Global

The November midterm elections are shaping up to be a showdown unlike anything the world has witnessed. Although the American Empire is in decline, it still exerts enormous influence over much of the world. Acting as though it can dominate the globe through bombs, assassinations, and drones, the U.S. government has proven increasingly incapable of negotiating lasting agreements or achieving decisive military victories.

Inflation in America has become a fact of life, driven in large part by perpetual war. It is impossible to add hundreds of billions of dollars to the military budget without fueling inflation. This administration has shown no ability to restore the nation's economic health while devoting vast American resources to building weapons and waging wars that kill civilians around the world.

President Jimmy Carter demonstrated what accountability looks like. After the failed Iran hostage rescue mission in 1980, he addressed the nation, looked Americans in the eye, and accepted full responsibility for the operation's failure.

Today, the human cost of U.S. military operations continues to grow, with American service members being killed and wounded in the Middle East. Behind every casualty is a son, daughter, spouse, parent, or friend whose sacrifice forever changes the lives of those left behind.

President Trump appears out of his depth on multiple fronts. In my view, his administration has allowed Israel to derail yet another opportunity for peace in pursuit of its own objectives. At the same time, many Americans are struggling at home—unable to find good jobs, pay rent, or keep up with the rising costs of gas and groceries.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that the United States should use ground troops to overthrow the Iranian regime. At the same time, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the war serves Israel's interests while making clear that Israel would not send its own ground troops to fight in Iran.

Ohio Immigrant Alliance (OIA) has released “They Walk Among Us: A List of 59 Sexually and Physically Abusive ICE and Border Agents” in the wake of ICE agent David Brouillette’s killing of Johan Sebastian in Maine.

“David Brouillette’s disturbing history of domestic violence is not unusual for an ICE agent,” said Lynn Tramonte, Executive Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance and author of this report. “But we have no way of knowing the full extent of the problem, because the agency doesn’t even look at family court records. What we do know is that ICE and Border Patrol agents have a disturbing track record of sexually and violently abusing women and children, including members of their own families. These are not people who should be given guns and free rein to roam U.S. communities. Their job is to enforce civil laws, but they act like they live in the wild west, and are killing people in our streets. Congress has to stop writing blank checks to these agencies and start enforcing order and accountability.”

During a military raid on the small town of Tell, southwest of Nablus, a moment of direct defiance shattered the illusion of total Palestinian submission.

Faced with relentless military incursions, land confiscation, and settler harassment and violence, local villagers and farmers refused to retreat.

In the confrontation that followed, a single Palestinian disarmed an Israeli soldier and opened fire on the invading forces near the illegal Havat Gilad settlement outpost, killing two soldiers and wounding three others.

What followed was the predictable, unyielding fury of the occupation: Israeli forces and state-backed armed settlers immediately launched a series of raids across Tell and neighboring communities, killing four Palestinians, setting fire to homes, and converting residential buildings into field interrogation centers.

In a swift collective punishment campaign, Israeli occupation troops detained over 70 Palestinians—including more than 40 in Tell alone—while expanding military incursions into Jenin, Tubas, Tulkarm, Ramallah, Hebron (Al-Khalil), Bethlehem, and Jericho.

Basically we’ve got two choices: we either aggressively denormalize Israel or we watch our society become more and more Israeli.

We either collectively reject Israel, or we watch western militaries fuse inseparably with the IDF.

We either turn support for Israel into political campaign poison, or we watch politicians obliterate our right to criticize Israel while backing increasingly evil Israeli military agendas.

We either ferociously oppose our government’s involvement in middle eastern wars, or we watch Israeli leaders grow more and more ecstatic as more and more western blood and treasure flows into the war machine.

We either normalize viewing Israel as a freakish abomination, or we sit passively watching authoritarian Zionist operations like Palantir get inseparably interwoven into every level of western power institutions.

We either stand together to oppose Israel for the racist apartheid state that it is, or we watch our Muslim neighbors suffer increasing discrimination and abuse at home while our governments help massacre our Muslim brothers and sisters using high-tech war machinery abroad.

Here are two ways an American can make a citizen.

• 1.  Take your partner out for a nice dinner and a romantic dance.
  • 2.  Once home, with no light but candles, remove unnecessary clothing, and let Nature guide you.
  • 3.  Roughly nine months later, a citizen arrives…

…OR

• Spend $75 online to set up a Limited Liability Corporation in Delaware.

This would be a damn funny joke if it weren’t true.

According to Supreme Court dicta in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that $75 is all you need to make an American a person under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.  

We know that the 2010 Citizens United case claimed that corporations are people, too. They can donate to political candidates, that is, purchase elections. There’s no other way to put it.

But there are two problems with the corporations-are-people assertion: