Dear Progressive Reader,
I spent a couple of days in New York State last week, speaking to students at Ithaca College and then driving east to visit readers and supporters of The Progressive in Croton-on-Hudson and Goshen, NY. I also stopped to visit the site in Peekskill, NY, where, seventy years ago, on September 4, 1949, concert-goers were brutally attacked by a mob after listening to the voices of Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger, and other activist artists. Former U.S. Assistant Attorney General (under President Roosevelt) O. John Rogge, quoted in The Progressive in October 1949, said of the riot: “Every artist and every democratic institution is threatened. If our Government is unwilling to give protection to brave artists whose political views are under attack we have lost the heritage of our constitutional rights.” Another reader, in the same issue, wrote in a letter: “American history makes it perfectly plain that we have given hospitality to criticism, protest, and unpopular opinions from every source. . . . our ancestors had the courage to face all opposition and protect the dignity of the individual against every form of injustice. This is the reason why we have a Bill of Rights.”
I believe a strong message comes forward from this anniversary for our politicians today. In his ballad “Talking Dust Bowl Blues,” Woody Guthrie (who was also at Peekskill) once sang about a stew so thin that you could read a newspaper through it, “Always have figured / That if it'd been just a little bit thinner, / Some of these here politicians / Coulda seen through it.” And, as Pete Seeger would sing two decades later, "every time I read the papers / That old feeling comes on; / We're, waist deep in the Big Muddy / And the big fool says to push on."
One of the big stories in this week’s news has been the complaint by a whistleblower that Donald Trump used his office and power to seek “opposition research” on his potential 2020 rival Joe Biden. As the Government Accountability Project, the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization, notes in their blog, “The acting director of national intelligence’s refusal to hand over the complaint to the intelligence committees is both unprecedented and reflects the fact that at the time the whistleblower statutes were drafted, they did not consider that the subject of complaint could be the president of the United States.”
The first whistleblower protection law was enacted on July 30, 1778, and that date is celebrated each year on “National Whistleblower Appreciation Day.” But "being a whistleblower is often not appreciated at the time the whistle is blown,” as I wrote in an article last year on another whistleblower’s case. In this recent instance, the as-yet-unnamed whistleblower is certainly facing strong words and possibly other repercussions for coming forward on this important matter.
More than four million people worldwide took part in actions yesterday as part of a Global Climate Strike, making it the largest climate-focused protest in world history. Young activist Greta Thunberg continues her visit to the United States to raise awareness and stimulate action. Photographer Rick Reinhard shared these images of her participation in a rally near the White House in Washington, D.C. last week. And Josue De Luna Navarro writes in an op-ed for our Progressive Media Project, on the role played by the climate crisis in immigration.
Last night, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper announced in a news conference that the United States would be sending (more) troops to the Persian Gulf in response to the recent attack on an oil production facility in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department issued additional sanctions against Iran for “terrorism.” Reese Erlich looks at the roots of our current tensions with Iran, noting, “The United States has become a hi-tech Bluebeard,” by seizing an Iranian tanker. A State Department official also apparently attempted to bribe the ship’s captain via an e-mail which included the mobster-like phrase: “If you choose not to take this easy path, life will be much harder for you.” And cartoonist Mark Fiore also points out that Saudi Arabia was targeted in the attack because of its actions in Yemen, which the United States has significantly supported.
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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