The Rise of Skywalker Is A Let Down - Pop Matters

While The Force Awakens adequately established the franchise, Rian Johnson's poor middle film was a destabilizing effort that put too much demand on this, the final chapter. Abrams is left only to conclude his expansion venture with what is a frustrating and unremarkable experience.

The struggle of both Rian Johnson in Episode 8 and JJ Abrams in Episode 9 to answer the question of how to tell the story post-episode VI raises another pertinent issue with such film-making sagas: understanding the time and space of the story itself.

While The Force Awakens adequately established the franchise, Rian Johnson's poor middle film was a destabilizing effort that put too much demand on this, the final chapter. Unlike Abrams' earlier success, the pressure this time around is too much for him to overcome. He is left only to conclude his expansion venture with what is a frustrating and unremarkable experience.

Abrams and his writers added a new problem by reintroducing Emperor Palpatine as this trilogy's arch-villain, as he was in the previous two trilogies. In Episode VI, Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader had tossed Palpatine down a skyscraper-sized elevator shaft.  Are we to suppose it had been a soft landing? More than likely, Abrams et al. hope we won't suppose anything.

Reprisals by just about every cast member in the saga will either titillate or irritate depending on viewer disposition, especially since most of these cameos are inessential to the immediate action. As force-ghosts and SGI allows, the dead never have to remain dead; they enter a digitalized holding cell to be recycled ad infinitum for Disney's profit.

This parlor trick results in (a) whatever heroic act a character undertook in previous films being rendered utterly meaningless (b) any death of a current film's character being stripped of any poignancy because we've grown wise to the fact that this trilogy will drag them back into the story.

The full article is available here

White House Aides Tried To Talk Trump Out of Withholding Ukraine Aid - New York Times

Trump’s top national security advisers tried to talk him out of withholding the money. 

It has been revealed that President Trump demanded that the Pentagon withhold money from Ukraine at a crucial time in its war with Russia.  Trump’s own top national security advisers tried to talk him out of his determination to withhold the money.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and National Security Advisor John Bolton met with Trump together to convince him to release the aid because it served American interests. He refused.

It is no wonder Trump does not want any of them to testify. I seems safe to exclude the possibility that their testimony would exonerate him.

The full article is available here

Anguish & Anger From Navy SEALs Who Turned In Edward Gallagher - NY Times

Video interviews and group texts obtained by The Times show men describing their platoon leader in grim terms.

Fellow Navy SEAL's dire descriptions of Chief Gallagher, who had eight combat deployments and sometimes went by the nickname Blade, are in marked contrast to Mr. Trump’s portrayal of him at a recent political rally in Florida as one of “our great fighters.”

Video interviews and group texts obtained by The Times show men describing their platoon leader in grim terms.

“The guy is freaking evil,” Special Operator Miller told investigators. “The guy was toxic,” Special Operator First Class Joshua Vriens, a sniper, said in a separate interview.

“You could tell he was perfectly O.K. with killing anybody that was moving,” Special Operator First Class Corey Scott, a medic in the platoon, told the investigators.

The video interviews and private group text conversations obtained by The Times do not reveal any coordinated deception among the SEALs in the chief’s platoon.  Instead, they show men who were hesitant to come forward, but who urged one another to resist outside pressure and threats of violence, and to be honest.

The full article is available here

How Fascism Works: Fascism, Truth, and Trump - Yale professor Jason Stanley

The full article is available here

Trump Impeachment Is A Victory For Our Republic, But Struggle To Keep Republic Goes On - Jeff Wiersma

Trump's impeachment is worth celebrating due to the sovereignty of our constitution and the rule of law being reaffirmed.  The participation in our democracy, by Republicans and Democrat alike, from which impeachment resulted is what gives me reason to be optimistic.

Trump's impeachment is a poignant reminder that voting matters, as the oversight which lead to impeachment was only made possible by the House coming under Democratic control as a result of the 2018 midterm elections.

However, celebration of Trump's impeachment should be tempered with the acknowledgement that it never should've needed to come to this. Trump’s campaign and administration have been an undemocratic, malevolent, and incompetent edifice of lies, and one that - until impeachment - plowed undeterred through other protections designed by the founders to contain both despots and the tyranny of factions they are prone to create.
Most importantly, the edifice of lies that is Trump is still supported by 35-40% of the U.S. electorate. (While that is certainly better than a majority of the electorate supporting Trump, it is a significant amount of the U.S. populace).  This remains a legitimate reason to be concerned about the well-being of our republic and our societal discourse.

The takeaway = impeachment is a short term victory, but the struggle to keep our republic goes on.

Fact Check: Yes, ICE Refused Flu Shot Vaccine/Administering, Which Doctors Donated, For Detainees - Truth or Fiction

Claim: "U.S. border agencies have refused donations of flu shot vaccines for immigrant detainees, despite in-custody deaths due to influenza."

Rating: "True."

By the end of the federal fiscal year in September 2019, at least three immigrant children had died of the flu in federal custody, including a sixteen-year-old boy whose May 2019 death in Border Patrol custody was caught on video, which was obtained months later by investigative journalists.

In November 2019, the Los Angeles Times reported that border agencies refused donations of flu shot vaccines as well as the services of doctors to administer them.

The full article is available here

Trump and AG Barr Claim IG Report Says Exact Opposite of What It Really Says - Andrew Prokop

The inspector general failed to find wrongdoing in the FBI’s opening of the Russia investigation. Donald Trump and his Attorney General Bill Barr didn’t like that.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has completed his lengthy review of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia — and his report, released Monday, fails to back up President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about a “deep state” plot against him.

In the report, Horowitz wrote that the decision to open the investigation “complied with [Justice] Department and FBI policies.” And, he said, he did not conclude that top officials were driven by “political bias or improper motivation” in doing so.

Horowitz’s report does not confirm any of the theories that Trump and his people have floated and outright debunks some.

The inspector general failed to find wrongdoing in the FBI’s opening of the Russia investigation. Donald Trump and his Attorney General Bill Barr didn’t like that. Instead of disputing the report, Trump and Barr announced that it said the exact opposite of what it actually did.

This development suggests we are entering a new phase of disinformation, when Trumpians no longer try to spin facts but simply make their own and sell their false narrative.

The full article is available here

Columbus' True Legacy = Slavery and Genocide - Eric Kasum

“Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel," De Las Casas wrote.

One of Columbus' men, Bartolome De Las Casas, was so mortified by Columbus' brutal atrocities against the native peoples, that he quit working for Columbus and became a Catholic priest.

He described how the Spaniards under Columbus' command cut off the legs of children who ran from them, to test the sharpness of their blades.

According to De Las Casas, the men made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half.  He says that Columbus' men poured people full of boiling soap.

In a single day, De Las Casas was an eye witness as the Spanish soldiers dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 native people.

“Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel," De Las Casas wrote. "My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write."

The full article is available here

Trump publicly urges Ukraine, China to investigate Bidens - New York Post

President Trump openly called on Ukraine and China to investigate his political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

“Well, I would think that if they were honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the Bidens,” Trump said when asked what he wanted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to do when he sought the probe in July.

Trump then continued: “And, by the way, likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.”

The full article is available here

5 Key Points About Climate Change - 350.org

Find out more here

Federal Judge Blocks Trump Effort To Indefinitely Detain Migrant Families - CBS News

“A federal judge rejected a Trump administration effort to detain migrant families and children for longer periods of time than currently allowed, saying it violates the very court settlement the government sought to scrap with its plan.”

The full article is available here

Trump Told Russians He Was Unconcerned About Their Election Interference - The Hill

“In a May 2017 Oval Office meeting, Trump told Russian officials that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the election because the US did the same in other countries, an assertion that prompted alarmed officials to limit access to the remarks.”

The full article is available here

NRA Acted As A 'Foreign Asset' To Russia Before 2016 Election - The Guardian

“Drawing on contemporaneous emails and private interviews, an 18-month probe found that the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known — even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin.”

The full article is available here

Alleged cover-up, secret server and more in Trump whistleblower complaint - CNBC

Trump is abusing the power of his office, soliciting foreign interference in our elections, running a shadow foreign policy via a civilian with no known security clearance, and covering up evidence of his actions.

The full article is available here

Trump Offered His State Department's Assistance to Ukraine to Dig Up Dirt on Biden - Washington Post

The transcript shows Trump urging Ukraine to work with Atty Gen. Barr and Rudy Giuliani in pursuit of dirt on political opponents and bashing US officials. It shows a president with little concern for U.S. interests, only his own.

The full article is available here

Why Is Greta Thunberg Scary To Certain Men? - Irish Times

“Greta Thunberg hints at the emergence of new kind of power, a convergence of youth, popular protest, and irrefutable science. And for her loudest detractors, she also represents something else: the sight of their impending obsolescence hurtling towards them.”

The full article is available here

Explainer: The Trump Whistleblower Scandal - Reuters

The whistle-blower's complaint, which has not yet been turned over to Congress, involved communications with a foreign leader and a “promise” made by Trump, with the whistle-blower's allegations centering on Ukraine.

Donald Trump is in a standoff with leaders of the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives over a whistle-blower complaint from within the intelligence community. 

The whistle-blower's complaint, which has not yet been turned over to Congress, involved communications with a foreign leader and a “promise” made by Trump, with the whistle-blower's allegations centering on Ukraine.

Michael Atkinson, inspector general for the U.S. Intelligence Community, is tasked with determining if a complaint is credible and involves an urgent concern. If it meets these requirements, Atkinson is required to pass it along to the acting director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, who in turn “shall” forward it within seven days to the congressional intelligence committees. 

Atkinson has said in a letter to congressional leaders there were reasonable grounds to think the Aug. 12 whistle-blower complaint was credible and involved an urgent concern, and forwarded it to Maguire.  After consulting with lawyers from Trump's Justice Department, Maguire blocked the complaint from being forwarded to Congress, effectively overriding Atkinson.

Dan Meyer, a former head of the intelligence community whistle-blowing program, said Maguire’s decision to withhold the whistle-blower's complaint from Congress was unprecedented.

“This has never happened before,” said Meyer, a managing partner at the law firm Tully Rinckey.

The full article is available here

U.S. Has Spent 6 Trillion On Wars That Killed Half A Million Since 9/11 - Newsweek

The United States has spent nearly $6 trillion on wars that directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000 people since the 9/11 attacks of 2001.

Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs published its annual "Costs of War" report Wednesday, taking into consideration the Pentagon's spending and its Overseas Contingency Operations account, as well as "war-related spending by the Department of State, past and obligated spending for war veterans' care, interest on the debt incurred to pay for the wars, and the prevention of and response to terrorism by the Department of Homeland Security."

The United States has spent nearly $6 trillion on wars that directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000 people since the 9/11 attacks of 2001.

The final count revealed, "The United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $5.9 trillion (in current dollars) on the war on terror through Fiscal Year 2019, including direct war and war-related spending and obligations for future spending on post 9/11 war veterans."

"In sum, high costs in war and war-related spending pose a national security concern because they are unsustainable," the report concluded. "The public would be better served by increased transparency and by the development of a comprehensive strategy to end the wars and deal with other urgent national security priorities."

The report found that the "US military is conducting 'counter-terror' activities in 76 countries, or about 39% of the world's nations, vastly expanding [its mission] across the globe." In addition, these operations "have been accompanied by violations of human rights and civil liberties, in the US and abroad."

The full article is available here

Debunking The 9/11 Myths - Popular Mechanics

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, a wave of conspiracy theories swept the nation. The destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City was an inside job, they claimed, the work of the federal government, and "truthers" filled the internet with supposed proof of the vast conspiracy.

It was in this climate that Popular Mechanics took on the task of debunking the myths about the 9/11 attacks. Our first report appeared as the cover story for the March 2005 issue.

The reporting grew into a 2006 book with a forward by Sen. John McCain, which was updated with a new version in 2011.

To investigate 16 of the most prevalent claims made by conspiracy theorists, Popular Mechanics assembled a team of nine researchers and reporters who, together with PM editors, consulted more than 70 professionals in fields that form the core content of this magazine, including aviation, engineering and the military.

In the end, we were able to debunk each of these assertions with hard evidence and a healthy dose of common sense.

We learned that a few theories are based on something as innocent as a reporting error on that chaotic day.

Others are the byproducts of cynical imaginations that aim to inject suspicion and animosity into public debate. Only by confronting such poisonous claims with irrefutable facts can we understand what really happened on a day that is forever seared into world history.

The full article is available here

Christian Right’s Politics of Providentialism Keeps U.S. from Addressing Gun Violence - Chrissy Stroop in Rewire

Reactionary Fundamentalist Christians have allowed themselves to be driven by fear of change, fear of progress, fear of any knowledge or growth that challenges their narrow understanding of their  faith and its syncretism with idolatrous nationalism.

As a result, whenever something bad happens, they trot out their cliche decline jeremiad, a genre that links purported symptoms of national decline to spiritual causes.  This inartful dodge prevents the actual roots causes of serious social issues from being addressed and corrected.

While they would contend that to give up their views on such matters as prayer in school and the so-called traditional family would lead to a destructive nihilism, it’s their inability to trust their own moral compass that leads them into a violent and ultimately nihilistic politics, one that puts greater trust in a strict top-down hierarchy than in democracy or the rule of law.

Unfortunately, until they are defeated politically, we are stuck with the devastating social consequences of their political externalization and projection.

The full article is available here

How Fox News Pushed White Supremacist "Great Replacement Theory" - Media Matters

The shooter who killed 20 people and injured dozens in El Paso, TX weekend first posted online a document outlining the white nationalist “great replacement” theory to which he subscribed. Fox News has long mainstreamed this theory’s rhetoric.

The gunman in El Paso described immigrants as “invaders” flooding into the United States, which is rhetoric that both President Donald Trump and Fox News personalities frequently employ.

Fox hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, who both have a history of pushing white nationalism and bigotry on cable airwaves, blatantly push the theory that white Americans are being replaced through immigration to the benefit of Democrats.

Variations of the white supremacist “great replacement” theory have also appeared on other Fox programs.

The full article is available here

Trump’s World Is The Epitome of “Crime Infested” - Zeddaray

Nothing is more 'crime-infested' than Trumpworld. His properties, his charity, his business, his "university", his friends, his campaign, his inauguration, his White House, his family.

He's a criminal, who gets away with it because he's rich and white and extremely racist. And that's all that "crime infested" attack is. Pure racism from a criminal who surrounds himself with thieves and rapists and treacherous charlatans.

The full article is available here

The Blindness Of White Privilege: Donald Trump's Bigotry

Trump either doesn't understand or doesn't care to understand (a) the ongoing effects of structural & systemic inequality (b) how redlining and placement of interstates through African American neighborhoods leads to economic blight (c) that accumulated white privilege excludes non-whites.

White Privilege and White Supremacy both simply point at current conditions and denigrate those suffering under them - without any understanding of causality and complicity.

Authoritarians’ Sympathetic Friends: U.S. Conservatives - Robert Kagan in Washington Post

Since the end of the Civil War, the story of the U.S. has been the continual expansion of rights to more and more groups. When certain strands of conservatism object to this historical reality, it is to the democratic ideals of the United States' founding that they are objecting. Therefore, these days some U.S. conservatives have become adoring fans of some of the world’s staunchest anti-democratic and anti-U.S. leaders.

Today, many in the United States — mostly, but certainly not exclusively, white Christians — claim to be defending themselves and their “values” against decisions by U.S. courts granting rights and preferences to minorities, to women, to the LGBTQ community, to Muslims and other non-Christians, and to immigrants and refugees.

There has always been an element of anti-Americanism in that strand of conservatism, in the sense that it has stood in opposition to the liberal Enlightenment essence of the American founding.

Since the end of the Civil War, the story of the United States has been the continual expansion of rights to more and more groups claiming them, as well as continual resistance to that expansion. When conservatives object to this historical reality, it is to the democratic ideas of the United States' founding documents (Declaration of Independence and Constitution) that they are objecting.

These days, some American conservatives find themselves in sympathy with the world’s staunchest anti-American leaders. As the Trump administration tilts toward anti-democratic forces in Europe and elsewhere, most Americans appear indifferent, at best. In contrast to their near-obsession with communism during the Cold War, they appear unconcerned by the challenge of authoritarianism.

Political theorist Marc Plattner argues that the gravest threat to liberal democracy today is that the “mainstream center-right parties” of the liberal democratic world are being “captured by tendencies that are indifferent or even hostile to liberal democracy.”

The full article is available here

Neoliberal Extreme Capitalism and Resurgent Fascism - Henry Giroux in Tikkun

Fascism is never entirely interred in the past.  The conditions that produce its central assumptions are with us once again, ushering in a period of modern barbarity that appears to be reaching towards homicidal extremes in the West, especially in the United States.

Cynical authoritarian politicians and managers of extreme capitalism have used the crises of economic inequality and immigration - and what Paul Gilroy has called its "manifestly brutal and exploitative arrangements" - to sow social divisions and resurrect the discourse of racial cleansing and white supremacy. 

In doing so, they have tapped into the growing collective suffering and anxieties of millions in order to redirect their anger and despair through a culture of fear and discourse of dehumanization; they have also turned critical ideas to ashes by disseminating a toxic mix of racialized categories, ignorance and a militarized spirit of white nationalism.

In this instance, neoliberalism and fascism conjoin and advance in a comfortable and mutually compatible project and movement that connects the exploitative values and cruel austerity policies of “casino capitalism” with fascist ideals.

These ideals include the veneration of war, anti-intellectualism, dehumanization, a populist celebration of ultra-nationalism and racial purity, the suppression of freedom and dissent, a culture of lies, a politics of hierarchy, the spectacularization of emotion over reason, the weaponization of language, a discourse of decline, and state violence in heterogeneous forms.

Fascism is never entirely interred in the past.  The conditions that produce its central assumptions are with us once again, ushering in a period of modern barbarity that appears to be reaching towards homicidal extremes in the West, especially in the United States.

The full article is available here

Why Do Some Believe A Sitting U.S. President Shouldn't Face Criminal Prosecution In Court? - Reuters

Unfortunately, the U.S. Justice Department has a decades-old internal policy which argues that a sitting president cannot be indicted (dating back to 1973) despite the fact that the idea that no one is above the law is a central tenet of Constitutional Republicanism.

The U.S. Constitution explains how a president can be removed from office for “high crimes and misdemeanors” by Congress using the impeachment process. But the Constitution is silent on whether a president can face criminal prosecution in court, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not directly addressed the question.

Some legal experts have argued that the nation’s founders could have included a provision in the Constitution shielding the president from prosecution, but did not do so, suggesting an indictment would be permissible.

According to this view, immunity for the president violates the fundamental principle that nobody is above the law (which would be in keeping with the spirit of constitutional republicanism).

Unfortunately, the U.S. Justice Department has a decades-old internal policy which argues that a sitting president cannot be indicted, dating back to 1973. In the midst of the Watergate scandal engulfing President Richard Nixon, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel adopted in an internal memo the position that a sitting president cannot be indicted.

“The spectacle of an indicted president still trying to serve as Chief Executive boggles the imagination,” the memo stated.

The Justice Department reaffirmed the policy in a 2000 memo, saying court decisions in the intervening years had not changed its conclusion that a sitting president is “constitutionally immune” from indictment and criminal prosecution.

The full article is available here

Trump & His Supporters: The Cruelty Is The Point - Adam Serwer in The Atlantic

The cruelty of the Trump administration's policies, and the ritual rhetorical flaying of his targets before his supporters, are intimately connected.

We can hear the spectacle of cruel laughter throughout the Trump era.  The Trump-supporter community is built by rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them.  They have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life (and/or late stage capitalism).

This reflects a clear, guiding principle to this community: Only Trump and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of law (and immunity from it if necessary).  The rest of us are entitled only to cruelty, by their whim. 

This how the powerful have ever kept the powerless divided and in their place, and enriched themselves in the process.  Trump's ability to get away with graft, corruption, and fraud is tied to cruelty.

The cruelty of the Trump administration's policies, and the ritual rhetorical flaying of his targets before his supporters, are intimately connected.  His cruelty makes his supporters feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united. 

So long as Trump continues to cause them to feel that way, his supporters will let him get away with anything, no matter who it harms or even if it costs them.

The full article is available here

Trump’s Duplicity On Anti-Semitism - Rabbi Danya Rattenberg

Trump, who referred to white supremacists who chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville two years ago as “very fine people,” insists that the Democrats have become an “an anti-Jewish party” now.

Trump has also retweeted white nationalists who accuse Jewish businessman George Soros of paying Central American migrants to form caravans and “invade” the United States. The ancient myth that we Jews are the villains behind the scenes, running things in secret, continues to persist in our society.

Also, consider that Trump's using of antisemitism isn't meant to pander to Jews (except maybe Sheldon Adelson) so much as to his Evangelical base, which cares for us only insofar as we are useful instruments for them and not for ourselves.

The full article is available here

The Mixed Bag of Republican Party with Race and Helping Those At The Bottom - Heather Cox Richardson

Cherry-picked versions of GOP history argue that the party has been unchanging in its support for black rights and ordinary U.S. Citizens, but that's just not right.

The long history of the GOP has been both glorious - as they argue - and sordid.

From 1860 to 1864, the new Republican party put the federal government to work for ordinary white men rather than oligarchs. It gave out land, provided education, invented national taxation (including what would become the IRS), all while fighting for the nation.

After the war - when Andrew Johnson tried to resurrect the pre-war world, minus the slavery that had supported the rich southerners he hated, and Democrats signed on - the Republicans passed the 14th and 15th Amendments, providing for black male citizenship and guaranteeing black male voting.

If only we could stop right there, all the threads you read about the glorious Republican Party would be true.  But as we know, many years have come and gone between 1870 and 2019.

Former Confederates hated black voting, but organizing as the Ku Klux Klan had backfired. So they started to say they weren't racists ... they were "fiscally conservative." They complained that poor blacks elected leaders who promised schools, roads, hospitals, and so on were using their tax dollars for socialism.

In 1872, a GOP faction wanting to replace U.S. Grant sided with the Democrats to argue that protecting black rights was communism.  To win reelection, Grant needed to cozy up to Wall Street, which would give him the money to offset the anti-Grant newspapers.

Grant won, and the GOP began to interpret their pro-ordinary man ideology as pro-prosperity, which increasingly meant passing laws to protect business. This meant tariffs, above all, for they protected businesses from foreign competition. But protecting labor was "socialism."

By the 1900s, the GOP worked for big business, crushing ordinary farmers and workers. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was another rhetorical boogeyman that the well-heeled portion of the GOP could use to claim that activist government was socialism and a ruse to redistribute tax money to black people and immigrants who were ruining American traditions.

In the aftermath of the Great Depression, FDR's New Deal regulated business and finance, protected basic social welfare, and promoted infrastructure. Even most GOP recognized their old system was a disaster, and backed active government.

But the pro-big business Hoover faction of the GOP, led now by William H. Taft's son Senator Robert Taft (OH), still hated the New Deal's active government and set out to erase it. They were so convinced that US citizens hated this "socialism" they assumed they would defeat Truman in 1948.

When Eisenhower ran for the GOP nomination in 1952, the Hoover/Taft faction blamed the "Eastern Establishment" for stealing the nomination. Moderates had won, but Taft was irate and his men vowed revenge.  In Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, they found a powerful figure to carry out their agenda.

The full thread is available here

The Dictatorship of Ignorance in the Age of Trump - Henry Giroux in Tikkun

"Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have." - James Baldwin

We are witnessing the closing of the political coupled with explicit expressions of cruelty and “widely sanctioned ruthlessness.”

Moreover, the very conditions that enable people to make informed decisions are under siege as schools are defunded, media becomes more corporatized, oppositional journalists are killed, and reality TV becomes the model for mass entertainment.

Under the reign of corporatist neoliberalism - with its antithesis for community and embrace of deregulation, privatization, downsizing and consumerism - individuals are left to find sanctuary in the feudal orbits of self-interest, a selfie culture, and individualistic rather than social goals.

As public values, trust, solidarities, and modes of education are under siege, the authoritarian discourses of hate, racism, rabid self-interest, and greed are gaining traction. Under such circumstances, civic illiteracy substitutes opinions for informed arguments and works to erase collective memory (for example, the revisionist history of Trump-supporting right wing polemicists like Dinesh D'Souza, Dennis Prager, Candace Owens, and David Barton, etc.).

As market mentalities and moralities tighten their grip on all aspects of society, democratic institutions and public spheres are being downsized, if not altogether disappearing. As these institutions vanish — from public schools and alternative media to health care centers — there is also a serious erosion of the discourses of community, justice, equality, public values, and the common good.

This grim reality has been called by Alex Honneth a “failed sociality” - a failure in the power of the civic imagination, political will and open democracy. It is also part of a politics that strips the social of any democratic ideals and undermines any understanding of education as a public good.

There is an urgent political need for a public to understand what it means for an authoritarian society to both weaponize and trivialize the discourse, vocabularies, images, and aural means of communication in a society.

The full article is available here

A Guide to Your Rights When Interacting with Law Enforcement - Catholic Immigration Network

Undocumented immigrants and their families have rights. These "Know Your Rights" resources are available in multiple languages and include pictures and explanations of the different warrants that officials may use in immigration enforcement actions.

The full guide is available here

Trump Incorrectly Rants About Article 2 - Splinter News

Speaking about Special Counsel Robert Mueller with reporters outside the White House today, Trump ranted about  “a thing called Article II”—presumably meaning the section of the Constitution on presidential authority.

“Nobody ever mentions Article II,” Trump continued. “It gives me all of these rights at a level that nobody has ever seen before.”

In fact, Article II gives him “rights” at exactly the same level as every other president for the past 200+ years.  Also it is chock full of very clearly enumerated limits to his power, as well as the basis by which he can be removed from office through impeachment.

The full article is available here

U.S. Women Dying Even A Year After Giving Birth - Huffpost

“The United States is the only developed country in the world where the maternal mortality rate is increasing, particularly among women of color — and lack of postpartum support is a major contributing factor.”

The full article is available here

The Unspoken Logic of Trump's Immigration Tweets - Jeff Wiersma

Trump Administration's Citizenship Question for Census: Bad Faith Mockery Of Law

Every single thing about the way the Trump administration has handled the citizenship question - from its origins, to its lies before Congress and courts, to this latest chapter where Trump’s impulsivity had DOJ lawyers scrambling to explain to courts that they weren’t trying to mislead them - has been rife with egregious bad faith and mockery of the law.

The full article is available here

Border Patrol Agent Secret Facebook Group Joked About Migrant Deaths, Posted Sexist Memes - MSN

Group members joked about the deaths of migrants.

A private Facebook group of 9,500 current and former Border Patrol agents had extremely troubling xenophobic, sexist, and dehumanizing content.

Group members joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in South Texas on Monday, and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant, according to screenshots of their postings.

One user posted a manipulated image showing President Trump forcing Ocasio-Cortez to perform oral sex on him. Like I said, pretty vile. Here as elsewhere, the outspoken congresswoman is a favored target for gendered abuse.

In early 2018, federal investigators found a raft of disturbing and racist text messages sent by Border Patrol agents in southern Arizona after searching the phone of Matthew Bowen, an agent charged with running down a Guatemalan migrant with a Ford F-150 pickup truck. The texts, which were revealed in a court filing in federal court in Tucson, described migrants as “guats,” “wild a** s***bags,” “beaners” and “subhuman.” The messages included repeated discussions about burning the migrants up.

The full article is available here

Liberal Democracy in Danger: Putin Is Its Enemy & Trump Agrees With Him - Heather Cox Richardson

In 2019, we have a Republican president who is so steeped in Movement Conservative Plutocratic rhetoric - which deems all Democrats and Moderate Republicans to be "dangerous liberals" - that he has lost touch with our founding principles. He agreed with Putin, a geopolitical enemy, that western liberalism is obsolete.

Here we are, with the autocrat Putin telling us our days are over, and our president agreeing as he misunderstands the comment. How did we get here?

After WWII, a few leading men hated the idea that the government would reflect new voters: people of color and women.

As government increasingly supported schools, hospitals, and clean cities, and as it regulated business, protected workers from dangerous workplaces, mandated minimum wages and maximum hours, and required businesses to clean up the pollution they put into the public environment, these men began to argue that anyone who wanted to expand the liberal idea was, in fact, a dangerous "socialist" or "communist."

Since it was quite clear that no one was arguing for the hallmark of those systems of government - they both depend on public ownership of businesses - they argued that the taxes necessary to pay for government programs redistributed wealth from rich to poor.

They insisted that anyone who reinforced the idea of western liberalism - Republicans and Democrats both - were dangerous "Liberals." By demonizing their opponents, that fringe group of businessmen came to dominate the Republican Party, and to take over America.

Now, in 2019, we have a Republican president who is so steeped in that rhetoric he has lost touch with our founding principles. He agreed with a geopolitical enemy that western liberalism is obsolete.

Putin's comment was not about politics; it was about the future of humanity. The head of an enemy power has taunted us with the idea that the principles on which the United States' democratic experiment was founded are "obsolete."

Clearly, Putin prefers his own authoritarian system that sets up a few people over the rest of the population. Putin has turned Russian into a deadly oligarchy in which he and his cronies hold all the power. Do we want the same?!?

The full article is available here

In 1922, My Great Grandmother Wasn't Going To Be Allowed Into U.S. With Her Husband and 6 Children - Jeff Wiersma

It is only because a person with enough financial means agreed to be her sponsor that the officials at Ellis Island reversed their ruling and allowed my Great Grandmother Sadie to enter the United States.

My Great Grandfather, Louis Jacob Wiersma, immigrated to the U.S. from Holland with his wife and 7 children in 1922. (Cornelius, in center of photo to the left, is my late Grandfather).

Louis left his homeland due to the economic woes that followed World War I - a situation so bad that his cousin - who was already in the United States - urged him to immigrate so that his family of 8 wouldn't starve!

Being that Louis was laborer and not a land-owning aristocrat, the family of 8 had to make the trans-Atlantic trip down in steerage as 3rd class passengers.

Before arriving at Ellis Island, they were split up by people called groupers into different groups; first by boat, then into women and children, and men, and then into smaller groups of about thirty or so. (In that era, they weren't treated as criminals and were assured that they would be reunited as a family after processing).

Once the boat finally arrived at Ellis Island, they were all examined by U.S. doctors. The first federal immigration laws passed in 1882 prohibited anyone who was physically incapable of taking care of themselves.

My Great Grandmother, Sadie, was detained since she had a limp that was the result of an early childhood injury. SHE WAS NOT GOING TO BE ALLOWED INTO THE UNITED STATES.

This mean that the family of 8 would either (a) have to all return to Holland and potential starvation or (b) only send Sadie back, meaning Louis and his 7 kids would enter the US without their wife/mother.

Fortunately, a member of the Kroll family came to Ellis Island from Whitinsville and promised to serve as her sponsor. It is only because a person with enough financial means agreed to be her sponsor that the officials at Ellis Island reversed their ruling and allowed my Great Grandmother Sadie to enter the United States.

It's no wonder that people today fleeing starvation being called "rapists," "thugs," "not the best being sent" and "animals" upsets me so much! No wonder families being forcefully separated at the border has me emotionally distraught!

Some Thoughts On Interacting With People We Have Political Differences With - Jeff Wiersma

I really, really enjoy debating and discussing ideas and issues. I've always found it enlivening to drill down to the core of the beliefs that we hold and philosophies that we adhere to. I've always been interested in ultimate questions and examining given assumptions.

The reality of life is that not every operates from the same ethical and philsophical framework.  People who see things through differing lenses are bound to arrive at different conclusions, and this what often stirs debate and discussion.

Sometimes, I've debate and discussed in a productive manner. Sometimes, I have fallen short of engaging in a productive manner. It turns out that I'm not perfect; but I do try to at least be aware of when I've missed the mark and to own up to it.

In reflecting on the instances when discussion and dialogue went well, the following thoughts occurred to me.

* We can agree to disagree with those of different beliefs. 

* However, dehumanization need not be tolerated. Beliefs which deny the full humanity of all (and thereby deny equal protections to those deemed less-than-fully-human) are necessarily inferior ethically to those which recognize the full humanity of all. The negating of someone’s existence goes well beyond differences of opinion. 

* Someone’s continued and unrepentant use of dehumanizing rhetoric and bad faith arguments are legitimate grounds for ending discussion with them, but never for completely writing off those that utilize them in their entirety. The future is not fixed - and though it is more rare than one would hope - people do change their minds.

* Be discerning about who is able to engage in intellectually honest dialogue and who is unable to, and then proceed accordingly.

* Fact check what you say before putting it out there. Having accurate and verifiable citations from trustworthy sources helps bring objective clarity to otherwise subjective discussion.  

* An effective approach to stated opinions that don’t hold up to scrutiny and fact-checking is to ask clarifying questions. Why does the party that offers untenable and disprovable opinions believe that what they claim is the case? This can be helpful to getting down to the nitty gritty of the fear that is steering the ship. 

* Impact always takes priority over intent. Whether on not one intended to cause offense with a statement; if its impact made the recipient feel badly, an apology for that causing that impact is the appropriate response. 

* Assertively stating and defending one’s beliefs doesn’t mean one has to be disagreeable. Being assertive is the healthy middle ground between being passive and being aggressive.

* Good faith debate is only possible with intellectual honesty. It's often the case that many things that we believe to be true are based merely on what we wish to be true or what we feel should be true. Good faith debate requires moving beyond unexamined and rote statements of opinion.

* Ignorance is not an excuse. Beliefs held for ideological reasons - but lacking an awareness of the negative impacts their resultant policies have on marginalized groups - are not a carte blanche; even if there was no intent to be harmful.  

Even POW's Are Guaranteed Hygene Items That Trump Thinks Detained Kids Don't Need

Children At Risk In U.S. Border Jails - Human Rights Watch

“A pediatric emergency physician at Stanford who formed part of our team, told me if a child came into her emergency room and reported this kind of treatment, she would be obligated to report it as child neglect."

The full article is available here

Trump's Fear-Mongering Mimics That of Slave-Owners Pre-Civil War

White nationalist autocrats once again pose an existential threat to our constitutional republic.

The Youngest Child Separated From His Family at the Border Was 4 Months Old - NY Times

“At the airport, Constantin’s father refused to board the plane without his infant son. The immigration officers, he said, told that his infant son would be handed to him once he took his seat. But the plane lifted off and the baby never came.”

The full article is available here

‘Never again’ means nothing if Holocaust analogies are always off limits - Rabbi Danya Rattenberg

We know that the path to atrocity can be a process and that the Holocaust began with dehumanizing propaganda, with discriminatory laws, with roundups and deportations, and with internment. Those things are happening in our country now!

If done with caution, Holocaust analogies can be useful. Looking at Holocaust history — thoughtfully, carefully — can help us to see the parallels between then and now.

It can also help us to understand when those parallels are not apt, and what that does and doesn’t mean about news as it breaks.

Of course, analogies are imperfect, and every situation has its own nuances and context, but looking at monstrous events of the past can help us understand where we are in ways that can be difficult to see in the day-to-day.

We must remember that the Holocaust didn’t begin with gas chambers, and it’s not business as usual in U.S. right now.  We already know that the path to atrocity can be a process, and that the Holocaust began with dehumanizing propaganda, with discriminatory laws, with roundups and deportations, and with internment.

Those things are happening in our country now, and they’re known as some of the stages of genocide first articulated by Genocide Watch in 1996.

The full article is available here

Impeachment, Trump, and The Rule of Law - Heather Cox Richardson

According to a court filing from Trump's lawyers, his justification for refusing to cooperate at all with any investigations is that Congress cannot investigate the president. Trump and his lawyers believe that he is above the law.

This is a line many Republicans are now also taking. Since they're unable to deny that Trump is lawless, they are simply adopting Nixon's argument that when the president does something, it's not illegal.

Republican members of Congress are are abetting the rise of a dictator.
And remember this: as soon as he is not in office, he's in trouble. This equation makes it reasonable to think that his "jokes" about staying in office permanently are not a joke.

This is exactly why the Founders came up with the concept of impeachment, a way to remove a bad president without criminal penalties.

The full article is available here

In Court, Trump Administration Argues Detained Migrant Children Don't Need Soap, Toothbrushes - Newsweek

“The Trump administration went to court this week to argue that migrant children detained at the United States-Mexico border don’t need basic hygiene products like soap and toothbrushes in order to be in held in ‘safe and sanitary’ conditions. Trump's team also argued that requiring minors to sleep on cold concrete floors in crowded cells with low temperatures similarly fulfilled that requirement.”

The full article is available here

Pentagon and intelligence officials fear they cannot trust Trump enough to brief him fully on new US cyber operation against Russia for fear he will "countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials" as he did before with Russians.”

The full article is available here

Expert on Concentration Camps: That's Exactly What U.S. Is Running at Border - Andrea Pitzer

The definition of a concentration camp is mass detention of civilians without trial.  Many of the people housed in the U.S. border detention facilities are not so-called "illegal" immigrants. They are refugees who have committed no crime, yet they are being detained. 

Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, who has researched instances of concentration camps in France, South Africa, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and - with Japanese internment - the United States.

She contends the U.S. is operating such a system right now at our southern border. 

“We have what I would call a concentration camp system,” Pitzer says, “and the definition of that in my book is, mass detention of civilians without trial.”

Not every concentration camp is a death camp - in fact, their primary purpose isn't extermination, and never in the beginning. Often, much of the death and suffering that occurs is a result of insufficient resources, overcrowding, and deteriorating conditions. 

So far, 24 people have died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration, while six children have died in the care of other agencies since September.

Many of the people housed in these facilities are not so-called "illegal" immigrants. If you present yourself at the border seeking asylum, you have a legal right to a hearing under domestic and international law. They are refugees who have not committed a crime and are fleeing violence and persecution.

Yet they are being detained on what increasingly seems to be an indefinite basis.

The full article is available here

What The Nazis Learned From The Early 20th Century Racially-Segregated U.S. - Jessica Blatt

1930's Nazi thinkers and lawmakers were especially drawn to U.S. legal codes based on white supremacy. They also admired the U.S. scientific racists and white-supremacist propagandists of the early 20th century.
Unfortunately, when the Nazis looked at the early 20th-century United States, they were inspired.

The United States' models of legalized racial segregation and discrimination inspired the Nazi lawyers who crafted the Nuremberg laws that stripped German Jews of their citizenship, barred mixed marriages, and prohibited interracial child-bearing.

Nazi lawyers saw the U.S. as the "leading racist jurisdiction," the prototype of a legal regime designed to control "foreign races" living in their midst.

Nazis admired the U.S. scientific racists and white-supremacist propagandists of the early 20th century. Hitler famously admired the United States' "wholesome aversion for the Negroes and the colored race in general."

Hitler's writings and speeches exhibited an approving awareness of the U.S. policies of compulsory sterilization for "undesirable" people, restricting immigration of those that eugenicists deemed to be "inferior races," and the history of exterminatory policies towards Native Americans.

The full article is available here

Trump's Russia Gaslighting and Inadvertent Moment of Truth - Heather Cox Richardson