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Dear Progressive Reader,

A legal giant passed away this week. On April 2, California human rights attorney Peter Schey died ([link removed]) at age seventy-seven of complications from lymphoma. Schey was a legendary champion of the rights of immigrants, especially children. His 1993 victory in the case Reno v. Flores ([link removed]) protected the lives of countless young people. In 2019 the “Flores Settlement ([link removed]) ” was invoked to block ([link removed]) the Trump Administration in its efforts to indefinitely detain unaccompanied migrant children, and just this past week it was again used to require ([link removed]) the Department of Homeland Security to provide
proper housing for migrant children currently in open-air camps in Califorina. (Claudia Villalona paints a moving portrait ([link removed]) of the conditions in some of those camps in the latest issue of The Progressive).

Although Schey did not live to see this latest application of his important work, his legal career and human rights activism continue to receive praise. Even the legal information website Lexis-Nexis posted a tribute ([link removed]) , calling him a “giant of jurisprudence” who “filed Class Action lawsuits in favor of the constitutional rights of millions of immigrants from various parts of the world, but especially Mexicans and Latin Americans.” Schey’s own website ([link removed]) tells the story of his broad interests, his important work, and his passion for a better world. A small, private memorial is being held this weekend for Schey, with future plans for a larger, public celebration of his life.

On our website this week, Alicia Simba writes ([link removed]) for our Public Schools Advocate project on the need for “universal pre-K” education—in spite of the difficulties. Plus, Jeff Abbott reports ([link removed]) on the second anniversary of El Salvador’s brutal “state of emergency” that has detained countless innocent citizens (as Esty Dinur also chronicled ([link removed]) in The Progressive last August). With recent polls show ([link removed]) ing ([link removed]) a very close ([link removed]) race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump,
Bill Lueders goes back into the archives and updates an article ([link removed]) he first compiled in 2020—the shocking history of the Trump Administration’s epic failure to address COVID-19, resulting in tens of thousands of preventable deaths.

Award-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore takes on ([link removed]) the disconnect between calling for humanitarian aid while providing the weapons that bombed an international aid convoy. Larissa Truchan takes a deeper look ([link removed]) at the United Nations report on sexual violence in the October 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel. And, Michaela Brant reports ([link removed]) from Chicago on the activist group looking to disrupt the upcoming Democratic National Convention unless the Biden Administration changes course on its military support for Israel.

Speaking of conventions, the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago will be forever remembered for the protests against the Vietnam War that took place there. Filmmaker Glenn Silber remembers ([link removed]) being influenced by those protests, and a decade later he produced the documentary The War at Home ([link removed]) on Madison, Wisconsin’s antiwar movement. Silber’s film will be screened again in Madison next Tuesday as part of a three-week long series of presentations and an exhibit titled “Waging Peace in Vietnam ([link removed]) ,” which chronicles resistance to the war by active duty GIs and recent veterans of the tragic and unpopular war. I first covered ([link removed]) the exhibit for The Progressive when it opened in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

This month marks the forty-ninth anniversary of the United States military withdrawal from Vietnam. With more than 58,000 U.S. soldiers, and more than 3,000,000 Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian civilians and soldiers killed ([link removed]) in the conflict, one would think the world had learned its lesson—but today there are at least 110 armed conflicts ([link removed]) around the globe. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza receive the most publicity, but the ongoing conflicts in Sudan and Myanmar each saw more than ([link removed]) 12,000 casualties in 2023, and too many others continue to claim the lives of both combatants and civilians. As Pete Seeger powerfully sang ([link removed]) throughout his life, “When will they ever learn?”

Finally, as Wisconsin’s presidential primary election concluded this week, the “uninstructed” (Wisconsin’s version of “uncommitted”) vote came in at a level more than double the number its proponents had anticipated, and more than twice the margin of victory Biden received in 2020. For Madison’s Isthmus newspaper, I wrote an article ([link removed]) that looked at the uncommitted and third party votes that are emerging this year, and harkened back to the 1924 third party run of our magazine’s founder Robert M. La Follette. Later this month, from April 25 to 27 in Madison, The Progressive will be celebrating the centenary of La Follette’s third-party campaign for the presidency in 1924. We will be holding a conference at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Arts and Literature Lab, and the Barrymore Theatre with scholars and authors, speakers and musicians, and a theatrical performance by La Follette’s great granddaughter, Tavia La
Follette. For more information, visit progressive.org/progressive-presidency.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. – Don’t miss a minute of the “hidden history” of 2024 – you can still order The Progressive’s new Hidden History of the United States calendar for the coming year. NOW HALF PRICE – Just $7.50 plus $3.00 shipping. Just go to indiepublishers.shop ([link removed]) , and while you are there, check out some of our other great offerings as well.

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