Global

Carry Smith wrote her PhD thesis on the Voting Rights Act and challenges to the right to vote in Georgia.

Now dig this: Smith, the expert on challenges to voting rights, lost her vote because a Republican vigilante challenged her registration—along with 900 other Savannah voters—until she was forced to make an appearance proving her right to vote at a meeting of the Chatham County (Savannah) elections board. 

Half of the others challenged still lost their vote in this do-or-die battleground.

Adrian Consonery Jr. was also challenged, in this case, by officials in Cobb County, Georgia. The elections officers claimed that the signature on his drivers license “didn’t match” the signature on his ballot. Were these local pols forgery specialists?  No, they were Republicans. No problem, they told Consonery, a student in the middle of his finals; all he had to do was drive to their offices, eight hours away, and re-sign his ballot.

The sucking up to Israel and its backers by the political class in America never seems go away. Indeed, it if anything increases during the lead up to national elections. In the latest manifestation of Judeophilia, Rudy Giuliani, self-described as “America’s Mayor,” has now informed us that “They [the Israelis] are our best friends. I worked for Ronald Reagan for eight years and Ronald Reagan said that we have to always be there for Israel always because Israel is always there for us! Hamas is not there for us, the Iranians are not there for us, they want to kill us and the Palestinians are taught to kill us at two years old! They won’t let a Palestinian in Jordan. They won’t let a Palestinian in Egypt. And [Kamala] Harris wants to bring them to you! They may have good people, I don’t care, but I won’t take a risk with people that are taught to kill Americans at two! I’m on the side of Israel! You’re on the side of Israel! Donald Trump is on the side of Israel! And they [the Democrats] are on the side of the terrorists.”

In a gripping, real-life moment, the world watched as a man stood alone, his fatigues worn, his face covered with a keffiyeh, his arm severed. Armed only with a wooden stick, he raised it against a drone hovering above, defiant even in his vulnerability. It wasn’t long before a tank responded, firing a shell to silence him. This was not a Hollywood scene; it was a raw, viral image that exposed the brutal reality of Gaza.

Watching this scene unfold, I thought of the ancient story of David and Goliath, a tale passed down through centuries. In the biblical story, David, a young shepherd, faces a Philistine giant who terrorizes his people. Armed with nothing but a sling and a few stones, David steps forward alone, facing a foe who had crossed battle lines unchallenged for 40 days. But in one brave strike, he overcomes the seemingly invincible Goliath.

Under the slogan ‘Gaza is Ours, Forever’, a large number of Israeli extremists and right-wing politicians met in the settlement of Be’eri, near the Gaza border region, on October 20-21.

“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the ocean. Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

This racist pseudo-joke, uttered by Tony Hinchecliffe at the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, has been virally shamed. It’s even been denounced by Team Trump itself. But I bring it back into the limelight for a moment for several eerily linked reasons.

In two dozen words, followed by a snort of guilty laughter, this “joke” describes, indeed, encompasses, a serious slice of how humanity is destroying Planet Earth. To begin with, Hinchecliffe is right about the “floating Island of garbage.” There is such a phenomenon, the presence of which no doubt deserves far more concern and attention than it gets.

“I’m just a consumer” is a phrase I often heard on shop floors during my youth when I lived in Columbus and other places in the U.S. It’s worth noting managers and department heads shared those feelings.

I admit I can understand why, and there are at least four good reasons for such sentiments.

Spending that Paycheck

First, we buy the merchandise we need in the weekly grocery store with the income from our employment, then run to pay the rent or mortgage, utilities, car payment, and so on. Spending that paychec reinforces that “I’m just a consumer” feeling. Writing these lines, I recall a coworker who often whined aloud how “it feels like I live for my car!” She wasn’t able to save for things she really wanted because the car, house, appliances, and so forth always needed repair and replacing.