Dear Progressive Reader,
The past twenty-four hours have brought U.S.-Iran relations into the spotlight in a dramatic way. Donald Trump’s attack on Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, as he was leaving the international airport in Baghdad, Iraq, has led to fears of retaliation and justified questions about Trump’s use of military force. Writing in October 2017, following another questionable military operation by the current President, I quoted Wisconsin Representative Robert W. Kastenmeier, who said, prior to the vote for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, ‘The haunting suspicion remains that Congress, acting on a slender volume of information, may endorse, as it did in 1898, a disproportionate response to a limited and ambiguous challenge.’ ”
Our legacy of conflict with Iran, as historian Andrew Bacevich told me last June, comes from two different views of our shared history. “It’s important to acknowledge that the narrative has a different starting point for the Iranians than it does for the Americans,” he said. “For the Iranians, the start point is the CIA-engineered coup that overthrew [Iranian Prime Minister] Mohammad Mosaddegh [in 1953].” Donald Trump, who campaigned on getting the United States out of endless wars, is now justifying his continued war-making actions on a nearly two-decades-old Authorization for the Use of Military Force, passed on September 18, 2001.
Yesterday also marked the anniversary of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy taking his seat in the Senate for the first time. The Progressive opposed McCarthy throughout his career, and helped bring out information that led to his censure. Echoes of “McCarthyism” still resonate in our politics today, and a new film from PBS premieres this coming week to tell yet another part of that story. For the recent issue of The Progressive magazine, we asked film reviewer Ed Rampell to look back at all of the depictions of McCarthy on film and television. The portrait that emerges should definitely serve as a cautionary tale for America in the year 2020.
Finally, this week Mike Ervin alerts us about further hurdles being erected for people with disabilities receiving federal aid. “By spinning people around faster and faster like that until they’re too dizzy to know what’s going on,” he says, “the squatter and his bunch accomplish their dream of cutting anyone they can from Social Security.” Michele Chen raises the fact that “pollution is the world’s leading cause of death, ahead of tobacco use, drug and alcohol use, and even war.” Plus, she points out, “the map of pollution death is also a reflection of social inequality. Black and Latinx populations suffer disproportionately from pollution impacts, especially air pollution, though they individually contribute to very little of it.” And Sarah Lahm brings a story of support and caring in Minneapolis where, following a devastating Christmas-day fire, teachers organized to help the residents of a transitional housing facility. “Rarely do we see our public schools for what they often are: a place of refuge and consistency for our most vulnerable kids,” she writes. “We also tend to only think of teachers as admirable advocates, ready to drop their holiday plans [and] help gather emergency supplies for families, when a jarring disaster strikes.”
Keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time. And, for the new year, don’t forget to click here to order your 2020 Hidden History of the United States calendar from The Progressive!
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
P.S. –Thank you so much to everyone who generously contributed to The Progressive in 2019. We truly could not keep doing this work without your support! 2020 promises to be a busy year with many new opportunities. We look forward to traveling that road together with you, our readers and supporters, as we move forward in this new year.
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