Dear Progressive Reader,
News that the short-term ceasefire in northern Syria is not all it was promised to be continues to emerge, even as the House voted 354-60 this past week on a bipartisan bill condemning the President’s actions in the region. "With one voice, we call on President Trump to support Kurdish communities, to work to ensure that the Turkish military acts with restraint, and to present a clear strategy to defeat ISIS. This resolution also urges President Erdoğan to immediately cease unilateral military action in Syria," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a joint statement.
Reese Erlich writes this week about the new alliances being created out of Trump’s seemingly random policy decisions. “By green-lighting the Turkish invasion of northern Syria,” he says, “Trump’s policy forced more than 160,000 Syrians to flee their homes. And guess who emerged as the political and military winners? Russia, Iran, and the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.” Meanwhile, as award-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates, the “executive branch is spiraling out of control and taking our democracy and international credibility with it.” And photographer Giacomo Sini shares his images of the Kurdish people in the region currently under threat from the Turkish attack.
Last Tuesday’s debate, between twelve Democratic presidential hopefuls (the first to include candidate Tom Steyer), was rated as “inconclusive” by many in the media. Jud Lounsbury notes that it seems “voters are still kicking tires and are far from deciding what they want to drive off the lot.” With nine months until the Democratic National Convention, scheduled for the week of July 13 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the field remains ponderously large. In this fourth of five currently scheduled meet-ups, Lounsbury points out, “most of the candidates advanced their cause and had mostly positive stand-out moments.” But, he adds, using a familiar sports metaphor, “it’s way too early to try and run out the clock.”
Finally, as 25,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union go out on strike for the first time since 2012, educator Xian Franzinger Barrett of our Public School Shakedown project writes, “Equity is not a piecemeal negotiation. We will continue to bargain. We will march in the streets and organize with our communities. We will search for mutually acceptable solutions. But we will compromise nothing when it comes to the humanity of our students.”
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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