Dear Progressive Reader,

Monday, October 14 was Indigenous People’s Day, a holiday celebrated in various states around the country for the past three decades, and proclaimed annually by the White House since 2021. The holiday is a response to the historic designation of Columbus Day, which began in 1792. While we have, in the past 232 years, made some progress as a nation in recognizing the rich history of Native people on this continent, we still have a long way to go. As Winona La Duke writes on our website this week, “The courtroom is often the place Native people are attacked today.” American history, La Duke explains, has included “rampant theft of land, cultural items, and people. And where possible, the laws themselves facilitate this theft. It starts with hating and expands to war. And now, some of the modern Indian Wars take place in the courtroom.” However, in the case of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is able to use those courts as well. On Monday October 14, the tribe filed a new lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, based in part on a new report the Corps itself released showing non-compliance by DAPL in the section of the pipeline that crosses the Missouri River.

With a little more than two weeks remaining before election day, both major party candidates are spending their time in rallies in the key swing states. Meanwhile, as The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the Trump campaign is focussing less on knocking doors to get out voters and more on efforts to challenge or suppress the votes that are being cast. This week Ed Rampell reviews the new film Vigilantes Inc. by investigative journalist Greg Palast who looks into these attempts to suppress and challenge votes—especially of Black, Latinx, and Korean voters. Also, Mike Ervin looks at Donald Trump’s continued stream of rhetoric against people with disabilities; Eliana Alzate examines the ways disinformation is targeting communities of color; and Joseph Hayden debunks the lies about immigrants being peddled by the Trump and Vance ticket.

One of the key issues in this election year is the economy—not the stock market, but how the economy is affecting everyday people. Robert Davis offers an explanation of the “opportunity economy” and how Kamala Harris is attempting to address this need. Also, Rann Miller points out that even politicians like Harris and former President Barack Obama have been unwilling to take a stand against the killing of Black men by the “justice” system in the United States; Laura LeMoon looks into the inequity in that justice system for women who have been trafficked; and Iván Espinoza-Madrigal of Lawyers for Civil Rights pens an op-ed on the root causes of the migration crisis. Additionally, Zeyad Masroor Khan and Meghna Prakash report on the ways “tech companies are leveraging the misery of Palestinian war victims for their own profit” and James Baratta digs into how “private-sector investments in the green transition are plagued by climate and labor risks.” Finally, Paul Buhle reviews The Amalgam, a new graphic personal history of twentieth century labor activism in a Jewish immigrant family; and, in anticipation of the World Series, Kelly Candaele and Peter Dreier chronicle the history of immigrants in baseball; and Maureen Cunningham issues a call for the continued removal of lead pipes from our drinking water system, plus  Kari Hamerschlag and Christopher Cook remind us Trump’s toxic history in relation to protections for our food and health.

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, - If you are in or near Madison, Wisconsin, you can meet the Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha whose work was featured in our December 2023/January 2024 magazine and elsewhere on our website. He will be speaking and reading from his new book of poems Forest of Noise this afternoon as part of the Wisconsin Book Festival. Abu Toha was also recently interviewed on Democracy Now! and on NPR’s Weekend Edition.

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