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Dear Progressive Reader,

This past week, journalist Sam Stein, who has written for The Progressive numerous times ([link removed]) from Israel and the West Bank, was arrested and detained by members of the Israeli military while engaged in news gathering. Activist and journalist Andrey X, who was himself arrested for placing a sticker on a pole (as Stein reported ([link removed]) for our website last January), described ([link removed]) the incident in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter): “On March 12, Sam Stein, activist in the West Bank, writer, field coordinator for Rabbis for Human Rights, was attacked and detained by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. During his detention, he was falsely accused of attacking a soldier, illegally forced to give access to his phone, verbally berated, and forced to kneel on the ground while blindfolded and
with his arms zip-tied behind his back. His treatment by the soldiers is consistent with the legal definition of torture.” Stein posted a news release about the incident published to both his Facebook ([link removed]) and Instagram ([link removed]) channels, and describes the details of his experience as follows: “During the first few minutes of my detention, it was clear the soldiers thought I was Palestinian, and during this time I was physically assaulted, and one soldier threatened to kill me. Once the soldiers realized I was Jewish, the violence decreased dramatically; I was still berated, but I no longer feared for my life. After about three hours, I was handed to the police, where I was arrested on the charge of assaulting a soldier. During my arrest and interrogation, my right to privacy with my lawyer was violated, as officers refused to leave the vicinity while I spoke with her. I was also not provided with a
translator, a legal right under Israeli law, so I was forced to go through with my interrogation in Hebrew. I was eventually released with no charges, and a fifteen-day ban from the location of the incident.”

The Progressive and others are calling for an immediate investigation into Stein’s forceful detention and full accountability for the actions of the soldiers involved. Journalism is not a crime!

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the shutdown of normal life across the United States, and the rest of the world, following the deadly onset ([link removed]) of the COVID-19 pandemic. We covered ([link removed]) the pandemic and its impacts extensively on our website and in the pages of our magazine. Most notable perhaps were the repeated administrative failures of preparation and response that resulted in countless unnecessary deaths. As Bill Lueders noted in his timeline posted ([link removed]) last April, “The result [was] an absolute tidal wave of gross incompetence on the part of the former and would-be future President, which led to ([link removed]) tens of thousands of preventable deaths. It is a shocking reminder of [Donald] Trump’s
manifest unfitness in a time of crisis.” But the problem goes even deeper than the Trump Administration. As the late ([link removed]) writer Mike Davis noted in his 2005 book, The Monster at Our Door, which warned about the dangers of Avian Influenza, and was updated and reissued as The Monster Enters ([link removed]) when COVID-19 emerged, “This new age of plagues, like previous pandemic epochs, is directly the result of economic globalization.” And, most importantly, Davis concludes, “we need to be debating democratic models of effective response to present and future plagues, ones that mobilize popular courage, put science in command, and use the resources of a comprehensive system of universal health coverage and public medicine. Otherwise, we cede leadership in this age of constant emergency to our tyrants.”

This week on our website, Nafis Hasan writes about ([link removed]) the dangers of the cuts to funding for scientific research already underway in the first fifty days of the new Trump Administration with the guidance of Elon Musk and DOGE; and Molly McGrath pens an op-ed ([link removed]) on the importance of Medicaid funding (now under threat) in preventing overdose deaths. And, Dave Kaufman lo ([link removed]) oks down ([link removed]) from north of the border at the ways Trump is threatening his country of Canada; Patrick Smith opines ([link removed]) on the nation of Lesotho, which Trump demeaned in his address to Congress last week; and
Nyki Duda examines ([link removed]) the growth of Islamophobia as a sign of decline in our democracy. Plus, John Raphling and Sonja Verdugo describe ([link removed]) the impacts of the recent Los Angeles fires on unhoused people. “Victims of the recent fires will be subject to the criminalization policies that do nothing to solve the crisis of homelessness,” they note. The forthcoming print edition of The Progressive (April/May 2025) will feature a moving photo essay by Amelia Rayno on one of these unhoused communities. It will be on newsstands and in the mailboxes of subscribers at the beginning of April.

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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P.P.P.S. – Thank you so much to everyone who has already donated to support The Progressive! We need you now more than ever. If you have not done so already, please take a moment to support hard-hitting, independent reporting on issues that matter to you. Your donation today will keep us on solid ground and will help us continue to grow in the coming years. You can use the wallet envelope in the current issue of the magazine, or click on the “Donate” button below to join your fellow progressives in sustaining The Progressive as a voice for peace, social justice, and the common good.
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