Dear Progressive Reader,
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is urging the media and nations of the world “not to create panic amid the build-up of Russian troops on his country's borders.” He says it is “putting Ukraine's economy at risk.” But certainly the risk to the world of the current drumbeat for war is much more than an economic one. As Nicolas J.S. Davies and Medea Benjamin wrote last November, “What is developing in Ukraine, Syria, Taiwan, and the South China Sea are the opening salvos of an age of more ideological wars that may become just as futile, deadly, and self-defeating as the ‘war on terror,’ and much more dangerous to the United States. Any war with Russia or China would risk escalating into World War III.” Similarly, in December, Edward Hunt pointed out, “Critics of the U.S. approach argue that it’s raising the likelihood of a wider war in Eastern Europe. For years, they’ve warned that U.S. moves to prepare Ukraine for eventual incorporation into NATO feed into Russian fears about NATO expansion along Russia’s borders.”
Reading and listening to the current news coverage of the military buildup in Europe seemed to me so similar to the news in the early part of the twentieth century as the globe was slipping into what would become World War I. The groundwork for an international conflict was laid early on. On July 14, 1914, just two weeks after the killing of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the headline in The Washington Post read “War Declared By Austria Against Servia [the older English term for Serbia]; Russia Will Help Serbs To Resist Invasion; Germany Rejects British Mediation Proposal.”
But the tensions that erupted suddenly following a single incident had deeper roots in historical tensions and rivalries. In February 1914, La Follette’s Magazine (precursor to The Progressive) ran an interview with British pacifist poet Alfred Noyes. “Fear of each other means war and not peace, of course.” He said, “Straight thinking is the only solution . . . the sort that makes it impossible for a world to pray when 300 lives are lost in an only partly preventable catastrophe [he was referring here to the 1912 sinking of the Titanic which ultimately took more than 1500 lives], and read the newspapers morbidly when 250,000 are lost in an inexcusable, easily preventable war."
The news this week of the coming retirement of Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer launched speculation of whom President Biden might choose to replace Breyer, but also how opponents in the Senate might try to slow or block the appointment. But as Bill Blum observes this week, “Despite rulings on executive privilege, the High Court bears the indelible stamp of the disgraced former President. . . . The just-announced retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer will do nothing to alter this dynamic or change the court’s balance of power, no matter who succeeds Breyer.” As Blum notes, “The six conservatives who now control the court remain committed to the legal philosophy of ‘originalism,’ as popularized by the late Justice Antonin Scalia. It asserts that the answers to contemporary questions about such matters as voting rights, gerrymandering, union organizing, the death penalty, and campaign finance are to be found solely in the supposed ‘original’ meaning Founding Fathers intended when writing the Constitution in the late eighteenth century.”
The Court’s recent decisions on voting have resulted in the need and push for Congressional action on bills to protect voting rights. As Everett Kelly, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, says in an op-ed this week, “We must continue to move forward, not backward, to ensure that all voters have an equal and fair opportunity to vote, regardless of where they live, the color of their skin, or who they support at the ballot box. The right to vote is a bedrock principle of democracy. If this Congress will not secure that right, then it is up to us to send Washington a new Congress that will.”
Also this week, educator Rann Miller writes that students (and teachers) must learn the history of Reconstruction to understand the roots of many of today’s racial injustices. And Eleanor Bader examines the backlash against the children’s book Not My Idea by Anastasia Higginbotham that looks at “race and racial justice from the perspective of a white woman raising white sons.” Plus, Miriam Davidson calls on the Mexican government to do more to protect journalists in the wake of recent killings.
Finally, editor Bill Lueders has released an investigation into the all-too-common practice of the eviction of seniors from nursing homes and senior care facilities in contravention of existing laws meant to safeguard their rights. It is the lead article in the latest issue of The Progressive, but you can also download a special PDF edition now to share with friends, colleagues, and perhaps elected officials.
This week we remember two inspirational figures who passed away on January 27. Folksinger and activist Pete Seeger died on that day in 2014 at the age of 94. Seeger was interviewed for The Progressive in April 1986 by columnist Mike Ervin. On the same date, four years earlier, in 2010, peoples’ historian Howard Zinn died at the age of 87. Zinn was a regular contributor to The Progressive, and following his death, then-editor Matthew Rothschild compiled a collection of excerpts from his writings. We deeply miss both of these important voices for peace, justice, and equality.
Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
P.S. – On Monday, January 31, 7:00-8:00 p.m. CST, The Progressive and A Room of One’s Own bookstore will present an online evening with journalist John Nichols discussing and reading from his new book: Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability For Those Who Caused The Crisis, was released on January 25 from Verso Books. Nichols will be in conversation with Bill Lueders, editor of The Progressive. Watch for this free event on our Facebook and YouTube channels. You can also get a copy of the book with a donation to The Progressive at this link.
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