits of democracy. For liberals, this means we should retain hope, as Martin Luther King Jr. declared, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” For the right, that day has already come.
Two important new books suggest that a more effective approach lies somewhere between these opposing views. In The Darkened Light of Faith, political theorist Melvin L. Rogers finds a middle path in what he calls the “perfectionist” tradition of African-American politics. This tradition links nineteenth-century abolitionists David Walker, Maria Stewart, and Frederick Douglass with twentieth-century writers, artists, and activists including Ida B. Wells, Billie Holiday, and James Baldwin, all of whom viewed an honest confrontation with the history of American racism as necessary for any progress toward racial equality.
In his biography King: A Life, journalist Jonathan Eig complicates the optimistic approach by reminding us that King himself placed little faith in national traditions and, instead, pushed for radical changes that won him the ire of liberals and conservatives who would later claim his legacy.
Rogers, who criticized Coates’s “despair” at length in this magazine in 2015, expresses sympathy for the pessimistic view of American democracy. Indeed, he is far more critical of conservatives and liberals who view American democracy as essentially egalitarian. Referring to Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal’s 1944 study An American Dilemma, Rogers writes that this approach “treats the history of racial domination as an aberration within American life and thus sets about the task of recovering and educating the citizenry about their true commitments.”
Yet even as he agrees that nothing in American history guarantees a racially just future, Rogers insists that the history of racist violence does not preclude that possibility. Otherwise, he writes, “Human agency dissolves altogether, and we fail to acknowledge that our institutions are what they are and our culture is what it is because we have made them so.”
In contrast, Rogers highlights the ideas of the “African American perfectionists,” who “asked their audience to see something as profoundly wrong with who white Americans take themselves to be in their relationship to and treatment of black people.” They offer “faith” instead of “hope”—emphasizing the struggle to realize a vision of justice rather than a passive assurance that it will prevail. It is the conviction, as Baldwin put it in 1963, “that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they really are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it.” Key to that faith is the belief that white Americans can be convinced to hold their Black fellow citizens in “equal regard.” This outcome is far from guaranteed.
Abolitionists like Walker, Stewart, and Douglass argued that the brutality of slavery was dissonant with the founding principles of the United States. But rather than expecting white Americans to rediscover the American creed, they sought to highlight the contradictions and assert a new definition of American democracy that was incompatible with racism. A striking example is Douglass’s 1852 speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” Douglass began with disavowal. “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn,” he told a mostly white audience. Yet he closed with optimism drawn from the ideals and institutions of American democracy and the rising power of abolitionist and democratic movements around the globe.
Oddly, Rogers largely skips over Reconstruction, the period in American history where that faith may have been most closely realized. Both Stewart and Douglass outlived slavery, and it would be useful to know how they assessed what historian Eric Foner calls the “constitutional revolution” contained in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Yet, as Foner acknowledges, that moment was short-lived, and Rogers rightly focuses on the backlash that followed. It was in the face of racist retrenchment that the perfectionist faith was most remarkable, and most needed. ...Read More
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