Dear Progressive Reader,

On Friday, President Joe Biden travelled to Saudi Arabia where he greeted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) with a “fist bump” sending shockwaves through the right and left wings of the Twittersphere. Biden said he had confronted MBS on the issue of the prince’s culpability in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but many remain skeptical. As cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates this week, “There are, of course, numerous realpolitik reasons to stay cozy with Saudi Arabia, but those reasons are getting harder to stomach in the face of thousands of dead children in Yemen, murdered journalists, and continued repression in the Kingdom.” And as peace activist Kathy Kelly observes this week regarding Biden’s trip, “It's unlikely that a U.S. President or any leader of a U.S-allied country will ever visit a Yemeni refugee camp, but we who live in these countries can take refuge in the hard work of becoming independent of fossil fuels, shedding the pretenses that we have a right to consume other people’s precious and irreplaceable resources at cut rate prices and that war against children is an acceptable price to pay so that we can maintain this right.”

In an interesting historical side note, in the summer of 2008, when Biden was a candidate for Vice President, Barack and Michelle Obama exchanged friendly fists at a campaign stop and set off a flurry of references on rightwing media to a “terrorist fist jab.” A dozen years later, the “fist bump” was being strongly recommended by health professionals as a safer alternative to handshakes during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Donald Trump, the national leader at that time, notably refused to abstain from handshaking in spite of numerous COVID-19 exposures.

Elsewhere in the news, Jeff Abbott reports on growing attacks on human rights promoters even as officials accused of corruption are set free in Guatemala. Edward Hunt discusses efforts to overturn the early twentieth century Supreme Court decisions called the Insular Cases, which limit the rights of people living in so-called unincorporated territories. Ed Rampell reviews the new documentary, Manzanar Diverted, premiering next week on PBS that chronicles the struggles of Indigenous and Asian American activists to counter the environmental racism and human rights abuses centered around the area of one of the 1940s internment camps used to imprison people of Japanese descent during World War II. And Sarah Anderson looks at the struggle to protect native plants and traditional knowledge in the Pacific Northwest.

There are two birthdays of note this week. July 14 would have been the 110th birthday of peoples’ artist Woody Guthrie. Guthrie was born in 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma. During his life he authored more than 3000 songs, telling the stories of everyday working people and their hopes, dreams, and aspirations for a better world. He continues to inspire musicians today, as I wrote, together with my father, in this 2012 portrait of a Guthrie-insipred musician in contemporary China.

July 19 will be the 100th birthday of Rachel Robinson, widow of baseball player Jackie Robinson, and a retired professor and nurse. Robinson has been, throughout her life, an activist for civil and human rights, and in 2007 was presented the Historic Achievement Award by Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig. Dave Zirin provided a moving portrait of Rachel Robinson, calling her a “national treasure” in the June/July issue of The Progressive. Robinson continues to live in her adopted home of Salem, Connecticut.

Finally, with Wisconsin’s race for U.S. Senate, featuring Republican incumbent Ron Johnson (firmly connected to the January 6 coup attempt in recent hearing testimony) and a field of Democratic challengers heating up, a debate is being held next week in Milwaukee and online. The Senate Candidates Forum on War and Peace will take place on Tuesday, July 19 at 2:00 p.m. Central Time and can be viewed by logging in to register at <https://milwaukeeturners-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_X7vDf1QtQJ-CxzH2jRvTXA>. It will also be archived for later viewing. Topics will include the war in Ukraine, nuclear weapons, military spending vs. un-met human needs, the basing of F-35 jets in Madison, the war in Yemen, and the role of U.S. sanctions. At least seven of the ten candidates in the race will be present to take questions, including six Democrats and one Republican. Incumbent Senator Johnson has not agreed to participate. For more information, you can email the sponsors at <[email protected]>.

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. – The Progressive and A Room of One’s Own bookstore are hosting a live in-person book release event for Milked: How an American Crisis Brought Together Midwestern Dairy Farmers and Mexican Workers, by editor-at-large for The Progressive, Ruth Conniff. The event will be outdoors and is free and open to the public on Tuesday July 19 at 6:00 p.m. Central Time at 2717 Atwood Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin. It will also be streamed and archived on our YouTube and Facebook pages for later viewing. Donors of $50 or more to The Progressive can also receive a signed copy of the book by mail after the event.

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