Global
Sometimes listening to the morning news on television is a bit like entering into an alternate universe. Last Wednesday, the day after primary elections in New York State, CBS News reported that New York Congressman Eliot Engel was “facing a challenge” from Democratic Party challenger Jamaal Bowman. NBC News reported that Engel was “trailing.” The reality, according to the New York Times tally of the results that morning was that Bowman had beaten Engel by a margin to 60.9% versus 35.6% with more than 82% of votes counted. Even though it posted the numbers, the Times felt compelled to describe the apparently impending lopsided loss as if it were something less than that, as a “stiff challenge” for Engel.
After defying the odds and defeating corporate opponents on Tuesday, the strong progressives Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones are headed to Congress from New York—and there’s no way it would be happening if they hadn’t been willing and able to put up a fight in Democratic primaries. The same was true in 2018 with the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley as they beat the party establishment.
After three decades of contributing mightily to the blight of congressional militarism, Rep. Eliot Engel couldn’t be rescued by the high-profile endorsements of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Nor could Engel be saved by the eleventh-hour support of Hillary Clinton.
Other Democratic incumbents are being challenged by progressives in difficult and inspiring campaigns: intent on doing what, according to conventional political wisdom, can’t be done.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- The Black Lives Matter (BLM) call to action has
come to this Buddhist-majority society which is grappling with
discrimination against dark-skinned Thais, while some foreign black
people say they personally suffer racism here but not as brutally as
in the US and elsewhere.
In Bangkok, "I've been denied entry to bars, asked to pay at
restaurants before even getting the food, denied service in shops,"
Zipporah Gene said in an interview.
"I am British but of Nigerian and Egyptian heritage. My previous
hometowns include London, Cairo, and Kingston, Jamaica," said Ms. Gene
who has worked in Thailand for about a decade in media-related jobs.
Thais often call her 'kohn pew dam' which translates as 'person with
black skin.'
"While it’s not necessarily derogatory, it focuses on my skin color --
a lot -- which I‘ve always found quite weird.
"I could always tell when it was derogatory because some people would
scream it at my face, they’d have a hostile tone, or just spit after
they’d say it. It’s been a while since I’ve had that."
Maybe CHOP won’t last, but something is changing. Our national groupthink, as maintained with such stalwart certainty over the last half century by centrist politics and the mainstream media, seems to be crumbling before our very eyes.
And as the groupthink crumbles, a larger awareness opens. Progressive thinking is finding its way back into the collective conversation, allowing the nation to begin transcending situation normal — you know, militarized policing keeps us safe, racism is a thing of the past, etc., etc. — and opening up the possibility that we can begin creating a complexly compassionate future.
This small beginning has emerged from the police murder of George Floyd and the global uprising that followed. The media and many political and corporate leaders, instead of uniting to marginalize the protesters, as they have always done in the past (with the help of the police, of course), are sitting there in a stunned semblance of agreement: Yeah, something’s wrong. We’ve got to make changes.
Imagine if Adolf Hitler had staged one of his infamous 1930s fascist Nuremberg hate-fests … and the stands were less than full, his speech fell flat, his flawless phalanxes dissolved into chaos, the fighting flags failed to unfurl.
That’s what just happened to Trump in Tulsa. The implications are Earth-shattering.
When Hitler staged his ritual witch burnings, the masses were hypnotized. The synchronized film crews, the adoring media, the groveling sycophants, the murderous hate-the-Jew mobs … all were perfectly in place.
In apocalyptic unison, the Silent Majority (his phrase) panted for Der Führer to Make Germany Great Again (also his phrase). They goose-stepped in precision, all decked out in their fascist finest … the jackboots, the armbands, the billowing banners, the iron formations, the buzzcut hairdos … willing executioners flocking to Stalingrad and Auschwitz.
There were no empty seats. Every inch of every stadium was packed to the gills.
The U.S. government was created with the mandate to not establish any state religion or to forbid any religion. There were a couple of ways this could have gone.
Here’s one path that was not taken. The freedom of religion and the separation of religion from the state could have encouraged a widespread understanding of what a crock of malarkey religion all is. If no religion can actually persuade everyone of its claims, if people choose their various and sundry religions based on factors wholly unrelated to persuasive argument, then why not let religion fade away with other myths and superstitions?
Here’s a large part of what actually happened. The freedom of religion created the practice of respecting as beyond question multiple conflicting and contradictory dogmas because each was declared by some person or group to be their religion. The right to believe what you declare it important to you to believe is more widely cherished in the United States than is the right to a decent standard of living.
By peace journalist Salem Bin Sahel from Yemen (@pjyemen on Instagram) and Terese Teoh from Singapore (@aletterforpeace), World BEYOND War, June 19, 2020
https://worldbeyondwar.org/peace-letters-in-yemen/
