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TIDBITS – JAN.2 – READER COMMENTS: MAGA DIVIDE – ROUND ONE TO
THE PLUTOCRACY; GOP PLAN TO DISMANTLE PRO-PALESTINIAN MOVEMENT;
CHANUKAH IS CHOICE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH; RESOURCE – WORLD-CHANGING
IMPACT OF VACCINES; CARTOONS; AND MORE…  
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January 2, 2025
xxxxxx
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_ Reader Comments: MAGA Divide - Round One to The Plutocracy; GOP
Plan To Dismantle Pro-Palestinian Movement; Chanukah Is Choice Between
Life and Death; Resource - World-Changing Impact Of Vaccines;
Cartoons; and more.... _

Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, AND cartoons -
Jan.2, 2025, xxxxxx

 

* IF YOU'RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT BAD PRESIDENTS...  --  CARTOON BY
CLAY JONES
* RE: MAGA CIVIL WAR ERUPTS  (JOSE LUIS MEDINA)
* RE: THE PLUTOCRACY WINS ANOTHER ROUND AGAINST MAGA NATION
 (MARY-ALICE STROM; ARTHUR WEIL)
* RE: HOW A US PRESIDENT AND JP MORGAN MADE PANAMA AND TURNED IT
INTO A TAX HAVEN  (SANCOCHO NUYORQUINO)
* RE: THINK BIDEN’S UNPOPULAR? CHECK OUT HIS FELLOW LEADERS.
 (SILVIA BRANDON)
* RETURNS  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY NICK ANDERSON
* RE: HOW TRUMP AND THE GOP PLAN TO DISMANTLE THE U.S.
PRO-PALESTINIAN MOVEMENT  (JAY SCHAFFNER; JUDYTH HOLLUB; FRED C
SCHAFFNER)
* RE: CHANUKAH IS A CHOICE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH: CHOOSE LIFE
 (MARK C. ROSENZWEIG; DAVID BOIM)
* RE: 2024 WORD OF THE YEAR: GENOCIDE (AS IN, GAZA)  (INDIANA
CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE, INC.)
* RE: ARTICLE AMERICA’S HEALTH INSURANCE GRINCHES  (VELVA
SPRIGGS)
* HOUSE FOR SALE  --  CARTOON BY PAT BAGLEY
* RE: WHISTLEBLOWER KAREN SILKWOOD’S URGENT MESSAGE FOR US
 (IRENE JACOBSON)
* RE: ECUADOR HANDS OVER GALAPAGOS ISLANDS TO BUILD U.S. MILITARY
BASE  (LYNN HAMILTON)
* WEAPONIZATION OF THE DOJ  --  CARTOON BY JOHN DARKOW
* RE: DISPATCHES FROM THE CULTURE WARS – DECEMBER 31, 2024
 (ETHAN YOUNG)

.

RESOURCES:

* THIS GRAPHIC SHOWS THE INCREDIBLE, WORLD-CHANGING IMPACT OF
VACCINES (GRAPHIC: LEON FARRANT;  STORY: LAUREN F FRIEDMAN, BUSINESS
INSIDER INDIA)

.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

* ARISE AND RESIST: ORGANIZING FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE UNDER
REPRESSION  --  BOSTON  --  JANUARY 19  (MASSACHUSETTS PEACE
ACTION, BOSTON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA, NORTHSHORE FOR
PALESTINE, OUR REVOLUTION MASSACHUSETTS, DOCTORS AGAINST GENOCIDE,
COMMUNIST PARTY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AND WATERTOWN CITIZENS FOR PEACE,
JUSTICE AND THE ENVIRONMENT)

.

.

IF YOU'RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT BAD PRESIDENTS...  --  CARTOON BY CLAY
JONES
 

Clay Jones
December 31, 2024
Claytoonz
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RE: MAGA CIVIL WAR ERUPTS
 

A war between High Tech Corporate leaders and the anti-immigrant MAGA
base.

Jose Luis Medina
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: THE PLUTOCRACY WINS ANOTHER ROUND AGAINST MAGA NATION
 

Elon Musk emerged victorious in Trumpworld’s first fight over
foreign-born tech workers. But underneath Laura Loomer’s hateful
rhetoric lies a legitimate concern.

Mary-Alice Strom
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

More infighting please.

Arthur Weil
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
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RE: HOW A US PRESIDENT AND JP MORGAN MADE PANAMA AND TURNED IT INTO A
TAX HAVEN
 

In 1903 the US bullied Colombia into giving up the province that
became Panama. The plan was to create a nation to serve the interests
of Wall Street

Sancocho Nuyorquino
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
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RE: THINK BIDEN’S UNPOPULAR? CHECK OUT HIS FELLOW LEADERS.
 

If floundering leaders and ineffectual democracies are the new norm,
we’re in a very dangerous time. 

Silvia Brandon
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
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RETURNS  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY NICK ANDERSON

 

Trump isn't even president yet, and democracy is already under threat.
Trump is undermining the First Amendment with his frivolous suits
against media companies, and it's working. ABC quickly caved quickly.
Jeff Bezos caved preemptively. And more suits are coming. Just wait
until he weaponizes the Justice Department and FCC.

Nick Anderson
December 27, 2024
Counterpoint [[link removed]]

 

RE: HOW TRUMP AND THE GOP PLAN TO DISMANTLE THE U.S. PRO-PALESTINIAN
MOVEMENT
 

Aggressively anti-Palestinian appointees, who tend to describe all
campus protesters as Hamas supporters, will soon steer both foreign
and domestic policy, creating a Trump administration united in seeking
a crackdown on the pro-Palestinian movement in the U.S. despite any
other differences.

Jay Schaffner
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

From this article:

"Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was motivated by antisemitism.
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the act earlier
this year, despite concerns on the left that criticism of Israel would
be conflated with antisemitism and on the right that the bill had
dramatic implications on freedom of speech."

Also from this article:

"Rep. Brian Mast has been slated to chair the House Foreign Affairs
Committee after Trump advocated on his behalf. The Florida congressman
has long been considered the U.S. lawmaker most hostile to the
Palestinians. He has decried efforts to bolster humanitarian aid for
Gaza and dismissed the notion of innocent Palestinian civilians."

Anti-Biden voters in Michigan take note. This is what some of you
voted for, and what some of you refused to vote against.

Judyth Hollub
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
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      =====

Share this with those attacked “Genocide Joe” and refused to
support Harris. This is what they achieved.

Fred C Schaffner
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
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RE: CHANUKAH IS A CHOICE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH: CHOOSE LIFE
 

We need not surrender Chanukah to Zionism’s dark vision. We can
reclaim, redeem, and rededicate our tradition. Our forebears
celebrated this as a festival of light, and it is upon us to honor
them by celebrating it as well. We can celebrate in a way that
embodies truth: Just as the rabbis refocused Chanukah more than a
millennium ago, we can focus on bringing light into darkness; we can
honor the instruction in Deuteronomy, “. . . I have set before you
life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life . . . .”

We can choose life. We can choose to live our lives with light. We can
choose – as did the rabbis who wrote the Talmud – to reject
narratives that lead us into the shadow of death. We can choose to
reject triumphalist but ultimately doomed nationalist/fundamentalist
narratives that separate our lives from the lives of others.

We can choose to live Jewish lives joined with Palestinian lives. We
can recognize that every Palestinian life is a victory over
oppression, is a light that overcomes the darkness of Zionism. When we
light the candles of the menorah, we will join our light to
Palestinian light.

Mark C. Rosenzweig
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

The conflict in the Middle East is complex. Terrorist attacks like
October 7th and the terrorists organizations in Gaza who use the
civilian population as human shields are despicable, as is the Israeli
response, which has little regard for civilian casualties. Because of
the unrelenting posts like this one, which oversimplifies the conflict
and paints this conflict as good vs. evil (instead of evil vs. evil),
the U.S. has Donald Trump as the incoming President. Was the election
of this amoral human being really the goal? Literally - the frying pan
into the fire.

David Boim
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: 2024 WORD OF THE YEAR: GENOCIDE (AS IN, GAZA)
 

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate
destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of
all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a
coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of
essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of
annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan
would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of
culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic
existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal
security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the
individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed against the
national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed
against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members
of the national group.

Indiana Center for Middle East Peace, Inc.
[[link removed]]
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
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RE: ARTICLE AMERICA’S HEALTH INSURANCE GRINCHES
 

This is absolutely the best article I have read on this subject and I
had already advised friends and relatives against insuring with
Medicare Advantage Plans.  I recognized them immediately as scams
without fully knowing all the ins and outs.  When something is too
good to be true, it usually is!  Thank you for this article.  I am
sharing it, although for many it may be too late.

Velva Spriggs

 

HOUSE FOR SALE  --  CARTOON BY PAT BAGLEY

 

Pat Bagley
December 27, 2024
The Salt Lake Tribune
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RE: WHISTLEBLOWER KAREN SILKWOOD’S URGENT MESSAGE FOR US
 

Karen Silkwood died in 1974 while trying to expose dangerous
conditions in her workplace. Her death — and the smear campaign that
followed — highlights how retaliation against whistleblowers
deflects scrutiny from power by targeting the messenger.

Irene Jacobson
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
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RE: ECUADOR HANDS OVER GALAPAGOS ISLANDS TO BUILD U.S. MILITARY BASE
 

The decision of the Noboa government to hand over these islands goes
against what the Ecuadorian people decided in the referendum to
approve the Constitution in 2008 regarding military bases.

Lynn Hamilton
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
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WEAPONIZATION OF THE DOJ  --  CARTOON BY JOHN DARKOW

 

John Darkow
December 12, 2024
Columbia Missourian
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RE: DISPATCHES FROM THE CULTURE WARS – DECEMBER 31, 2024

 

image - Dispatches_Dec_31
[link removed]?…
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Cold culture wars heating up

Ethan Young
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
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THIS GRAPHIC SHOWS THE INCREDIBLE, WORLD-CHANGING IMPACT OF VACCINES

 
Leon Farrant, CC BY-NC-ND

The Conversation, June 16, 2015
Lauren F Friedman
April 07, 2014
Business Insider India
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Unsubstantiated fear about vaccines has led to increased rates of
unvaccinated children
[[link removed]] in some
surprising corners of the United States, like exclusive New York City
private schools
[[link removed]].

But parents would probably not be so quick to leave their children
unvaccinated if they remembered what life was like before vaccines,
when hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. - many of them
children - died each year from diseases like measles that are now
nearly obsolete. Even varicella, better-known as chicken pox, used to
be a significant threat.

Graphic designer Leon Farrant
[[link removed]] used data from the CDC
[[link removed]] and JAMA
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illustrate that the public health importance of vaccines cannot be
overstated. Has other medical care improved since the pre-vaccine era?
Of course.

But no one who has suffered through measles or mumps would choose
illness and the very real risk of death over vaccines, which are an
almost perfect solution to some of the greatest health crises humanity
has ever known.

 

ARISE AND RESIST: ORGANIZING FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE UNDER REPRESSION
 --  BOSTON  --  JANUARY 19  ( MASSACHUSETTS PEACE ACTION, BOSTON
DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA, NORTHSHORE FOR PALESTINE, OUR
REVOLUTION MASSACHUSETTS, DOCTORS AGAINST GENOCIDE, COMMUNIST PARTY OF
MASSACHUSETTS, AND WATERTOWN CITIZENS FOR PEACE, JUSTICE AND THE
ENVIRONMENT)

 

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ARISE AND RESIST: ORGANIZING FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE UNDER REPRESSION

January 19, 2025, 9:30am – 5:00 pm
Roxbury Community College, Media Arts Center, 1234 Columbus Ave.,
Boston, MA 02119

REGISTER
[[link removed]]   

The purpose of this conference is to bring together a mass movement
and situate ourselves in our political reality of repression in the
US, genocide in Palestine, expanding US-Israeli war in West Asia, the
Russia-Ukraine war, and the impending US confrontation with China. We
must work in alliance with each other to build a society based on
solidarity, peace, and justice. Our work here in Massachusetts will be
shaped by national and international developments.  We are holding
this conference before the inauguration so we can prepare for the
crises we will face after January 20.

We aim to take meaningful steps toward creating a vigorous alliance of
organizations, unions, houses of worship, and other groups and
individuals who pursue peace, protection of the earth, the well-being
of working families, gender, sexual and reproductive rights, economic
justice, and indigenous sovereignty, and oppose U.S. imperialism,
militarism, genocide, racism, and other forms of oppression.

Over the past 15+ months, we have watched a live-streamed holocaust in
Gaza, the acceleration of the ethnic cleansing and annexation of
Palestinian land in the West Bank, the decimation of Southern Lebanon,
the bombings of Yemeni ports, and the invasion and further occupation
of Syria. With the complicity of U.S. cultural, academic, and other
public institutions, a frontal assault on our civil liberties has
begun: many speaking up against genocide have lost jobs, and
university students have been brutalized on campus, suspended, and
expelled. In Congress, a pending bill would give the incoming Trump
administration the power to arbitrarily revoke the tax-exempt status
of nonprofit organizations, another would crack down on criticism of
Israel. The tightly interwoven national security and surveillance
programs of the U.S. and Israel used to surveil and exterminate
Palestinians are already being deployed against our people at the
border or in urban ghettos.

These challenges will intensify once Trump takes office. His top
priorities include the mass deportation of up to 11 million immigrants
which will require police state methods and concentration camps. The
“Muslim ban” is once again on the horizon. Project 2025, once
translated into policy, threatens civil liberties, public funding for
education, and the rights of sexual and gender minorities. 

Trump’s commitment to the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels
presents the climate movement with its greatest challenge yet to
reverse the increasingly deadly attacks on life on Earth. The transfer
of wealth from the working class to the capitalist oligarchy will
accelerate through more tax cuts for corporations and the
ultra-wealthy and the slashing of public funding for healthcare,
public education, and housing. Attacks on academic freedom and
dissenting media will only increase.

These threats call for a more coordinated and strategic anti-war and
pro-justice effort. We will likely face more overt repression than in
most of our lifetimes. Yet this new landscape presents new openings
and opportunities to build a more effective and lasting movement to
create the world we envision. This is our moment to redouble our
commitment to solidarity and defend ourselves, protect vulnerable
groups, reach the disengaged and discouraged and expand our organizing
to build broader constituencies and develop flexible strategies needed
to survive and succeed. We must seize these opportunities together.
Now!

On January 19, we will hear from national and local speakers, go deep
into issues in breakouts, brainstorm solutions, and peruse literature
tables.

The conference will be in person only.   SPONSORED by Massachusetts
Peace Action, Boston Democratic Socialists of America, Northshore for
Palestine, Our Revolution Massachusetts, Doctors Against Genocide,
Communist Party of Massachusetts, and Watertown Citizens for Peace,
Justice and the Environment.   COSPONSORED by American Friends
Service Committee, Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine, CD8 for
Palestine, Extinction Rebellion Boston, Franklin County Continuing the
Political Revolution, Jewish Voice for Peace Boston, Campaign for
Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, and Green-Rainbow Party (list
in formation).

Massachusetts progressive organizations are invited to sponsor or
cosponsor the conference, help plan it, or to set up literature
tables; ORGANIZATIONS SIGN UP HERE TO DO SO.
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REGISTER
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SPEAKERS:

* Dr. LARA JIRMANUS, press coordinator of the Vote No Preference
MA campaign and a leading voice for solidarity with Palestine as well
as an innovative health organizer.   A
Palestinian/Lebanese-American, she is an instructor at Harvard Medical
School and a practicing primary care physician, community organizer
and public health researcher.  She co-founded the Health and Law
Immigrant Solidarity Network, and during COVID, the Massachusetts
Coalition for Health Equity.

* Dr. KARAMEH KUEMMERLE is a pediatric neurologist at Boston
Children’s Hospital, affiliated with Harvard Medical School, where
she focuses on epilepsy and brain injury. Her clinical research
centers on improving healthcare outcomes for refugee communities
around the world, with a special interest in addressing the impact of
social determinants like racism. She co-founded Doctors Against
Genocide, an organization dedicated to mobilizing the medical
community to respond to and prevent genocide and severe human rights
abuses worldwide.

* RAMI G. KHOURI is a Palestinian-American academic and journalist
whose family resides in Beirut, Amman, and Nazareth. He is
Distinguished Public Policy Fellow at the American University of
Beirut and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Arab Center Washington,
D.C.  During his 50-year career in journalism across the Middle East
he was Editor of the _Jordan Times_ and the _Daily Star_ (Beirut)
newspapers, and contributed reporting and opinion pieces from the
Middle East to the Financial Times, NPR, BBC radio, and other outlets.

* JAMIE MCGONAGILL, media coordinator for Extinction Rebellion
Boston

* KHURY PETERSEN-SMITH, Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow and
Co-Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for
Policy Studies. He researches U.S. empire, borders, and migration and
strategizes with activists to work against the violence that the U.S.
carries out and supports around the world. Khury focuses especially on
U.S. militarism in the Middle East and in the Pacific, and movements
that resist it. He graduated from the Clark University Graduate School
of Geography in Massachusetts, after completing a dissertation on U.S.
military bases in the Pacific. He is one of the co-authors and
organizers of the 2023 Black Voices for Ceasefire

* HARRIS GRUMAN is executive director of the Massachusetts State
Council of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the
nation’s second largest labor union; co-leader of the Raise Up
Massachusetts Coalition, and former executive director of Neighbor to
Neighbor MA Education Fund.

BREAKOUTS

Attendees will join one of seven breakout groups:

* Civil rights and repression
* The genocide in Gaza
* Federal, State and municipal electoral politics
* The labor movement
* Climate change
* Great power rivalry and nuclear war danger
* Budget cuts and tax cuts

VENUE: The Media Arts Center, also called building 1, at Roxbury
Community College features a 460-seat modern auditorium with a number
of classrooms that we will use for breakouts.

The Media Arts Center is directly across Columbus Ave. from the
Roxbury Crossing station on the MBTA Orange Line.  There is ample
free parking in RCC’s lot on Cedar St. near the corner of Columbus
Ave.

Conference registration includes morning coffee and a Palestinian
style lunch.   REGISTER TO ATTEND.
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Massachusetts Peace Action [[link removed]]  
1991 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140
617-354-2169
[email protected]

* Reader Comments
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* Donald Trump
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* MAGA
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* Elon Musk
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* H-1B Visas
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* Palestine solidarity
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* Palestine solidarity movement
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* Chanukah
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* Israel-Gaza War
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* Israel
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