Bulletin N° 808
“Battleship Potemkin”
(1925)
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+potemkin+film&view=detail&mid=C72EC9991064957899ABC72EC9991064957899AB&FORM=VRRTAP&PC=U316
This 1925 Soviet silent film was directed by Sergei Eisenstein. It presents a dramatized version of the mutiny that occurred in 1905,
when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers in solidarity with the First Russian Revolution.
Subject : WE
ARE ALL PALESTINIANS.
1 July 2018
Grenoble,
France
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
Holding
the empire together has become more and more problematic. The necessary force
used to delay the debacle is the private profit motive, which is an amalgam of Fear
and Greed – a « ‘they’ will do it to us, if we don’t do it to them first »
genre of logic.
That
this metaphysics spells disaster for everyone is hardly deniable; only to some
people the looming disaster appears as “irrelevant.” Caught in their own bubble
of delusion, the world’s ruling classes keep doing the same thing, even when it
is obvious to the rest of us that their actions are ultimately self-destructive
– both on a human level and on the level of their own true class interests. But
the fact that capitalists are alienated from their real class interests -
having replaced a concern for political “legitimacy” with ruthless “rapport de
force” - is no excuse for the rest of us to be isolated and divorced from our
own class consciousness and revolutionary zeal. Following remote-controlled
leaders who blindly advocate that “the ends justify the means” has not taken us
very far. Instead, the crystallization of an “organic leadership” on both local
and national levels is necessary to produce the Map that will help us navigate
our way out of this cruel wilderness, called “The Capitalist Debacle” . . . .
For this to happen, we must put aside all “Virtual Realities” and be willing to
step into the everyday material reality that surrounds us and that makes up our
lives. And to accomplish this step, we need role models and creative alliances
that can inspire us to take the initiative to act.
The
22 items below reflect the security-control fetish that has taken over
capitalist investments and serves to promote despair and submission among the
most oppressed of us. Such divisive tactics are not new and resistance on the
part of civil society is an important part of human history, from which we can
learn what has worked in the past and what has been futile and, above all, Why!
Francis Feeley
Professor emeritus of
American Studies
University
Grenoble-Alpes
Director of Research
University of
Paris-Nanterre
Center for the Advanced
Study of American Institutions and Social Movements
The University of
California-San Diego
a.
Harvard Research
Scholar Explains How America Created
Al-Qaeda & The ISIS Terror Group
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49733.htm
by Arjun Walia
It’s truly amazing how much the
consciousness of the planet has changed within the past 5 years alone, and it’s
not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas ranging
from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.
People are really starting to wake
up and see through the mass amounts of propaganda and lies we are
continuously fed via the mainstream media, with regards to global events
and other major areas that surround all aspects of humanity.
===========
b.
Did Israel Inspire Trump’s Family
Separation Policy?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/29/did-israel-inspire-trumps-family-separation-policy/
by Ramzy Baroud
This
past May, the United States Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, announced the
government’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy at US border crossings. It was a matter of
weeks before the new policy began yielding tragic outcomes. Those attempting to
unlawfully cross into the US were subject to federal criminal prosecution,
while their children were taken away by federal authorities, which placed them
in cage-like facilities.
Expectedly,
the policy caused outrage and was eventually reversed. However, many of those
who have chastised the administration of President Donald Trump seem willfully
ignorant of the fact that Israel has been carrying out far worse practices
against Palestinians.
In
fact, many within the American ruling classes, whether Republicans or
Democrats, have been captivated with the Israeli model for decades. For years,
US pundits have praised, not just Israel’s supposed democracy, but also its
security apparatus as an example to be emulated. Following the September 11,
2001 attacks, a renewed US love affair with
Israel’s security tactics blossomed, where Tel Aviv raked billions of American
taxpayers’ dollars in the name of helping secure US borders against perceived
threats.
A
new, even more appalling chapter in the ongoing cooperation was penned soon
after newly-elected Trump declared his plan to build a ‘great’ wall at the
US-Mexico border. Even before Israeli companies jumped on the chance to build
Trump’s wall, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, tweeted approvingly of Trump’s “great
idea”, claiming that Israel’s own wall has been a “great success” for it “has
stopped all illegal immigration.”
===========
c.
Why
Palestine Matters
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49752.htm
by Sheldon Richman
Why does Palestine matter? It’s a
question I ask myself nearly every day. Another way to put it is, “Is the
devotion of major attention to the plight of the Palestinians an obsession
worthy of suspicion or an appropriate response to a grave historic and
continuing injustice?
No one will be surprised when I reply that major attention is an
appropriate response. Palestine matters and should matter. I will try to explain
why.
First, perhaps most basically, the sheer cruelty — the scope
of the violation of human, i.e., natural individual, rights — of Israel’s
treatment of the Palestinians warrants the concern of all who favor freedom and
other (classical) liberal values: justice, social cooperation, free exchange,
and peace.
Let’s start with the Occupied Palestinian Territories. As B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights
in the Occupied Territories, says
front and center on its website: “Israel’s regime of occupation is inextricably
bound up in human rights violations.” No one who sheds the blinders of the
Official Narrative can help but feel pain over the institutional barriers to
normal life, not to mention the literal destruction of life, that are regular
features of Israel’s rule in the West Bank (with nearly 3 million
Palestinians), East Jerusalem (over 300,000), and Gaza Strip (nearly 2
million). It is no exaggeration to describe the system as an instance of
apartheid, which is the word used by Israeli human-rights
organizations and former
government officials. (Then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin used the
word in a warning
as far back is 1976. So did Israel’s first prime minister, David
Ben-Gurion, when he was out of office after the 1967 war.)
===========
d.
From: "IAK Blog" <contact@ifamericansknew.org>
Sent: Thursday, 21 June, 2018
Subject: Gaza victims' stories, UN resolution on excessive force, US
ambassador blocks scrutiny of Israel, and more...
|
===========
e.
===========
f.
UN chief
Antonio Guterres: Gaza 'on brink of war'
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/06/chief-antonio-guterres-gaza-brink-war-180619085643549.html
In
report sent to UN Security Council before Tuesday meeting, UN condemns Israeli
use of force against Palestinians.
===========
g.
From: "Alison Weir, If Americans Knew" <contact@ifamericansknew.org>
Sent: Saturday, 30 June, 2018
Subject: Support the Gaza Women's March July 3 - solidarity flyer to
post & distribute!
|
===========
h.
The Electronic Intifada
https://electronicintifada.net/
Wednesday,
20 June 2018
===========
i.
The Powell
Memo: A Call-to-Arms for Corporations
https://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/
In this excerpt from Winner-Take-All
Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — and Turned Its Back on the
Middle Class, authors Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson explain the
significance of the Powell Memorandum, a call-to-arms for American corporations
written by Virginia lawyer (and future U.S. Supreme Court justice) Lewis Powell
to a neighbor working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
In
the fall of 1972, the venerable National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
made a surprising announcement: It planned to move its main offices from New
York to Washington, D.C. As its chief, Burt Raynes,
observed:
We
have been in New York since before the turn of the century, because we regarded
this city as the center of business and industry. But the thing that affects
business most today is government. The interrelationship of business with
business is no longer so important as the
interrelationship of business with government. In the last several years, that
has become very apparent to us.[1]
To
be more precise, what had become very apparent to the business community was
that it was getting its clock cleaned. Used to having broad sway,
employers faced a series of surprising defeats in the 1960s and early 1970s. As
we have seen, these defeats continued unabated when Richard Nixon won the White
House. Despite electoral setbacks, the liberalism of the Great Society had
surprising political momentum. “From 1969 to 1972,” as the political scientist
David Vogel summarizes in one of the best books on the political role of
business, “virtually the entire American business community experienced a
series of political setbacks without parallel in the postwar period.” In
particular, Washington undertook a vast expansion of its regulatory power,
introducing tough and extensive restrictions and requirements on business in
areas from the environment to occupational safety to consumer protection.[2]
In
corporate circles, this pronounced and sustained shift was met with disbelief
and then alarm. By 1971, future Supreme Court justice Lewis Powell felt
compelled to assert, in a memo that was to help galvanize business circles,
that the “American economic system is under broad attack.” This attack, Powell
maintained, required mobilization for political combat: “Business must learn
the lesson . . . that political power is necessary; that such power must be
assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively
and with determination—without embarrassment and without the reluctance which
has been so characteristic of American business.” Moreover, Powell stressed,
the critical ingredient for success would be organization: “Strength lies in
organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency
of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing
available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only
through united action and national organizations.”[3]
===========
j.
Mugger Mick Mulvaney—Trump’s Sadist-in-Chief
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/29/mugger-mick-mulvaney-trumps-sadist-in-chief/
by
Ralph
Nader
Mr. Mulvaney’s title seems
uninterestingly bureaucratic—director of the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB). But as Trump’s chief hatchet man extraordinaire, Mugger Mick Mulvaney is easily one of the cruelest, most vicious
presidential henchman in modern American history. From his powerful perch next
door to the White House, he is carving a bloody trail against tens of millions
of Americans who are poor, disabled, frail, and elderly. He has gone after
defenseless children and injured or sick patients with little or no access to
health care.
It is difficult to exaggerate the relentless, savage
delight that this former Congressman from South Carolina—handpicked for Trump
by the brutish, oil funded Heritage Foundation—takes in attacking the most
vulnerable members of our society.
A human wrecking ball, Mugger Mick has pushed to
eliminate the Meals-on-Wheels assistance for isolated elderly, to increase
rents for poor tenants, to severely gut SNAP (food stamps) and nutritious food
standards, and to diminish Medicaid. In addition the Trump administration wants
to impose work requirements in Medicaid as a condition of eligibility. Many
adult Medicaid recipients are already working. Where will the new jobs come
from? Those who want to work but can’t find jobs are not Mr. Mulvaney’s concern.
His hellish agenda, undertaken on behalf of his
plutocratic rulers, is comprehensive. He wants to smash consumer,
environmental, and workplace health and safety standards. To Mugger Mick,
killing and disabling Americans doesn’t even qualify as collateral damage. To Mulvaney’s fevered, psychopathic mind, eliminating
Americans’ health and safety protections is worth it if it means “efficiency”
and less spending of tax dollars (more on that lie later).
He even would plunge a dagger into Social Security
and Medicare. President Trump has the political sense to restrain Mugger Mick
from this attack on the elderly. However, biding his time, Mulvaney
has led the campaign for the enacted corporate and wealthy tax cuts that are
already swelling the forthcoming massive deficits. Mulvaney
wants to use the deficit to persuade Trump eventually to butcher these two
pillars of our society’s foresight and compassion for seniors.
===========
k.
From: "Mark Crispin
Miller"
Sent: Thursday, 21 June, 2018
Subject: [MCM] Patriotism is the opiate of "We the People"
Why Are the Poor Patriotic?
https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2018/06/20/why-are-the-poor-patriotic-by-david-swanson/
by David Swanson
We should be very grateful to Francesco Duina
for his new book, Broke and Patriotic: Why Poor
Americans Love Their Country. He begins with the following
dilemma. The poor in the United States are in many ways worse off than in other
wealthy countries, but they are more patriotic than are the poor in those other
countries and even more patriotic than are wealthier people in their own
country. Their country is (among wealthy countries) tops in inequality, and
bottoms in social support, and yet they overwhelmingly believe that the United
States is “fundamentally better than other countries.” Why?
Duina didn’t try to puzzle this one
out for himself. He went out and surveyed patriotic
poor people in Alabama and Montana. He found variations between those two
places, such as people loving the government for helping them a little bit and
people loving the government for not helping them at all. He found variations
between men and women and racial groups, but mostly he found intense patriotism
built around identical myths and phrases.
I think it’s worth pointing out that wealthier Americans are only
slightly less patriotic than poor Americans, and that the moral question of why
one should love an institution that creates great suffering for others is
identical to that of why one should love an institution that creates great
suffering for oneself (and that the greatest suffering the United States
government creates is outside the United States). I suspect that much of what Duina found among the poor could be found in some variation
among the less poor.
Duina is very respectful of everyone
he spoke with, and very academic in his prose. But he quotes enough of his
interviewees’ statements to make it quite clear, I think, that their patriotism
is largely a willfully delusional religious faith based on ignorance of and avoidance
of facts. Just as the less wealthy are a bit more religious, they are also a bit more patriotic, and they
draw no clear line between the two. Duina reports
that many of the people he spoke with assured him that God favored the United
States above all other nations. One man even explained his own and others’
extreme patriotism as a religious need to believe in something when struggling,
something to provide “dignity.” There is, of course, a parallel to U.S. racism,
as many poor white Americans for centuries have clung to the notion that at
least they are better than non-whites. The belief that at least one is better
than non-Americans is widespread across every demographic.
Duina notes that even for those
struggling most desperately a belief that all is right and just with the system
around them can be easier on the mind than recognizing injustice. If people
were better off, paradoxically, their patriotism might decrease. Patriotism
also declines as education increases. And it seems likely to decline as
particular types of information and attitudes are conveyed. Just as people have
been found to favor bombing a nation in inverse proportion to their ability to
correctly locate it on a map, I suspect people would be marginally less likely
to believe the United States treats them better than a Scandinavian country
would if they knew facts about Scandinavian countries. They currently decidedly
do not.
Duina quotes people who assured him
that every Swede flees Sweden as soon as they’ve completed their free college
education, that Canada may have healthcare but is a dictatorship, that in
Germany or Russia they’ll cut off your hand or your tongue, that in communist
Japan they’ll cut off your head for speaking against the president, etc. Can
all of these beliefs, all in the same direction (that of disparaging other
nations) be innocent errors? One man assures Duina
that other nations are inferior because they engage in public executions, and
then advocates for public executions in the United States. A number of people
declare the United States superior because it has freedom of religion, and then
reject the idea that any non-Christian can ever be U.S. president. Homeless
people assure him that the United States is the quintessential land of
opportunity.
Many speak of “freedom,” and in many cases they mean the freedoms
listed in the Bill of Rights, but in others they mean the freedom to walk or
drive. They contrast this freedom to move about with dictatorships, despite
having little or no experience with dictatorships, although it seems best
contrasted with something poor Americans are likely to have a lot more
familiarity with: mass incarceration.
The belief that wars on foreign nations benefit their victims and
are acts of generosity seems nearly universal, and foreign nations are often
disparaged for having wars present (with no apparent awareness that many of
those wars involve the U.S. military which is funded with millions of times the
funding that would be required to eliminate poverty in the United States). One
man believes that Vietnam is still divided in half like Korea. Another believes
the president of Iraq invited the United States to attack it. Another simply
takes pride in the United States having “the best military.” When asked about
the U.S. flag, many immediately express pride in “freedom” and “wars.” A few
libertarians expressed support for bringing troops home, blaming other nations
for their unwillingness to be civilized — including those of the Middle East,
which has “never been civilized.”
There is similar strong support for the incredibly destructive
proliferation of guns in the United States as something that makes the United
States superior.
One fault attributed to other countries is taking children away
from parents, yet one assumes that at least some who condemn that practice have
found a way to excuse it or not become aware of it in recent news from the
United States.
One of the more common faults, though, is chopping people’s heads
off. This seems such a common view of what is wrong with foreign countries,
that I almost wonder if U.S. support for Saudi Arabia is in part motivated by
such an effective means of keeping the U.S. population sedated.
Somehow, the U.S. public has been persuaded to always compare the
United States with poor countries, including countries where the U.S.
government supports brutal dictators or imposes economic suffering, and never
with wealthy countries. The very existence of countries that are worse off, and
from which immigrants flee to the United States is generally taken as proof of
Greatest Nation on Earth status, even though other wealthy nations are better
off and more desired by immigrants.
The results include a passive public willing to absorb huge
injustices, a public willing to follow politicians who promise to screw them
but to do so patriotically, a public supportive of wars and dismissive of
international law and cooperation, and a public willing to reject advances in
healthcare or gun laws or climate policies or education systems if they are
made in other countries.
This book tells us more about where Trump came from than the past
18 months of cable news, but Trump is the least of it.
David Swanson is an author,
activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and
campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org.
Swanson’s books include Curing Exceptionalism: What’s
wrong with how we think about the United States? What can we do about it?
(2018) and War Is A Lie.
He blogs at DavidSwanson.org
and WarIsACrime.org.
He hosts Talk
Nation Radio. He is a 2015, 2016, 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
Support David’s work.
from the archives:
Howard Zinn: The Myth of American Exceptionalism
Memorial Day Myths by David Swanson
The Early Christians and the Military by Roman A. Montero
David Swanson: Debunking the Myth of American Exceptionalism + The Day DC
Was Bombed
Chris Hedges: Home Grown Hatred–Anger and Alienation in the
US (2009)
Put Away The Flags by Howard Zinn
Chris Hedges: We’ve Decapitated More Civilians Than ISIS Ever Has
Michael Parenti: Superpatriotism (1988)
This entry was posted in
Politics,
Imperialism,
Christianity,
Anti-war,
Religion,
Racism, Poverty, Book
Reviews and tagged American Exceptionalism, Book or
Film Reviews or Excerpts on Dandelion Salad, Patriotism, David Swanson, Francesco Duina.
Bookmark the permalink.
===========
l.
The Two
Superpowers: Who Really Controls the Two Countries?
https://southfront.org/paul-craig-roberts-the-two-superpowers-who-really-controls-the-two-countries/
by Paul Craig Roberts
Among
the ruling interests in the US, one interest even more powerful than the Israel
Lobby—the Deep State of the military/security complex— there is enormous fear
that an uncontrollable President Trump at the upcoming Putin/Trump summit will
make an agreement that will bring to an end the demonizing of Russia that
serves to protect the enormous budget and power of the military-security
complex.
You
can see the Deep State’s fear in the editorials that the Deep State handed to
the Washington Post (June 29) and New York Times (June 29), two of the Deep
State’s megaphones, but no longer believed by the vast majority of the American
people. The two editorials share the same points and phrases. They
repeat the disproven lies about Russia as if blatant, obvious lies are hard
facts.
Both
accuse President Trump of “kowtowing to the Kremlin.” Kowtowing, of
course, is not a Donald Trump characteristic. But once again fact doesn’t
get in the way of the propaganda spewed by the WaPo
and NYT, two megaphones of Deep State lies
===========
m.
The
Soldier’s Tale
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49719.htm
by Chris Hedges
The troops live under
The cannon’s thunder
From Sind to Cooch Behar
Moving from place to place
When they come face to face
With a different breed of fellow
Whose skins are black or yellow
They quick as winking chop him into
Beefsteak tartar
—“The Cannon Song” from “The Threepenny Opera”
The soldier’s tale is as old as war. It is told and then
forgotten. There are always young men and women ardent for glory, seduced by
the power to inflict violence and naive enough to die for the merchants of
death. The soldier’s tale is the same, war after war, generation after
generation. It is Spenser Rapone’s turn now. The
second lieutenant was given an “other than honorable” discharge June 18 after
an Army investigation determined that he “went online to promote a socialist
revolution and disparage high-ranking officers” and thereby had engaged in
“conduct unbecoming an officer.” Rapone laid bare the
lie, although the lie often seems unassailable. We must honor those like him
who have the moral courage to speak the truth about war, even if the tidal
waves of patriotic propaganda that flood the culture overwhelm the voices of
the just.
===========
n.
Grassroots News & Progressive Views
Immigration
and Family Separation: 9 Facts vs. Fiction
June 27,
2018 by At
Large Leave
a Comment
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Credit: Byron Morton
===========
o.
Immigration and Family Separation: 9 Facts vs.
Fiction
by Michelle Martin, PhD Cal State
Fullerton / Reposted from Facebook
Have
you heard that children were separated from their parents under Obama &
Clinton? Then, you need a little Facts vs Myths
lesson. Michelle Martin, PhD Cal State Fullerton summed up the most important
FACTS:
There
is so much misinformation out there about the Trump administration’s new “zero
tolerance” policy that requires criminal prosecution, which then warrants the
separating of parents and children at the border. Before responding to a post
defending this policy, please do your research…As a professor at a local Cal
State, I research and write about these issues, so here, I’ll
make it easier for you:
Myth: This is not a new policy and was
practiced under Obama and Clinton. – FALSE.
The
policy to separate parents and children is new and was instituted on April 6,
2018. It was the brainchild of John Kelly and Stephen Miller to serve as a
deterrent for undocumented immigration, approved by Trump, and adopted by
Sessions. Prior administrations detained migrant families, but didn’t have a
practice of forcibly separating parents from their children unless the adults
were deemed unfit. https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1049751/download?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
Myth: This is the only way to deter
undocumented immigration. – FALSE.
Annual
trends show that arrests for undocumented entry are at a 46 year low, and
undocumented crossings dropped in 2007, with a net loss (more people leaving
than arriving). Deportations have increased steadily though (spiking in 1996
and more recently), because several laws that were passed since 1996 have made
it legally more difficult to gain legal status for people already here, and
thus increased their deportations (I address this later under the myth that
it’s the Democrats’ fault).
What
we mostly have now are people crossing the border illegally because they’ve
already been hired by a US company, or because they are seeking political
asylum. Economic migrants come to this country because our country has kept the
demand going. But again, many of these people impacted by Trump’s “zero
tolerance” policy appear to be political asylum-seekers. https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568546381/arrests-for-illegal-border-crossings-hit-46-year-low
Myth: Most of the people coming across the
border are just trying to take advantage of our country by taking our jobs. – FALSE. Most of the parents who have been impacted by
Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy have presented themselves as political
asylum-seekers at a U.S. port-of-entry, from El Salvador, Guatemala, and
Honduras. Rather than processing their claims, they have been taken into
custody on the spot and had their children ripped from their arms. The ACLU
alleges that this practice violates the Asylum Act, and the UN asserts that it
violates the UN Treaty on the State of Refugees, one of the few treaties the US
has ratified. This is an illegal act on the part of the United States
government, not to mention morally and ethically reprehensible. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/21/us/meatpackers-profits-hinge-on-pool-of-immigrant-labor.html
Myth: We’re a country that respects the Rule
of Law, and if people break the law, this is what they get. – FALSE.
We
are a country that has an above-ground system of immigration and an underground
system. Our government (under both parties) has always been aware that US
companies recruit workers in the poorest parts of Mexico for cheap labor, and
ICE (and its predecessor INS) has looked the other way because this underground
economy benefits our country to the tune of billions of dollars annually. Thus,
even though the majority of people crossing the border now are asylum-seekers,
those who are economic migrants (migrant workers) likely have been recruited
here to do jobs Americans will not do. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/Opinion/2016/10/26/Donald-Trumps-wall-ignores-the-economic-logic-of-undocumented-immigrant-labor/2621477498203/
Myth: The children have to be separated from
their parents because their parents must be arrested and it would be cruel to
put children in jail with their parents. – FALSE.
First,
in the case of economic migrants crossing the border illegally, criminal
prosecution has not been the legal norm, and families have been kept together
at all cost. Also, crossing the border without documentation is a typically a
misdemeanor not requiring arrest, but rather a civil proceeding.
Additionally, parents who have been detained have historically been detained
with their children in ICE “family residential centers,” again, for civil
processing. The Trump administration’s shift in policy is for political
purposes only, not legal ones. See p. 18: https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/ms-l-v-ice-plaintiffs-opposition-defendants-motion-dismiss-doc-56
Myth: We have rampant fraud in our asylum
process the proof of which is the significant increase we have in the number of
people applying for asylum. – FALSE.
The
increase in asylum seekers is a direct result of the increase in civil conflict
and violence across the globe. While some people may believe that we shouldn’t
allow any refugees into our country because “it’s not our problem,” neither our
current asylum law, nor our ideological foundation as a
country support such an isolationist approach.
There
is very little evidence to support Sessions’ claim that abuse of our
asylum-seeking policies is rampant. Also, what Sessions failed to mention is
that the majority of asylum seekers are from China, not South
of the border. Here is a very fair and balanced assessment of his statements: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/oct/19/jeff-sessions/jeff-sessions-claim-about-asylum-system-fraudulent/
Myth: The Democrats caused this, “it’s their
law.” – FALSE.
Neither
the Republicans nor the Democrats caused this, the Trump administration did
(although the Republicans could fix this today, and have refused). I believe
what this myth refers to is the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act, which were both passed under Clinton in 1996.
These laws essentially made unauthorized entry into the US a crime (typically a
misdemeanor for first-time offenders), but under both Republicans and
Democrats, these cases were handled through civil deportation proceedings, not
a criminal proceeding, which did not require separation. And again, even in
cases where detainment was required, families were always kept together in
family residential centers, unless the parents were deemed unfit (as mentioned
above).
Thus,
Trump’s assertion that he hates this policy but has no choice but to separate
the parents from their children, because the Democrats “gave us this law” is
false and nothing more than propaganda designed to compel negotiation on bad
policy. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-democrats-us-border-migrant-families-children-parents-mexico-separate-a8401521.html
Myth: The parents and children will be
reunited shortly, once the parents’ court cases are finalized. – FALSE.
Criminal
court is a vastly different beast than civil court proceedings. Also, the
children are being processed as unaccompanied minors (“unaccompanied alien
children”), which typically means they are sent into the custody of the Office
of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of the Department of Health and
Human Services (DHS). Under normal circumstances when a child enters the
country without his or her parent, ORR attempts to locate a family member
within a few weeks, and the child is then released to a family member, or if a
family member cannot be located, the child is placed in a residential center
(anywhere in the country), or in some cases, foster care.
Prior
to Trump’s new policy, ORR was operating at 95 percent capacity, and they
simply cannot effectively manage the influx of 2000+ children, some as young as
4 months. Also, keep in mind, these are not unaccompanied minor children, they
have parents. There is great legal ambiguity on how and even whether the
parents will get their children back because we are in uncharted territory
right now. According to the ACLU lawsuit (see below), there is currently no
easy vehicle for reuniting parents with their children. Additionally, according
to a May 2018 report, numerous cases of verbal, physical and sexual abuse were
found to have occurred in these residential centers. https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-obtains-documents-showing-widespread-abuse-child-immigrants-us-custody
Myth: This policy is legal. – LIKELY FALSE.
The
ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on May 6, 2018, and a
recent court ruling denied the government’s motion to dismiss the suit. The
judge deciding the case stated that the Trump Administration policy is “brutal,
offensive, and fails to comport with traditional notions of fair play and
decency.” The case is moving forward because it was deemed to have legal merit.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-07/aclu-suit-over-child-separations-at-border-may-proceed-judge
===========
p.
From: Groucho Marx
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2018
Subject: Thank You...Byron: A few more...photos San Diego's' Families
Stay Together March 6-23-18
Francis,
Thank you for your kind words. If
the images are useful then please feel free to publish them (Photo Credit:
Byron Morton)
Have fun while out of town with your
wife.
I tossed in a few more images from
the "Families Stay Together" march.
There were a lot of young people
present.
Stay well, do good work and keep in
touch.
Byron
Natives purify San Diego Streets
===========
q.
From:
Groucho Marx
Sent:
Monday, June 25, 2018
Subject: Byron: A few photos San Diego's' Families Stay Together March
6-23-18
Well,
what a day!
I
thought you'd be interested in a few photos from the Families Stay Together
march 6-23-18.
It
was well represented with people from all walks of life.
For
me, the iconic photo, the first one of the Latina girl with the "Abolish
Colonial Laws" sign, stands out.
She
has a determined stare and the sign references history.
The
mysterious out of frame hand seals the image for me. It becomes an emotional
representation of current events.
Enjoy,
Byron
===========
r.
The Saker: “No 5th Column in the Kremlin? Think again!”
https://southfront.org/the-saker-no-5th-column-in-the-kremlin-think-again/
Written by The Saker; Originally appeared at The Unz Review
Following the re-appointment of
Medvedev and his more or less reshuffled government, the public opinion in
Russia and abroad was split on whether this was a good sign of continuity and
unity amongst the Russian leadership or whether this was a confirmation that
there was a 5th column inside the Kremlin working against
President Putin and trying to impose neo-liberal and pro-western policies on
the Russian people. Today I want to take a quick look at what is taking place
inside Russia because I believe that the Russian foreign policy is
still predominantly controlled by what I call the “Eurasian Sovereignists”
and that to detect the activities of the “Atlantic Integrationist” types we
need to look at what is taking place inside Russia.
s.
Edward Snowden describes Russian
government as corrupt
+
https://twitter.com/Suzi3D/status/1012899253738463232
===========
t.
The Most
Important Surveillance Story You Will Ever See For Years Just Went Online
===========
u.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/29/ukraine-behind-the-curtain/
by Louis Proyect
For most
people on the left, knowledge of the Ukraine is limited to a few well-trodden
factoids. Victorian Nuland made a phone call that led
to the overthrow of the democratically elected government and its replacement
through a pro-EU, pro-NATO coup. The coup relied on a combination of neo-Nazi
violence and false flag incidents to succeed. Once in power, the anti-Communist
government and its rightwing supporters began tearing down statues of Lenin.
And all of this could have been anticipated because Stephen Bandera
collaborated with the Nazis during WWII.
This
micro-narrative eliminated the need to understand the country’s history or the
economic contradictions internal to the country that have led to chronic
instability ever since it became independent in 1991. For those who want to dig
beneath the surface, there are two new books by Ukrainian scholars that put the
country’s ongoing turmoil into perspective. Stephen Velychenko’s
“Painting Imperialism and Nationalism Red:
The Ukrainian Marxist Critique of Russian Communist Rule in Ukraine 1918-1925”
points out in painful detail how an emancipatory
project in 1917 led to the preservation of Czarist type domination but in the
name of proletarian internationalism. Put succinctly, if you want to know why
Lenin statues (that never should have been erected in the first place per
Lenin’s aversion to idolatry) were torn down, Velychenko’s
book is a good place to start. As for Euromaidan and
its consequences, Yuliya Yurchenko’s
Ukraine and the Empire of Capital: From Marketization to Armed
Conflict is the very first attempt to apply a Marxist
analysis to Ukraine’s chronic oligarchic rule. Despite her support for Euromaidan, Yurchenko makes the
case that it was hijacked by a wing of the ruling class that sought to preserve
its narrow profit-seeking goals by exploiting nationalist resentments.
===========
v.
Anthony
Kennedy and the Court of Lost Resort
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/29/anthony-kennedy-and-the-court-of-lost-resort/
These
occasions don’t come round all that often, so we should pause for moment amid
the daily traumas of Trumptime to celebrate the
departure of Anthony Kennedy from the Supreme Court. With Kennedy’s exit, the
high bench will finally be cleansed of the last remnant of Reaganism,
a judicial contagion that has gnawed away at the legal foundations of the
Republic for the past 37 years, since Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to
replace Potter Stewart in the summer of 1981. Over eight years, Reagan remade
the federal judiciary from top to bottom by appointing 383 judges, more than
any other president.
O’Connor’s
elevation to the bench was followed by Reagan’s decision to enthrone the
austere William Rehnquist as Chief Justice in 1986, followed four days later by
the nomination of fire-breathing Anton Scalia to the slot vacated by Warren
Burger.
When
center-right justice Lewis Powell, author of the notorious Powell Memoranda that charted a corporate
counter-attack against the regulatory state, stepped down in
the summer of 1987, Reagan nominated Robert Bork, the bearded conservative who
served as Nixon’s executionor in the Saturday Night
Massacre. But Bork’s nomination was, well, Borked, by
an uppity senate which was, after six years, finally beginning to push back
against Reagan with Teddy Kennedy leading the charge. Next Reagan turned to the
wonkish Douglas Ginsburg. a
former Harvard Law professor whom Reagan had just a few months earlier
appointed to the federal court in the District of Columbia. Ginsburg was outed by NPR’s legal bloodhound Nina Totenberg for having
smoked marijuana as a student and continuing to partake of the magic herb while
teaching at Harvard. During the peak of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign, this admission was a fatal transgression for any
judicial aspirant, though a few years later Clarence Thomas would ascend to the
bench after having made a similar confession.
After
suffering these rare setbacks, Reagan turned to one of his old legal hatchetmen from his days as governor of California, Anthony
Kennedy. After the brutalizing of Bork for the uncloaked rapacity of his legal
views, Kennedy kept his judicial philosophy pretty opaque during his
confirmation hearings, which he sailed through after Al Gore, Joe Biden and
Paul Simon all skipped the committee vote to pursue their reelection campaigns.
Kennedy was branded a moderate, but soon proved to be as reactionary as Reagan.
While Kennedy didn’t exhibit Bork’s zealotry or Ginsberg’s lofty–if at
times flighty– intellect, he wasted little time in boring into the landmark
rulings of the Warren Court, so reviled the new conservatives. Kennedy’s animus
toward Warren was at least partly rooted in the contentious relationship
between the former Chief Justice and Kennedy’s lawyer father, who had tangled
with Warren during the justice’s term as governor of California.