Global

A Country Divided Against Itself

In a recent article Catholic University professor Claes G. Ryn wrote“Few people are really open to persuasion in any case—not just on political subjects but on any subject about which they care and on which they have adopted certain views. Diehard partisans for a certain outlook will refuse to have their beliefs questioned, and so will many others. They will be no less dismissive of a document challenging their opinions if it is full of footnotes and appendixes. Such a document will, indeed, make them resist it even more. As for the relatively few people who are truly open-minded, they will not find another person’s observations dispositive.

Covid-19 under Apartheid: How Israel Manipulates Suffering of Palestinians

Israel’s decision to exclude Palestinians from its COVID-19 vaccination campaign may have surprised many. Even by Israel’s poor humanitarian standards, denying Palestinians access to life-saving medication seems extremely callous.

 

Amnesty International, among many organizations, condemned the Israeli government’s decision to bar Palestinians from receiving the vaccine. The rights group described the Israeli action as evidence of the “institutionalized discrimination that defines the Israeli government’s policy towards Palestinians.”

 

Hey MAGA Marchers: Where Was Coward Trump as You Died?

AN OPEN LETTER TO MAGA MARCHERS

When Donald Trump incited you to assault the Capitol, he said he would be with you.

He wasn’t.

Four of you are dead and you’ve killed a policeman. More of you will suffer and die from the COVID that spread through your maskless march. Many of you now face prison terms and ruined lives.

Had you been black, you’d’ve been gunned down before you got anywhere near the Capitol building.

Some of you in Los Angeles compensated by assaulting a black woman who accidentally walked into one of your rallies. Others expressed your opinions about Jews by wearing hats saying 6MWE (Six Million Wasn’t Enough).

Maybe Trump’s bone spurs kept him from marching with you.

When Alice Paul and Martin Luther King and Dorothy Day and Cesar Chavez and so many other great American leaders have organized marches for social change, they personally endured gassings, beatings, imprisonment. They never hesitated to risk their own bodies for a higher cause.

‘One State is a Game Changer’: A Conversation with Ilan Pappe and Awad Abdelfattah on the One Democratic State Campaign

As the US ruling elites have fully succumbed to Israel’s political discourse on Palestine, the Israeli government of right-wing Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may feel that it, alone, is capable of determining the future of the Palestinian people. 

 

This conclusion is, perhaps, gleaned from Israel’s behavior in recent years and months. The expansion of illegal Jewish settlements, the plan to annex large swathes of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the entrenching of the existing system of apartheid and perpetual colonialism are all evidence that demonstrates Israel’s renewed sense of empowerment. 

 

Israel is further emboldened by the fact that the so-called ‘international community’ has, thus far, failed to challenge American and Israeli intransigency. The European Union, which is fighting for its own identity, let alone survival, is proving to be a marginal force in Israel and Palestine. Without American guidance, the EU seems incapable of leading its own independent initiatives. 

 

Dangerous, Revolutionary Years: 2020-2021

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's 68-year-old king and his loyal, testy
prime minister suffered a dangerous 2020, relentlessly exposed to
loud, satirical, young revolutionaries in the streets demanding
democracy and limits to the monarch's wealth and security forces.

"Maha" or "Great" King Vajiralongkorn and Prime Minister Prayuth
Chan-ocha now face a harsh January but are expected to emerge secure.

"Prayuth does not seem to be in danger. The royal-military alliance
seems to be unassailable," said Michael Nelson of the Asian Governance
Foundation.

The foundation focuses on law, academia and other sectors in Asia. Its
advisors include former commanding general of the U.S. Marine Corps in
the Pacific, Lt. Gen. Wallace C. Gregson.

"The protesters, though big on Facebook, also have little backing in
the population. And now, the government is getting tough with them,"
Mr. Nelson said in an interview.

Prime Minister Prayuth seized power in a bloodless 2014 coup when he
was a general and army commander-in-chief.

Denouncing Republican Evils Can’t Do Much for the Biden Presidency Without Demanding Progressive Policies


The Republican plunge into Trumpism has made the party especially unhinged and dangerous, but its basic ideology has long been a shameless assault on minimal standards of human decency. Now -- while Democratic leaders and most corporate media outlets are suitably condemning the fascist tendencies of Trump and his followers -- deeper analysis and stepped-up progressive organizing are urgently needed.

Economic injustice -- disproportionately harming people of color -- constantly propels U.S. society in a downward spiral. Poverty, economic insecurity and political disempowerment go together. Systemic racism continues to thrive, enmeshed with the predatory routines of corporate power.

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