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Dear Progressive Reader,
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass, already a popular orator, was invited to deliver ([link removed]) an Independence Day address in his adopted hometown of Rochester, New York. The speech, best known for its most famous line, “What to the American slave is your Fourth of July?,” called on listeners to interrogate their celebration of a holiday of independence when a huge portion of the nation’s population had no such freedoms. Douglass directly confronted listeners with the statement: “The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.”
Today, we are confronted again with such a moment, calling again for an exposure of our nation’s infidelity to its own professed values and laws (as well as the norms and confines of international law, which we helped to craft ([link removed]) in the wake of the devastation of World War II).
On Tuesday, Lebanon and parts of Syria were rocked by a series of simultaneous explosions of thousands of personal pager devices, followed ([link removed]) on Wednesday by additional explosions that also targeted handheld walkie-talkies. The attacks were aimed at members of the group Hezbollah (which is both a military group and a recognized national political party), but they also injured or killed a number of unaffiliated individuals—including ([link removed]) children and health care workers. This booby-trapping of communications devices is clearly deemed ([link removed]) as illegal under
international conventions. According ([link removed]) to The Washington Post, “Israel, which has neither claimed credit for the attacks nor denied responsibility, did not inform its most important allies in Washington in advance, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Privately, some of them have expressed a range of responses, from awestruck admiration that Israel could pull off such an ingenious plan, to anxiety that the brazen operation risks provoking a wider regional war.”
On September 18, even as these attacks were occurring, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution ([link removed]) , 124 to 14, condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank. The United States was one of the fourteen “no” votes. As Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies write ([link removed]) this week, “The Palestinian Health Ministry has counted ([link removed]) more than 41,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, but with the destruction of the hospitals that it relies on to identify and count the dead, this is now only a partial death toll.” They continue, “In the crisis in Gaza, the U.S. military alliance with Israel involves the United States directly in the crime of genocide, as the United States provides
([link removed]) the warplanes and bombs that are killing the largest numbers of Palestinians and flattening Gaza.” This provision of weapons to indiscriminately kill civilians and combatants alike is clearly against the professed ideas of our country to help build world peace. But it is also in contravention of specific U.S. laws—including the Leahy Law ([link removed]) , which specifically prohibits “the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.” As Frederick Douglass told us 172 years ago, “America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.” We must stop feeding a military conflict that is killing more people day by day, in more and more
indiscriminate ways, with no clear ([link removed]) end ([link removed]) in sight.
This week on our website, Jesse Hagopian looks at ([link removed]) Donald Trump’s claims that Kamala Harris is a “Marxist” and then tells the histories of several Black women who were. Also Sarah Lahm reports ([link removed]) from Minnesota that the state will not be Trump’s punching bag; Jeff Abbott describes ([link removed]) the first meeting of a new Panamerican Congress; Megan Thiele Strong pens an op-ed ([link removed]) on the continued negative effects of the Electoral College on our democracy; David Helvarg warns ([link removed]) of the
dual threats of climate and wars that could lead to an oil disaster; and Jeremy Mohler opines ([link removed]) on the importance of “community schools” in making sure “students are in the best position to learn.”
Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
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