Dear Progressive Reader,
Discussion of impeachment is in the air. The Progressive continues to be a leading voice in the call for Congress to do its Constitutional job of oversight. But, as Victor Grossman, a keen observer of the United States from his vantage point in Berlin says in a recent column, “Clearly, the ingredients of an anti-Trump stew are mixed. Some spoonfuls apparently contain a ‘Save Biden as candidate’ flavor. But the impeachment proceedings and the presidential campaigns should be forced to skim off the less important scandals. Instead their efforts should focus on the resources to cook up genuine health care, to end the immense incarceration tragedy, enact free college tuition, end racist police violence and armed militia dangers, win abortion rights, build the labor movement, and alter stagnant or worsening labor conditions and housing situations for millions of working Americans.”
Meanwhile, on Friday the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would hear arguments in a case that challenges a Louisiana law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital in order to perform abortions. This case, the first abortion case to be taken up by the court since the seating of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, is seen as a possible chipping-away of the protections of choice guaranteed under the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The announcement coincides with the digital streaming release of a new independent film, Ask for Jane, that tells the story of a collective of women in Chicago in the late 1960s (pre-Roe) who sought to save lives by providing access to abortion services for their fellow students. Pamela Grossman writes of her reaction to watching the film and notes, “Viewers will be uncomfortably reminded of the sense of crisis surrounding reproductive rights today.”
We welcome a new regular columnist to our website this week—author and civil rights activist Kevin Powell. In a column on the recent verdict in the murder trial of Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, Powell reminds us that, “There is no way to discuss America, its history, even the very nature of its democracy, without also discussing race, racism, and what this nation has done to its black populations from slavery forward.” And, he continues, “while we continually forgive white America no one has ever asked black America to forgive this country for its sins against us, including endless racial violence in these times. America should ask black people forgiveness for habitually expecting us to forgive these murders . . . the conditions that fueled this tragedy are not personal. They are systemic. Racism and white supremacy are alive and well in our system, and no amount of hugs spreading virally will erase that fact. Collectively, our love and forgiveness must also be tied to a clear understanding that those we offer it to need to repent, atone, permanently change.”
October 2 was the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mohandas K. Gandhi, and as Amitabh Pal writes, “U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who triumphantly addressed a joint mega-rally in Houston on Sunday, September 22, seem to be impervious to Gandhi’s ideas, despite paying lip service to him at the event.” Pal reminds us that “Gandhi left a worldwide legacy with his focus on ethics, nonviolence, tolerance and social justice.” Lessons, he says, our current world leaders would do well to learn.
As protests against government policies continue in Hong Kong, and begin to erupt in countries as diverse as Egypt and Haiti, The Progressive will be hosting a fortieth-anniversary screening of the Academy Award-nominated documentary film The War At Home. The film, which premiered on October 12, 1979 in Madison, Wisconsin, chronicles the history of the anti-Vietnam War movement through the lens of one Midwestern city. The film has been newly restored and will show for one night only at Madison’s Orpheum Theater on Sunday October 13 at 6 pm, followed by a panel discussion on the lessons and legacy of the antiwar movement, titled “The War At Home—then and now.” The discussion will be moderated by journalist John Nichols, and will feature activists from the GI peace movement; local opposition to the F-35 nuclear war planes; and 350Madison, a group working on the pressing need to address climate change. As filmmaker Glenn Silber has said, “The climate crisis is the new war at home.”
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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