Global

The killing of four young Palestinians by Israeli occupation soldiers in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, on August 16, is a consequential event, the repercussions of which are sure to be felt in the coming weeks and months. 

 The four Palestinians - Saleh Mohammed Ammar, 19, Raed Ziad Abu Seif, 21, Nour Jarrar, 19, and Amjad Hussainiya, 20  - were either newly born or mere toddlers when the Israeli army invaded Jenin in April 2002. The objective, then, based on statements by Israeli officials and army generals, was to teach Jenin a lesson, one they hoped would be understood by other resisting Palestinian areas throughout the occupied West Bank. 

That link between age and wisdom — is it just a joke?

Suddenly I’m curious in a real way. I just turned . . . 75. There’s a significance to that number that isn’t abstract, and I’m having a hard time ignoring it. Perhaps it has more to do with cataracts and hearing aids, not to mention wobbly knees, lost thoughts and techno-cluelessness, than it does with diamonds. But I find myself wondering, more than ever, what I have learned over the past three quarters of a century — and what, if anything, I understand.

I think about the chaos in Afghanistan, the insane war on terror, refugees massed and caged at the southern border, a child murdered on the streets of Chicago. When I was in my 20s, I felt certain the world from which such cruelty and stupidity emerged was being transformed. Our generation was changing it. Now, as I limp to the bathroom, I feel the throb of an aching heart. Things have changed in some ways, both for better and for worse, but mostly they have stayed the same. What I have come to understand is how little I know.

On this day – August 25, 1984 – Truman Capote died and a new documentary sheds light on his life and writing.

In Cold Blood author Truman Capote is one of the most storied American writers of the second half of the 20th century. Capote’s greatest talent may have been off-page, when he was onstage and center stage, promoting his image, endlessly appearing on TV talk shows hosted by Dick Cavett, David Frost, Johnny Carson, etc., cleverly, calculatingly cultivating what his contemporary, Norman Mailer, called “advertisements for myself.”

As he well knew, Truman’s unusual appearance made him instantly stand out in a crowd: This fish out of water was more or less openly gay when it was strictly taboo; diminutive if dapper; a Southerner amidst Manhattanites; possessor of a unique speaking voice; and wielder of a wry wicked wit. Later in life substance abuse, alas, made the author even more of a spectacle.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- During the first days of America's bombardment
and invasion of Afghanistan 20 years ago, the Taliban government
collapsed in panic, abandoning Kabul in November 2001.

Simultaneously, their Arab allies including Osama bin Laden and other
al Qaeda fighters fled their expensive homes and weapons-stocked
training camps in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad and elsewhere.

In Jalalabad, 88 miles east of Kabul, bin Laden and al Qaeda abandoned
all sorts of things during their rushed escape.

In their former homes and schools, I found bullet-punctured targets of
silhouetted heads, foreign passports, forged visas, hand-drawn
bomb-making instructions, and freshly printed news clippings
downloaded from the Internet reporting about the hijackers who crashed
planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Today, the US and other countries fear a possible return of al Qaeda
Islamists -- perhaps renamed and much more secretive -- and a
continuation of their previous deadly behavior which went far beyond
the 9/11 attack.

In the 1980s, the animal rights movement was a sorry sight. In Chicago, it consisted of three to five activists handing out soggy leaflets in the rain outside a fur store on a Saturday, one also holding his skateboard. No one remembered to bring the signs and no one could agree whether to protest carriage horses or captive whales at the Shedd Aquarium on the next Saturday.

Passersby were abusive. “Your shoes are leather,” they would yell, a simplistic syllogism that both meant human use of animals was inextricable and that we were hypocrites. Our shoes were not leather.

“Get a job,” they would yell, an absurd allegation since demonstrating on Saturday did not mean we did not have a jobs –– we did.

“Why aren’t you helping people?” they would accuse, listing crack babies, AIDS patients and the homeless. Some of our more interactive activists would fire back, “what are YOU doing for people,” which produced a mute silence. Who were the hypocrites?

“You people are clowns,” we also heard a lot –– and worse.

Buried deep in Joe Biden’s various infrastructure deals is a bailout every bit as insane as the original decision to stay in Afghanistan – up to $50 billion in handouts to keep old nuke reactors operating … at least until they blow up.

The cost of our arrogant lunacy in Afghanistan was thousands of lives and maybe $2 trillion.

The cost of the inevitable explosion at one or more of these crumbling jalopy nukes could be millions of lives and trillions in both destroyed property and an irradiated ecosphere.

Throughout the globe, the Solartopian technologies of wind, solar, batteries, and efficiency are skyrocketing in production while their prices plummet. But Biden’s proposed bailout would take a huge amount of capital away from clean, job producing renewables and put it into expensive, dangerous, obsolete reactors.

Richard Nixon in 1974 – amidst the Arab oil embargo – promised there’d be a thousand “Peaceful Atom” nukes in the US by the year 2000. In that year there were 104. Today there are 93, with the number still dropping – but not fast enough.

For our 61st Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Coalition zoom we note the American flight from Kabul, replicating the one from Saigon on April 30, 1975.

Has there been no learning curve?

We ask the same of REBECCA LANDAU and RAY MCCLENDON as we confront the unlikely Georgia Senatorial campaign of former NFL bust & Trump devotee Herschel Walker. 

Rebecca and Ray discuss the major post card campaign and other grassroots tactics meant to keep hold on Georgia’s US Senate seat in 2002.

With TATANKA BRICCA and others we examine the California recall; with JULIE WIENER we face the new Governor in NY.

With JOEL SEGAL we go deep into the major national summit upcoming August 30, 1-5pm eastern, to gather top national leaders & grassroots organizations around Voting Rights/Election Protection; a Green Planet;  DC Statehood; and Justice, Homelessness & Poverty.

A unique but critical conversation on Israel and Palestine is taking place outside the traditional discourse of Israeli colonialism and the Palestinian quest for liberation. It is an awkward and difficult - but overdue - discussion concerning American Jews’ relation to Israel and their commitment to its Zionist ideology. 

For many years, Israel has conveniently dubbed Jews who do not support Israel, or worse, advocate Palestinian freedom, as ‘self-hating Jews’. This term, designated to describe dissident anti-Zionist Jews, is similar to the accusation of ‘antisemitism’ made against non-Jews, which includes Semitic Arabs, for daring to criticize Israel. This approach, however, is no longer as effective as it once was. 

Four weeks from now, a right-wing Republican could win the governor's office in California. Some polling indicates that Democrat Gavin Newsom is likely to lose his job via the recall election set for Sept. 14. When CBS News released a poll on Sunday, Gov. Newsom’s razor-thin edge among likely voters was within the margin of error.