Tag Archives: politicians

Happy, Happy Juneteenth National Independence Day!

Civics, General, Social Justice, Women,

Can you believe it: Juneteenth (June 19th) – is finally a national holiday – a nationwide holiday commemorating the end of slavery?! Yay! Officially it is called Juneteenth National Independence Day and historically known as Jubilee Day, Black Independence Day, and Emancipation Day.

On Thursday, June 17th, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bill that was passed by Congress to set aside Juneteenth, or June 19th, as a federal holiday. “I hope this is the beginning of a change in the way we deal with one another,” he said.

The Senate approved the bill unanimously; however, 14 House Republicans — many representing states that were part of the slave-holding Confederacy in the 19th century — opposed the measure. Fourteen white male Republicans.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states (that had seceded from the United States) “are, and henceforward shall be free” on January 1st,1863, it could not be enforced in many places until after the end of the Civil War in 1865. Places like Galveston, Texas, where slaves didn’t get word of their official emanicpation until a certain Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived at Galveston on June 19, 1865, with news that the war had ended and proclaiming freedom for slaves in Texas. That was more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.

The following year, the now-free people started celebrating Juneteenth in Galveston. Its observance has continued around the nation and the world since. It is celebrated with concerts, parades and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Now the rest of America has (officially) caught up. ‘Bout time!

Well, 14 House Republicans might still be living in the 19th century. Why didn’t they support the bill to make Juneteenth a national holiday?

Here’s a sampling of their mindset:

“We have enough federal holidays right now. I just don’t see the reason in doing it,” he said. “I don’t think it rises to the level I’m going to support it.”
– Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas

“Let’s call an ace an ace. This is an effort by the Left to create a day out of whole cloth to celebrate identity politics as part of its larger efforts to make Critical Race Theory the reigning ideology of our country. Since I believe in treating everyone equally, regardless of race, and that we should be focused on what unites us rather than our differences, I will vote no.”
– Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Montana

“I don’t believe it’s healthy to reach into the dead past, revive its most malevolent conflicts and reintroduce them into our age,”
– Rep. Tom McClintock, R-California

“Juneteenth should be commemorated as the expression of the realization of the end of slavery in the United States – and I commend those who worked for its passage. I could not vote for this bill, however, because the holiday should not be called ‘Juneteenth National Independence Day’ but rather, ‘Juneteenth National Emancipation (or Freedom or otherwise) Day.’  This name needlessly divides our nation on a matter that should instead bring us together by creating a separate Independence Day based on the color of one’s skin.”
– Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas

And Tom Tiffany, R-Wisconsin, told a tv station that House Democrats had “used their majority to balkanize our country and fuel separatism by creating a race-based ‘Independence Day.’”

Oh, for fuck’s sake! Get over your yourselves!

Race-based ‘Independence Day’?! No comment.

“We have enough federal holidays” – how much is too much, Rep. Jackson? How does Juneteenth not rise to your level, sir? WHAT is your level? Celebrating the end of slavery in America isn’t worth having an official day to remember?

“It’s not healthy to reach into the dead past”, Rep. McClintock? Is it healthier to keep your mind narrow and closed? Is it healthier to sweep the ugly and painful aspects of our history under the rug than to address and acknowledge past wrongs?

This isn’t about YOU.

Pooh on you!

You could learn a thing or two from Ms. Opal Lee, the 94-year-old activist from Fort Worth, Texas, who is oft-referred to as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth”. At age 89, Lee was determined to walk 1,400 miles from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington D.C. in an effort to create the holiday (she logged 300 miles) and spent years focused on this effort. She told a story to an online audience hosted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, that highlighted how far the nation has come, even as recent months have illustrated how far it still has to go on rights and inclusion.

When she was a child growing up in Texas – a week after nine-year-old Lee moved with her family to an all-White neighborhood – an all-white mob of about 500 surrounded the house, prompting her mother to send Lee to stay with friends. When her father showed up with a gun to protect his home, a local police officer said, in Lee’s telling to the online audience, “If you bust a cap, we’ll let the mob have you.”

Her parents slipped away when it got dark, and the mob tore the house apart and burned it, she said.

The date of the attack was Juneteenth.

“If those people had allowed us to stay in that community, they would have found that we were just like them. All we wanted was a decent place to stay, and my father had a job. My mom was working two,” said Lee. “That was all we wanted. We would have been good neighbors, but they didn’t give us the opportunity to show them that.”

Do those 14 people who voted NO on the bill to make Juneteenth a national holiday even have the slightest clue of the hate and pain that Opal Lee and her family had to endure for decades? Do they give a rat’s ass?

Ms. Lee’s determination and passion to make Juneteenth a holiday is incredibly inspiring to me and so many others. As a former educator whose job involved social work, Lee now strives to ensure future generations know about Juneteenth. She authored a children’s book entitled, “Juneteenth: A Children’s Story” (which I just now learned as I am writing and researching this post).

Lee told her online audience that what’s important is to continue to seek equality and push back when fairness and equality are denied, as with the recent spate of legislation to restrict voting rights and bar some public school teaching on racism:

“We are going to soldier on. We are not going to let those kinds of things stop us from getting over to our children what they need to know.”

Days before she witnessed Congress pass a bill to make Juneteenth a nationwide holiday commemorating the end of slavery, she told CNN:

“I’m not just going to sit and rock, you know?”

Hear hear!

Sources

PBS
CNBC
National Archives
Wikipedia – Emancipation Proclamation
Crosscut
Mvorganizing.org
NPR
USA Today – Juneteenth 2021 celebrations: What to know about the holiday
Wikipedia – Juneteenth
CNN
The Harvard Gazette
MSN
USA Today – Who are the 14 House Republicans who voted against a Juneteenth holiday? And why?
The New York Times

Get the Hell OUT of Women’s Wombs, Uncle Sam

Civics, General, Women,

This headline caught my attention the other day:

Texas high school valedictorian scraps approved speech — and speaks out on new anti-abortion law

On May 30th, 2021, at Lake Highlands High School’s graduation in Dallas, TX, Paxton Smith scrapped her valedictory address – which had been approved by school officials – and told her audience it felt wrong to her “to talk about anything but what is currently affecting me and millions of other women in this state.”

She said:

I have dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Every girl here does. We have spent our whole lives working towards our futures, and without our consent or input, our control over our futures has been stripped away from us. I am terrified that if my contraceptives fail me, that if I’m raped, then my hopes and efforts and dreams for myself will no longer be relevant. I hope you can feel how gut-wrenching it is, how dehumanizing it is, to have the autonomy over your own body taken from you.”

WOW!

Ms. Smith has got guts. And a strong sense of self-confidence, to scrap her school official-approved speech and instead speak publicly and passionately about women’s reproductive health and how the new anti-abortion law signed by her governor could affect her and millions of other women.

The Texas law – one of the nation’s strictist abortion measures – outlaws ending a pregnancy as early as six weeks, before many women are even aware they are pregnant, and after a “fetal heartbeat” has been detected. It includes cases where the woman was impregnated as a result of rape or incest. There is an exception for medical emergencies.

Similar “heartbeat” bills have been passed by other states and held up by the courts, but Texas’ version has a twist, notes the Texas Tribune.

Instead of having the government enforce the law, the bill turns the reins over to private citizens — who are newly empowered to sue abortion providers or anyone who helps someone get an abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected. The person would not have to be connected to someone who had an abortion or to a provider to sue.

WTF?!

It is yet another so-called “fetal heartbeat” measure, which medical experts say is a scientifically misleading phrase. Why?

Because pulsing cells can be detected in embryos as early as six weeks, this rhythm — detected by a doctor, via ultrasound — cannot be called a “heartbeat,” because embryos don’t have hearts.

Obstetricians say the term “fetal heartbeat” is misleading, and that this scientific misunderstanding, among countless others, may contribute to negative public opinion toward abortion, reports The Cut.

Robyn Schickler, OB/GYN and Physicians for Reproductive Health fellow explained to The Cut that what is detectable at or around six weeks can more accurately be called “cardiac activity”. She and others argue that what doctors can detect is essentially communication between a group of what will eventually become cardiac cells.

Jennifer Kerns, an OB/GYN and professor at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF), added:

These are cells that are programmed with electrical activity, which will eventually control the heart rate — they send a signal telling the heart to contract, once there is a heart. It is this early activity which ultrasounds detect — not a heartbeat.

Electrical activity from a cluster of pulsing CELLS. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, you anti-choice, anti-science lawmakers!

Nationally, according to a report the Planned Parenthood Federation of America released in March 2021, legislation limiting abortion in 2021 has skyrocketed in comparison to a similar time frame in 2019. Compared to bills introduced from January through mid-March 2019, medication abortion restrictions and bans have tripled to 33, anti-abortion constitutional amendments have tripled to 14. Compared to just one abortion restriction enacted by this point in 2019, 12 have been enacted so far this year by states.

Overall, state legislatures have introduced 516 abortion restrictions, compared to 304 by mid-March 2019.

Why are politicians so hell-bent on policing women’s bodies?

Mr. or Ms. Politician, you’re not being “pro-life” when you consider only the fetus, not giving a flying fig about a pregnant woman’s life and moreover cutting social safety net services like SNAP and Medicaid. You’re just reducing the woman to a mere baby vessel. “Pro-birth” is more accurate, I think.

Would you, Mr. or Ms. Politician, savor the idea of having the government intrude on your private doctor visits? Of course not! Only if it involves someone else, right? (like someone female, and especially someone female and a minority?) You like government so small it can fit into a woman’s womb?

Get the hell OUT of my and other women’s wombs. You don’t belong there. What’s next? A government minder in the room during an exam of your wife/mother/sister/friend because you don’t trust the women in your life or her doctor?

How would you feel if politicians wanted to intrude on you or your husband/father/brother/friend’s doctor-patient relationship in some way – such as a law dictating a doctor had to report to the state when a man has a vasectomy – including reporting if the man refused to do so if forced by the state; and also a law wherein a doctor has to report each time a patient is prescribed erectile dysfunction medication or testoserone and testosterone-enhancing drugs? Or a law rebooted from the not-too-distant-past that essentially says you need sterilization because of who you are, e.g., a minority, a low-income earner, someone with a criminal record, etc.?

Would you not dread the state knowing about your or your loved one’s junk business?

Politicians wouldn’t care at all about your junk or that of the men in your family any more than they care about pregnant women’s lives, regardless of their circumstances. Privacy and respect be damned! You’re just another sperm bank or baby vessel who needs oversight from unseen, holier-than-thou lawmakers who don’t trust you to think for yourself, let alone believe you deserve the freedom to have bodily autonomy!

I hope millions upon millions of women will take inspiration from young Paxton Smith and mobilize against these intrusive, restrictive, and dehumanizing laws against women.

I hope that her generation will become an undeniable force to be reckoned with in making these sorts of laws completely unacceptable, disgusting, and horrific to society – making anti-choice measures ancient history – a notion dreamed up by barbarian minds consumed with controlling women’s bodies and their lives.

And I fervently hope that Ms. Smith’s generation – of all genders – will be the one that permanently and legally enables all women – here in the USA and around the globe, to live freely without fear of government interference into their private health matters forevermore. That would be an incredible achievement to materialize in my lifetime.

I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.

~Sister Joan Chittister, Benedictine nun, 2004

Sources

Alternet
Common Dreams
HuffPost
Popsugar
Berkeley Political Review
ThoughtCo.
Mic.com
PBS
Texas Tribune
NPR
Planned Parenthood
Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF)
The Cut
Wired

Stand Up for Journalists, Whistleblowers, and Peaceful Protestors Who Hold Those in Power Accountable

Civics, General, Media, Social Justice, , ,

Do you know about the press freedom violations that have occurred in the past year?

In a year’s time span – from May 26, 2020 (the day after George Floyd’s murder by a police officer, Derek Chauvin, to Chauvin’s conviction on April 20, 2021, where he was found guilty of second and third degree murder and second degree manslaughter by a jury.

Freedom of the Press Foundation’s project, U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, reports that press freedom violations were reported across 36 states and more than 80 cities. In that time, an average of 1.6 assaults of journalists occurred per day. The majority of the assaults documented — more than 85% — were by law enforcement.

Specifically, that’s 580 assaults of journalists. 153 arrests or detainments. 112 reports of equipment damaged in the field.

Here’s the article:

Between the bookends: 1 year of press freedom violations

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Perhaps the Founding Fathers ought to have added a few words about police not having the right to beat the crap out of journalists and detaining or arresting them for reporting on people peaceably assembling – especially when they assemble to protest police brutality?

Virginia was the first state to formally protect the press. The 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights stated, “The freedom of the Press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic Governments.”

Do we have a despotic government, regardless of who is in charge? I’m not talking about just the federal government, but also state and local governments.

The rough manhandling and other abuses against journalists – as well as whistleblowers and peaceful protestors – by law enforcement over the decades, have sometimes made me wonder about government being despotic. That thought has been magnified in the past several years by our preceding president who was (and still is) allergic to being held accountable and who reveled in publicly bullying and belittling journalists.

You’d think publicly bullying and belittling journalists (and in some cases, detaining or arresting them) were the hallmarks of dictators in faraway lands, not of presidents in America!

What a fucking insult to the U.S. Constitution and to those who have the courage to report on corruption and injustices in our society.

Notice the photo in the link: it shows a freelance journalist glancing back as a police line advances in Minneapolis’ Fifth Precinct on May 30, 2020 – shortly before police pushed him over a wall.

Stand up for journalists, whistleblowers, and peaceful protestors who work tirelessly for the public good – to hold those in power to account for their abuses.

Sources

U.S. Press Freedom Tracker
National Constitution Center
History.com

A Bit of Dirty Laundry on Ethnic Cleansing

General, Social Justice, ,

Can you imagine a stranger coming to your home that your family lived in for generations and the stranger squats right there in your abode, as if it were their home all along, waiting for you to pack up and leave because the state gave him or her the right to do so? A government that has unfailingly discriminated against you and your people of a certain ethnicity, race, or religion for generations?

Who could be so cruel?

People who don’t like another group of people. And willing to use violence if need be.

I can NOT even fathom such a scenario of being forced from my home for no other reason than because of who I am, what I look like, or what I believe (or don’t believe). But it has been the painful reality for too many around the globe. For centuries.

It’s called ethnic cleansing.

Political leaders have long made up excuses to “soften” their actions toward those they oppress – like expelling people as a supposed “punishment” for war crimes, although though the ones being displaced are only “guilty” for being of the same ethnic background as the actual persons who committed crimes against humanity – as was done in December 1944 when Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced to a startled House of Commons that the Allies had decided to carry out the largest forced population transfer – what is nowadays referred to as “ethnic cleansing”, in human history. Millions of civilians living in the eastern German provinces that were to be turned over to Poland after the war were to be driven out and deposited among the ruins of the former Reich, to fend for themselves as best they could.

What was planned, he forthrightly declared, was “the total expulsion of the Germans… For expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting.”

Greed (or revenge) for land or other resources is another excuse, such as in 146 B.C. during the Battle of Carthage the Romans broke through the city wall of Carthage – now modern day Tunisia – the city was leveled and after its citizens surrendered, they were sold into slavery. And the land surrounding Carthage was eventually declared ager publicus (public land), and it was shared between local farmers, and Roman and Italian ones.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

But at the end of the day, a primary objective was and still is to get rid of a group of people.

According to Wikipedia:

Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal or extermination of ethnic, racial and/or religious groups from a given area, often with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal (deportation, population transfer), it also includes indirect methods aimed at coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction.

Although many instances of ethnic cleansing have occurred throughout history, the term was first used by the perpetrators as a euphemism during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. Since then it has gained widespread acceptance due to journalism and the media’s heightened use of the term in its generic meaning.

The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 defined ethnic cleansing as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas”.

The official United Nations definition of ethnic cleansing is “rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group”.

There are too many examples (unfortunately) of ethnic cleansing in human history to include here, but I’ll give you some glaring examples:

China

c. 350 AD: Ancient Chinese texts record that General Ran Min ordered the extermination of the Wu Hu, especially the Jie people, during the Wei–Jie war in the fourth century AD. The Wu Hu, or The Five Barbarians, refers to five ancient non-Han peoples who immigrated to northern China in the Eastern Han dynasty, and then overthrew the Western Jin dynasty and established their own kingdoms in the 4th–5th centuries.

People with racial characteristics such as high-bridged noses and bushy beards were killed; in total, 200,000 were reportedly massacred.

Europe

c. 1250–1500 AD: Many European countries expelled from their respective territories the Jews on at least 15 occasions. Spain was preceded by England, France and some German states, among many others, and succeeded by at least five more expulsions.

Nova Scotia

1755–1764: During the French and Indian War, the Nova Scotian colonial government, aided by New England troops, instituted a systematic removal of the French Catholic Acadian population of Nova Scotia – eventually removing thousands of settlers from the region and relocating them to areas in the Thirteen Colonies, Britain, and France. Many eventually moved and settled in Louisiana and became known as Cajuns. Many scholars have described the subsequent deaths of over 50% of the deported Acadian population as an ethnic cleansing.

United States of America

1830-1850: The Trail of Tears was part of a series of forced displacements of approximately 60,000 Native Americans by the United States government known as the Federal Indian Removal Act of 1830. Members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations (including thousands of their black slaves) were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to areas to the west of the Mississippi River that had been designated ‘Indian Territory’.

The forced relocations were carried out by government authorities after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830 and signed by President Andrew Jackson.

The relocated peoples suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their newly designated reserve. Thousands died before reaching their destinations or shortly after from disease.

Ottoman Empire

1894–1896: in an effort to Islamize the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Abdul Hamid II ordered the killing of ethnic Armenians (along with other Christian minorities) living in the Ottoman Empire, based on their religion. These killings later became known as the Hamidian massacres, named after Sultan Abdul Hamid II. It has been estimated that the total number of people killed ranges from 80,000 to 300,000.

Canada

You’re familiar with the horrific treatment of thousands of Japanese Americans by the United States government during WWII, yes? Forced from their homes and shipped to faraway concentration camps? Did you know that Canada not only did the same thing, but at the end of the war, they forced many of their own citizens back to Japan, a war-torn country that many of them had never even seen before?

After Canada declared war on Japan, Major General Ken Stuart stated, “From the Army point of view, I cannot see that Japanese Canadians constitute the slightest bit of menace to national security.” Sadly, his words didn’t matter at all, and by February 1942, orders were given to evacuate all Japanese Canadians and relocate them into what were deemed “protective areas.”

Just like their Japanese American counterparts, thousands of Japanese Canadians were given a matter of hours to collect what they could before being loaded onto trains and taken to ghost towns. With no running water or electricity, the ghost towns of British Columbia became holding centers for thousands of men, women, and children. About 20,800 people were moved, and of those, more than 13,000 were Canadian citizens who were born in the country. Their property was seized and much of it sold to finance the cost of moving them.

When the war ended, those who were moved to internment camps were given two choices, and neither was good. In order to prove their loyalty to their new nation (which was the only country that many had ever known), they were told that they needed to move to the eastern part of Canada. Those who didn’t want to leave their homes in British Columbia were given only one other choice – repatriation to Japan.

What a raw deal, to put it mildly.

Palestine

The 1948 Palestinian exodus occurred when more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of prewar Palestine’s Arab population – fled or were expelled from their homes, during the 1948 Palestine war.

The exodus was a central component of the fracturing, dispossession and displacement of Palestinian society, known as the Nakba (Arabic: al-Nakbah, literally “disaster”, “catastrophe”, or “cataclysm”) in which between 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were destroyed and Palestinian history erased, and also refers to the wider period of war itself and the subsequent oppression up to the present day.

The precise number of refugees, many of whom settled in refugee camps in neighboring states, is a matter of dispute but around 80 percent of the Arab inhabitants of what became Israel (half of the Arab total of British-created Mandatory Palestine) left or were expelled from their homes. About 250,000–300,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled before the Israeli Declaration of Independence in May 1948, a fact which was named as a casus belli (“occasion for war” – an act or event that provokes or is used to justify war.) for the entry of the Arab League into the country, sparking the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

I regret to tell you that there are SO many more ethnic cleansing events throughout history to the present day. You may be aware of some of them, as I am, particularly the more notorious ones in during the 20th century, including the Turkish massacre of Armenians during World War I; the Nazis’ annihilation of some 6 million European Jews in the Holocaust; the forced displacement and mass killings carried out in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda during the 1990s.

But I didn’t know about the many lesser known ones and thought they were just as notable to share with you; however, I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much detail and historical facts, important as they are. But if you’ve read this far, you’ve got an idea of what horrors humans can inflict on one another.

Regarding Palestine, you’ve no doubt heard of the horrible conflict now raging between Israel and Palestine if you’ve been watching the news. What’s not being covered, at least on broadcast news as far as I can tell (even on liberal-leaning MSNBC), is what lies at reason for the confrontations: the likely Israeli takeover of Palestinian homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem.

This sort of thing between Israeli settlers and Palestinians has been going on for decades, but intensified yet again over the last weeks. The New York Times reports that since the start of the May, the prospect of the evictions has prompted daily protests, arrests, and confrontations between Palestinians and the Israeli police and Jewish extremists.

Tensions reached a peak at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound – Islam’s third holiest site – in Jerusalem on Friday night, May 7th, where police officers threw stun grenades and fired rubber-coated bullets as worshipers attempted to pray, and worshipers threw bottles and stones. Some of the stun grenades landed in the mosque. Injuries, deaths, and destruction continue as I write this.

To pour salt on the wound, the upsurge in violence came during the last week of Ramadan as Israel celebrated “Jerusalem Day“, marking its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

I won’t attempt to describe the fear and pain felt by Palestinians threatened by the loss of the only homes they’ve known for generations, so I will just share the link to a video made by a Palestinian writer describing what is going on:

‘We are very scared’: Palestinian writer explains Israel’s ‘forced ethnic displacement’ in powerful clip

On Sunday, May 9th, the Israeli Supreme Court delayed a decision on whether to expel six Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem after the attorney general requested more time, in part because of the tensions the case has stirred. The court was to decide on Monday, May 10th, whether to uphold an expulsion order for the families in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, in a hearing that many feared would set off a wave of unrest.

Instead, the case has been delayed by up to 30 days to allow the attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, to review it. The Israeli government has argued that the Sheikh Jarrah case is a private real-estate dispute between the Palestinian families and a secretive Jewish settler group, which bought the land two decades ago on which the Palestinians’ homes were built in the 1950s.

This is the present day: The New York Times notes that for many Palestinians, the families’ plight has become emblematic of a wider effort to remove Palestinians from parts of East Jerusalem and of the past displacements of Arabs in the occupied territories and within Israel – the only home they’ve known for centuries.

Getting rid of people. Because of who they are. Threatened with losing their homes, their livelihoods (or worse), just as many of their forbears lost their homes over the past decades. Because for any number of reasons, one group of people feels they can and will dispose of another group of people.

It is the 21st century and we are still witnessing ethnic cleansing.

Let that sink in.

Sources

Alternet
Wikipedia – List of ethnic cleansing campaigns
Wikipedia – Ethnic Cleansing
History.com – Ethnic Cleansing
Wikipedia – Trail of Tears
History.com – Trail of Tears
Britannica
HuffPost
Listverse
The New York Times
Wikipedia – 1948 Palestinian exodus
MSN
AlJazeera

The Colors of Politics, Religion, and Oppression

General, Social Justice, ,

Ever since I was little, I’ve thought colors were important. Colors help identify things in nature; colors help us identify which clothing belongs to us in a family’s dirty laundry pile; colors help us identify different buildings when traveling or when going for a job interview and finding the right place; colors draw us to the arresting eyes or hair or complexion of people; colors help remind us of what foods we are consuming; colors help us remember which color to wear if we wish to support a protest.

We need color!

I cannot imagine not being able to see and revel in the infinite varieties that surround us throughout our lives; I’m aware of the good fortune of being able to appreciate colors, an ability that some lack.

I’m drawn to bright, bold hues such as those displayed by tulips and other springtime flowers as well as icy, sparkly gold and silver of year-end holiday festivities. I even like the blinding white of snow (as long as I’m not caught in a blizzard).

Colors can dictate your mood – at least it does for me. Wearing black reminds me of funerals; I’ve attended so many since the age of five. No color there, to my mind; a room painted in black conveys claustrophobia and darkness to me, nothing else. I know black looks good on some people, perhaps giving them the aura of sophistication or the illusion of looking slimmer. Black is not for me.

RED is for me. I LOVE red! Red is passionate. Red symbolizes love on Valentine’s Day. Red symbolizes good luck and happiness in Asian cultures and is worn by brides in some countries. That’s how I prefer to think about red.

Red symbolizes political ideologies, too. Communism. America’s Republican party – thanks largely to mass media since the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

Red also symbolizes Canada’s “liberal red”. In the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland, red is also the colour of the labor movement and the Labour (spelled Labor in Australia) parties in those countries. All major socialist and communist alliances and organizations have used red as their official color; red was chosen to represent the blood of the workers who died in the struggle against capitalism.

Red is on the flags of countless countries around the globe representing governments of all political stripes that ebb and flow with time. The oldest symbol of socialism (and by extension communism) is the Red Flag, which dates back to the French Revolution in the 18th century and the revolutions of 1848.

Before this nascence, the colour red was generally associated with monarchy or the Church due to the symbolism and association of Christ’s blood.

GREEN is my second-favorite color. Earthy. I love most shades of green! Except when vegetables are overcooked and then become a sickly shade of green-gray. Red and green…Christmas colors, that’s for me, though I’m not a big Christmas person.

Green is also on many countries’ flags. Brides in some countries wear green. There is a political party called the Green Party, which is in many countries, including the USA and often used by environmental groups. Green has sometimes also been linked to agrarian movements, such as the Populist Party, in the U.S. in the 1890s and the current-day Nordic Agrarian parties, as well as the National Party of Australia, a conservative party traditionally representing regional and agricultural interests. Irish Nationalist and Irish Republican movements have used the color green.

Green, considered the holy colour of Islam, is used to represent Islamism such as Hamas, Saudi Arabia and Islamist parties. Green is a color used for protest, such as the Iranian Green Movement (or Persian Spring) in 2009.

In most of Latin America, green is associated with pro-choice movements, the colour started being used in Argentina as a symbol of third wave feminism and abortion rights, with a green scarf as a symbol.

BLUE is also a popular color. Not my favorite color; I don’t ever want to live in a blue house or have a room in my home painted blue, no matter how pretty the shade. Yes, that’s how strongly I feel about blue! I don’t mind wearing blue jeans, though. You just won’t find a lot of blue in my wardrobe; it doesn’t have high priority when I choose what I want to wear. And I do enjoy a clear blue sky on a sunny day and can admire other people’s blue homes or rooms…I just don’t want to be part of it; it will make me FEEL blue to be surrounded in blue.

Blue symbolizes political ideologies as well. People associate it with their country’s flag. Or the police (in America). Or the Democratic party (USA) – though blue was used briefly by President Grover Cleveland and President Benjamin Harrison to represent the Republican Party in the late 1880s and and used by Texas for similar color-coding to assist its Spanish-speaking and illiterate citizens during that same time period. Blue is the color of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and British conservatives of the UK; “Tory blue” is associated with more right-wing, conservative political thought.

Globally, blue is used by left-leaning parties (Japan, South Africa, Belgium) and right-leaning parties (Romania, South Korea, Austria). In Brazil, both left and right like blue!

In the realm of religion, blue is of prime significance in Judaism.

In everyday life, blue can be the color of an ID card…which can translate into real world life and death situations if a person possesses one…or not.

To illustrate in stark terms the meaning of blue for many people in one part of the world, I share below an article with you by a Palestinian, Layal Hazboun, who writes of her father, who, like countless others, desired the blue ID card, which grants rights to Palestinians living in Israel.

These rights include having medical insurance, traveling via Israeli airports, and opening a bank account in Israel. But for a long while Hazboun’s father only had a green ID card.

According to Aljazeera’s The colour-coded Israeli ID system for Palestinians:

As Israel expanded its control and occupation over four territories in the aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967, it devised a system of population control that remains in place five decades later.

After the 1967 war, the Israeli military declared the occupied territories to be closed areas, making it mandatory for Palestinian residents to obtain permits to enter or leave. Palestinians who were abroad during that time missed out on the subsequent population census and were not granted identification papers.

The clear delineator that has separated and dictated the lives of these Palestinians is the colour-coded identification system issued by the Israeli military and reinforced in 1981 through its Civil Administration branch. Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip have green IDs – generally issued once they turn 16 – while Palestinians in East Jerusalem and Israel have blue IDs.

The cards affect everything from freedom of movement to family unity.

To me, the blue and green identification card system seems terribly complicated on the face of it. There seems to be many different layers of each card, depending on where one lives and what one needs it for. You can read more about this here and in the Aljazeera link above.

Read Layal Hazboun’s story, and learn how colors are used in the worst way: to dehumanize and divide Palestinians. In this light, blue and green symbolize suffering or limited freedom(s):

In Palestine, green and blue are more than colors

Is Israel’s decades-long use of the blue and green identification card system forced upon Palestinians much different than the Nazi leaders forcing Jews to wear the Jewish badge between 1939 and 1945?

In the parts of German-occupied Poland, Governor General Hans Frank ordered, on November 23, 1939, that all Jews over the age of ten wear a “Jewish Star”: a white armband affixed with a blue six-sided star, worn over the right upper sleeve of one’s outer garments. There were heavy penalties for those caught not wearing it.

Later, on September 1, 1941, Security Police Chief Reinhard Heydrich decreed that all Jews in the Reich six years of age or older were to wear a badge which consisted of a yellow Star of David on a black field to be worn on the chest, with the word “Jew” inscribed inside the star in German or in the local language of whichever region Germany had occupied.

On a historical note: over the course of more than ten centuries, Muslim caliphs, medieval bishops, and – eventually – Nazi leaders used an identifying badge to mark Jews. It’s horrible. Period.

The Nazis used the badge not only to stigmatize and humiliate Jews but also to segregate them and to watch and control their movements; so too has Israel forced Palestinians to have green or blue ID cards to control their movements and segregate them, which ultimately affects every aspect of their lives. For decades.

WHY has the world tolerated this for so long?

Just please remember: Palestinians are our fellow human beings and ought not to be ignored.

The naysayers who challenge Palestinians’ very existence and dignity deserve every criticism and pushback, particularly if they claim to be God-loving persons.

To my mind, I think you dehumanize yourself every time you dehumanize others – or support those who do.

I hope someday that Palestinians will not have to have their lives dictated by ID cards, no matter what color.

Sources

Harvard Gazette
Enchroma
We Are Not Numbers!
Wikipedia – Iranian Green Movement
HuffPost
Wikpedia – Green Party of the United States
Green Party US
Aljazeera
Palestinian Diary
United States Holocaust Museum
Metro UK
Learning in Palestine
Wikipedia – Political Colour
Color Combos

In Praise of Ms. Jones

Civics, General, Media, Women, , ,

On the morning of December 7th, 2020, former Florida COVID-19 data scientist Rebekah Jones had her home raided by state police. They aimed their guns at her and her family, as seen on video. They seized her phone, computer and several hard drives, preventing her from continuing to publish data on COVID-19 outbreaks.

Jones wrote on social media after the raid:

“They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids… This was DeSantis. He sent the gestapo [sic].”

She built the much-praised COVID-19 dashboard before being fired over what she said was refusing to “manipulate data”, according to USA TODAY. She was fired from her job as Geographic Information Systems manager for the department on May 5th, 2020. 

The World Socialist Web Site reports that the specific allegation made against Jones that led to the police raid was:

that she was responsible for an email being sent to Florida’s Department of Health employees imploring them to “speak up before another 17,000 people are dead,” which Jones denies having sent. She asserts that, in part, officials seized her devices to determine what contacts she has within the Department of Health, who will in turn likely be victimized in the near future.

Rebekah Jones has since launched her own COVID-19 dashboard after being removed from the state’s project. You can find it here. And explained in some detail, here.

She has also just filed a suit against the Florida Department of Law Enforcement over the raid at her home.

Why am I writing about this?

Because when I think about what happened to her, this is what is going through my mind: This is where hard-earned taxpayer monies go – to use armed state police to harass an unarmed scientist and her family in their home due to an unsubstantiated suspicion? Is this perhaps a retaliation against Ms. Jones from certain leaders in power who didn’t like that she refused to fudge the COVID-19 numbers to make their government look better?!

I personally have never had any really negative encounter with local or state police in my lifetime. Not even from two encounters with state police who issued me the traffic tickets I’ve gotten in the past. (getting the tickets was more painful!) I don’t have any personal grudge against police.

However, I do take great issue with law enforcement officers who abuse the public trust when they engage in corruption, sexism, racism, or employ excessive force against peaceful, UNARMED, law-abiding citizens, be it a scientist or peaceful protesters. Particularly against people of color.

I had a close, late friend who relayed his tale of walking home from work one night when he was suddenly bodyslammed to the ground because…why? He apparently resembled a suspect accused of some offense. It was a case of mistaken identity and he was released. But I don’t know if the officers apologized to him. My friend was a big man, originally from India. And no security officer ever came to his rescue when rocks were thrown at him and his friends by a crowd who supposedly “didn’t want his kind” at a country music concert somewhere in a southern state. My friend loved American country music. I thought part of security personnel’s jobs was to prevent and stop harm to others.

And I think it is deeply dangerous to idolize police, as if they are all angels who can do no wrong. They are human beings, for crying out loud!

To put them all on some fantastical, god-like pedestal and make excuses for those who perpetrate heinous crimes against their fellow citizens is irresponsible and a betrayal of public trust. It’s a willful denial of the lived experiences of those who have been the target of police brutality, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence. Call a spade a spade and quit giving a free pass to law enforcement officers who do wrong to others, instead of trying to immediately shift blame on the injured (or dead) party by casting aspersions on their character or actions. Like, if only he wasn’t swaggering around the way he did, or he should have answered/obeyed the officer immediately (like a dog?), or why was she out at night and dressed like that, or why did she have to be so loud and sassy? That’s bullshit.

Disgusting.

I do not condone crimes; I want public accountability of those who have been entrusted with power – who abuse it and harm others.

What’s so hard about not using excessive force on peaceful, unarmed people? Particularly in the privacy of their own home?

The important point, to my mind, is that Ms. Jones kept her fellow Floridians and researchers around the country informed with facts about the spread of COVID-19. Determined to do so even after she and her spouse were violently harassed by state police, and her young children terrified by them.

(remember, violence is not always physical; it can be verbal, too)

She has stood up for science. For public health. For FACTS. And has not been afraid to tell the truth about what has happened to her — she has refused to bow down to bullies. I respect all of that. Immensely.

If anything, this pandemic has helped me to appreciate and respect science that much more. I’ve always liked science…I just didn’t apply myself very well on science exams during my school years, from elementary school through college. And I felt guilty when I didn’t do so well because I knew instinctively that science was important.

So huge kudos to you, Rebekah Jones, for your work in helping to inform others. For standing up for yourself, for standing up for Floridians’ health, and not letting anyone bully you! I hope you will keep doing your work for many, many years to come. Florida is lucky to have you.

Sources

USA Today
Florida COVID Action
NPR
World Socialist Web Site
CNN
Tampa Bay Times

Bullies Everywhere

Civics, General, ,

What the devil is wrong with a certain set of spineless politicians who will do most anything to overturn a national election because they can’t handle a loss?

Whose party leader inspires his followers to threaten and bully even their own party politicians who decide they have their own brains to follow the law?

Who are, in essence, behaving like schoolyard bullies, expecting everyone to kowtow to their wishes.

Sore losers!

I despise bullying.

I’m no psychologist, but I feel there has to be something sorely lacking in these people’s lives that they would willingly subvert the will of their fellow citizens who voted for another candidate.

Don’t we have enough sickness with the pandemic going on, with thousands dying daily, and new cases of people getting infected daily?

Yes, sickness.

I think you have to be sick both head and heart to want to waste people’s time (and money) trying to overturn an election that has repeatedly been shown to have no evidence of fraud. Repeatedly.

Denied by the judges! Lack of solid evidence.

Even more deeply sickening is that these “leaders” rarely condemn the violence perpetrated against others, be it politicians, poll workers, or peaceful protestors. And violence includes threatening phone calls to secretaries of state and encircling their homes in person, carrying guns.

WTF?!

I’d venture to say there’s probably a bully in every school and workplace.

But not everyone who’s experienced abuse, neglect, grief, or any kind of hardship resorts to bullying others – using someone else as a convenient punching bag to cope with their inadequacies.

Who hasn’t had at least one bully encounter in their lives? It’s painful, to say the least. It’s mean and it’s cruel.

 

To bullies, I want to say:

You like threatening to harm others because it’s soothing to your fragile ego? You can’t stand it if you don’t feel you have power over others?

What ails you?!

There’s a fucking pandemic going on, for goodness sakes! Our country can do without more meanness and cruelty from you.

Go take a walk in the park or the woods and contemplate the beauty of nature…absorb some positivity instead of infecting others with your toxic negativity!

“I would rather be a little nobody, then [sic] to be a [sic] evil somebody.” ― attributed to Abraham Lincoln

Libraries: An Antidote to Baseless Negativity

Civics, General, Libraries

“I couldn’t live a week without a private library – indeed, I’d part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I’d let go of the 1500 or so books I possess.” ~H. P. Lovecraft

 

I can empathize with H.P. Lovecraft…I value my books more than my furniture. I’ve put a lot of thought into much of my private library over the years! If a stranger walked into my home and noticed my many books, which are not as numerous as Mr. Lovecraft’s was, she or he would definitely know where my interests lie. I can’t imagine not having (most of) my books around!

Books have been part of my life since I was little. Taking me to the public library throughout my school years was one of the best things my father did for me. My big sister picked out my books for me at the library when I was little and learning to read. The public library has always been THE FIRST place I look for whenever I have moved to a new locale because I know I will be going there A LOT!

I’ve even joined the local university library as a public patron for free so I can get more mind-y, hard-to-access books (though only limited to three at a time).

I will be a library advocate til my last breath!

The public library is the  great equalizer. It is for EVERYONE.

So why wouldn’t anyone use their local public library? It’s free!

Some excuses I’ve heard from friends, loved ones, and co-workers over the years:

“It’s the government.” (a conspiracy?)

“I won’t remember to return the books.” (how do you know?)

“I thought it was just for kids?” (nah!)

“Aren’t the books dirty (esp. during the pandemic!)?”

As to the last comment, I’ll say that my local library quarantines returned items for a week. And by the way, isn’t money dirtier? Money passes through the hands of untold numbers of people daily, more than books.

I confess I am wary of those hostile to libraries. Totally can NOT relate to them on that level. The politicians  hostile to funding libraries and  the corporate types who would be in 7th heaven if public libraries didn’t exist at all? I’ve no sympathy for them. I think: Whatsa matter with you?! You’re not curious? You have an issue with people wanting to learn, to read? Get outta here!

Same thoughts with those who want to censor what others should read because they don’t like the content of a novel, usually due to sex, violence or blasphemy. Too bad for the censors; why deprive others of the opportunity to think and explore just because something offends you greatly? Don’t read it then. Well, that’s another topic for another day that I feel strongly about.

It’s not just books you can borrow; there’s audiobooks, cds, dvds (do I sound old school now?), magazines. You can use their computers; do research with access–or limited access to various journals that cost money; join in computer classes, resume writing, cooking/language/exercise/arts and crafts classes. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Granted, I’m only referring to my local public library, but you get the idea.

Or  join a book discussion group in which you can meet monthly and meet new people who may share your interests.

You might say: “Hey! There’s a pandemic going on! What are you talking about?!”

To which I respond: Have you checked out your local library yet? They might be going virtual with their programs. They might have “curbside pickup” whereby you can request your materials online and then you pick up your stuff when notified by email that it’s ready to go, retrieving them in a designated area like the lobby, so there’s no person contact.

FREE your mind! Explore! Save your hard-earned $$ on books, magazines, and audio-visual materials…check out your local public library. It’s meant for everybody. For the whole community. Even during a pandemic.

The pandemic has fostered much fear, uncertainty, and misinformation. Consider your local public library as an antidote to baseless negativity. A refuge that promotes freedom of your mind.

As for my own private library, I tend to buy used books…and ONLY if I cannot find a wanted title in the local or state public library system (my state has an awesome inter-library loan system) or local uni library, unless I feel I HAVE TO HAVE it.  If you’re thinking to buy a book for someone and not sure about it, why not check it out at the library first? That’s how I bought all the books I bought for my nieces and nephews when they were young. At least you won’t piss off a bookstore person for having spent time hemming and hawing about it for god knows how long and walking out the doors undecided, not having bought something. ??

Library staff won’t lay a guilt trip on you. They’re some of the coolest, most helpful people I’ve known throughout my life.

Yeah, I love my libraries! I can’t live without them.

Get thee to your library!