Reader Comments: Donald Trump - We Reject You!; Israelis, Calling for Global Pressure on Israel To Force Immediate Ceasefire; Barbara Dane; Remembering Gustavo Gutierrez; Voter Intimidation and Election Worker Intimidation Resource Guide; more...
Three months after Hitler promised to uphold the German Constitution, the concentration camp Dachau was open. Its first prisoners were not Jews, but rather Hitler’s prominent political opponents. By April, Jews had been purged from the civil service, and opposition political parties were illegal.
I don't invoke Nazi imagery lightly. In fact, I rarely use it. But this guy is such an obvious threat to our democracy that it is warranted. I think there are many fervent Trump fans who loath their fellow Americans (or undocumented immigrants) so much, that they support Trump's authoritarian tendencies. But there are many others who brush off Trump's talk of arresting his enemies and using the military against Americans as just bluster. They're wrong. I hope we don't get to find out firsthand.
In February 1939, the German-American Bund held an infamous, Hitler-supporting rally in Madison Square Garden. On Sunday, Trump will be holding a rally at Madison Square Garden. The parallel is unmistakable.
However one might reject their premises, some fraction of the American men who have succumbed to the lure of Trump’s fascism need to feel seen and heard and recognized. Saving the country from tyranny needs to become aspirational for men.
"Defendant Trump falsely stated that plaintiffs killed an individual and pled guilty to the crime. These statements are demonstrably false,” the group wrote in federal complaint.
Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise were teenagers when they were accused of the 1989 rape and beating of a white woman jogger in New York City’s Central Park. The five, who are Black and Latino, said they confessed to the crimes under duress. They later recanted, pleading not guilty in court and were later convicted after jury trials. Their convictions were vacated in 2002 after another person confessed to the crime.
After the crime, Trump purchased a full-page ad in the New York Times, calling for the teens to be executed. The jogger case was Trump’s first foray into tough-on-crime politics that preluded his full-throated populist political persona. Since then, dog whistles and overtly racist rhetoric have been fixtures of Trump’s public life.
More than 2,700 Israelis have signed this open letter, published in 11 languages, asking the international community to use ‘every possible sanction’ to ‘save us from ourselves’
Barbara's death hits me hard. Though so distant I always thought of her as a close friend. When we first met a full 77 years ago - we were both in Prague for the first World Youth Festival - I would have loved to become even more than just that. I was a simple member of the delegation, representing the small American Youth for Democracy chapter at Harvard College, which I chaired at the time. Barbara was the star of the USA delegation, not just a wonderful singer, also of our beloved protest songs, but a slim, striking beauty as well. I forsook even attempts at a closer relationship because her husband in Detroit had treated me so very well when I stopped there in my cross-country hitch-hike trip a year earlier. Many years later, when I confided my one-time hopes, she laughed and said, "I had long been separated from my husband at the time." I have never completely overcome a feeling of regret.
I met Barbara again as interpreter for her and her later husband Irwin Silber at the annual World Festival of Political Songs in East Berlin. I knew Irwin from the days of the Folksay Club of the American Youth for Democracy in 1944-1945, when we sang those songs and square danced with him as "caller". Only when they arrived – around 1972, I think - did I realize that this was the same Barbara I had known under a different name in Prague, no longer quite so slim but as great a singer as ever, and as ever a fighter! And a wonderful person!
But it was not so easy to be her interpreter. Barbara prefaced each song with a little talk, often explaining its meaning to her and to this non-American audience. And although she didn't know German she knew the German word for her title song "F-ck the Army – FTA" and she listened carefully to my translation: Was I "cleaning up" what she said? But that word, which has now become an integral part of the German vocabulary (unfortunately, I think) was hardly known then – and impossible to translate literally into German (alone because of its impossibility). I had to find an equivalent – and justify it to Barbara, who sought full vehemence.
I had another little problem at the final concert in East Berlin's biggest hall, which was attended by many of the top political leaders of the GDR, including the top man Erich Honecker. Before Barbara sang her song "Insubordination" – "Subordination is a drag, And liberation is my bag, (oh yeah)" - she made her little speech, whereupon I tried to avoid words which seemed to oppose the GDR, its leaders or its army – all under daily attack by West German TV commentators. But I did not want to dilute her sentiments either. I steered between Scylla and Charybdis as successfully as Odysseus – and she (with my translation) received general applause from all sides.
A dramatic episode followed. This was during the Vietnam War years, and Barbara, after her usual introduction, included a song which was evidently known and loved by the people of Vietnam. (Was it the "Rice Song"?) On the same stage, awaiting their turn in the program, was a group of Vietnamese girls or young women. Of course they didn't understand Barbara's introductory words or my translation into German, and at first didn't realize that she was singing a song of theirs (no doubt somewhat differently). But by the second verse they recognized it and -here far from home – were overjoyed. As soon as she ended they ran forward and they all embraced her – close together, the American anti-war activist and the Vietnamese – in a short, unplanned episode which was both symbolic and extremely moving – and a proper ending of the militant international festival.
Yes, as I've heard, Barbara was a fighter to the end; I'm happy to have known her – but very sad, too - with a few tears - to hear of the inevitable closing of a wonderfully inspiring life story!
Something unprecedented is happening in Puerto Rico which, like the U.S., will hold its general election on November 5th. For the first time ever, the island could elect a governor who favors Puerto Rico’s independence from the United States.
Gustavo Gutiérrez, the Peruvian Dominican priest considered the ”father” of liberation theology, died Oct. 22 at the age of 96.
His 1971 book “A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation" leaves a profound impact on church people working with the poor and advocating for social change.
This year, many voters and election workers are increasingly concerned about threats of intimidation from official and private actors both at the polls and beyond. Since 2020, there have been more threats, politicization, and violence around the election process. While these are not new concerns, the sources and the targets of these threats have shifted in 2022. Thankfully, the many federal and state laws addressing intimidation are flexible enough to account for this, and officials are already working to ensure free and fair elections.
This resource provides an overview of the federal and state laws that serve as guardrails against the intimidation of voters and election workers and the disruption of the voting process. We focus on 10 states where the risk of disruption has been especially high based on the volume of false allegations and anti-voter activity: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. We have also created state-specific resources detailing the relevant safeguards under state law that protect voters and officials from intimidation.
October 28, 2024 | More than 1,000 authors, including winners of the Nobel Prize, Booker Prize, Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award have launched a mass boycott of Israeli publishers complicit in the dispossession of the Palestinian people.
This is the largest cultural boycott against Israeli institutions in history. Heeding the call made by the absolute majority of Palestinian civil society more than twenty years ago, the signatories of this declaration are taking a collective, sector-wide stance for Palestinian liberation.
We, as writers, publishers, literary festival workers, and other book workers, publish this letter as we face the most profound moral, political and cultural crisis of the 21st century. The overwhelming injustice faced by the Palestinians cannot be denied. The current war has entered our homes and pierced our hearts.
The emergency is here: Israel has made Gaza unlivable. It is not possible to know exactly how many Palestinians Israel has killed since October, because Israel has destroyed all infrastructure, including the ability to count and bury the dead. We do know that Israel has killed, at the very least, 43,362 Palestinians in Gaza since October and that this is the biggest war on children this century.
This is a genocide, as leading expert scholars and institutions have been saying for months. Israeli officials speak plainly of their motivations to eliminate the population of Gaza, to make Palestinian statehood impossible, and to seize Palestinian land. This follows 75 years of displacement, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.
Culture has played an integral role in normalizing these injustices. Israeli cultural institutions, often working directly with the state, have been crucial in obfuscating, disguising and artwashing the dispossession and oppression of millions of Palestinians for decades.
We have a role to play. We cannot in good conscience engage with Israeli institutions without interrogating their relationship to apartheid and displacement. This was the position taken by countless authors against South Africa; it was their contribution to the struggle against apartheid there.
Therefore: we will not work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians. We will not cooperate with Israeli institutions including publishers, festivals, literary agencies and publications that:
Are complicit in violating Palestinian rights, including through discriminatory policies and practices or by whitewashing and justifying Israel's occupation, apartheid or genocide, or
Have never publicly recognized the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in international law.
To work with these institutions is to harm Palestinians, and so we call on our fellow writers, translators, illustrators and book workers to join us in this pledge. We call on our publishers, editors and agents to join us in taking a stand, in recognising our own involvement, our own moral responsibility and to stop engaging with the Israeli state and with complicit Israeli institutions.
Initiating Signatories Include:
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Kaveh Akbar, Michelle Alexander, Fatima Bhutto, Dionne Brand, Jericho Brown, Judith Butler, Amit Chaudhury, Anne Chisholm, Siddhartha Deb, Junot Díaz, Natalie Diaz, Inua Ellams, Annie Ernaux, Nick Estes, Percival Everett, Eve L. Ewing, Shon Faye, Mary Gaitskill, Greg Grandin, Guy Gunaratne, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Marilyn Hacker, Isabella Hammad, Mohsin Hamid, Omar Robert Hamilton, Afua Hirsch, Cathy Park Hong, Leslie Jamison, Ha Jin, Daisy Johnson, Owen Jones, Naomi Klein, Hari Kunzru, Rachel Kushner, Jhumpa Lahiri, Raven Leilani, Ben Lerner, Jonathan Lethem, Layli Long Soldier, Valeria Luiselli, Carmen Maria Machado, Miriam Margolyes, Hisham Matar, Maaza Mengiste, China Miéville, Pankaj Mishra, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Tea Obreht, Torrey Peters, Max Porter, Casey Plett, Derecka Purnell, Sally Rooney, Jacqueline Rose, Arundhati Roy, Sarah Schulman, Kamila Shamsie, Christina Sharpe, Nikesh Shukla, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Gillian Slovo, Ahdaf Soueif, Astra Taylor, Jacques Testard, Miriam Toews, Jia Tolentino, Justin Torres, MG Vassanji, Cecilia Vicuña, Ocean Vuong and Mirza Waheed.
What does freedom mean to you? Who fought for it? In "No Cowards in Our Band", Frederick Douglass' words are interwoven with Negro Spiritual music, resulting in a moving, visceral, and achingly timely theatrical experience. One night only at Hudson Hall in Hudson, NY.
NO COWARDS IN OUR BAND
Saturday, November 2 at 7pm
Hudson Hall, 327 Warren Street, Hudson NY
No Cowards in Our Band is a musical drama telling the story of renowned activist and abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) through his own words.
Based on a libretto by Anthony Knight, Jr. and interwoven with Negro Spirituals arranged by GRAMMY-nominated jazz artist Orrin Evans, No Cowards in Our Band stars actor, artist, and TV personality Masud Olufani as Frederick Douglass performing with a trio of opera singers, the “moving and electrifying performer” (Wall Street Journal) Nia Drummond, soprano – who went viral last year for a rendition of Happy Birthday that made Busta Rhymes cry – Metropolitan Opera tenor Edward Washington II, and Opera Ebony and Syracuse Opera’s Gregory Sheppard, bass.
On November 5 we face the most important U.S. election since 1860. It also marks Guy Fawkes Day, the anniversary of a failed coup d’etat in Britain. As we read in the press “it may take even longer to declare a winner than it did in 2020" when it took four days for news organizations to affirm Joe Biden’s victory. The racist and authoritarian Republican candidate in this year’s election has yet to accept his 2020 loss or to commit to accepting this year’s election results.
And, even as we hope that it will not be the case, with attempts to distort election outcomes that have already been put in motion, and with the legal challenges that are being prepared, it could be weeks before we know what the political landscape will look like and what that will mean for justice, peace, democracy, and our responses here in the U.S. and internationally. What are the implications for immigrants, for the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, for our economy?
Please plan to join three exceptional peace, justice, and labor movement leaders as they help us to understand that landscape, its meanings, and suggest answers to the age old question “What must be done?”
Kevin Martin – President, Peace Action and the Peace Action Education Fund
Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis - Director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice & Co-Chair of the Poor People's Campaign
Harris Grumman - Executive Director of the Massachusetts Service Employees International Union (SEIU) State Council
