Happy Thanksgiving to all you APRistas!!
To celebrate the holiday, APR references to Donald Trump have been kept to a minimum.
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Brent Staples at The New York Times writes—Colin Kaepernick and the Legacy of the Negro National Anthem:
Abolitionists during [Francis Scott] Key’s lifetime viewed “The Star-Spangled Banner” as they viewed the nation as a whole — through the lens of the injustice perpetuated by slavery. They argued that Key should have described America as the “land of the free and home of the oppressed.”
The professional football player Colin Kaepernick appealed to that same sense of injustice last year when he knelt during “The Star-Spangled Banner” to protest police violence against African-Americans. By doing so, he tapped into a feeling of alienation from the anthem in the black community that dates back to the days of racial terrorism and lynching in the South.
Congress declared “The Star-Spangled Banner” the national anthem in 1931. Well before then, however, black communities across the Jim Crow South were instead embracing the soaring, aspirational lyrics of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” — otherwise known as the Negro National Anthem — which was sung in churches, at civic events and even in schools, where substituting the song for “The Star-Spangled Banner” was a quiet act of rebellion against the racist status quo.
By the late 1960s, many of us who had grown up black in an era when African-Americans were locked into Northern ghettos and murdered in the South for seeking the right to vote registered our grievances by refusing to stand for the anthem at sporting events.
Alabama pastor: Roy Moore dated “younger ladies” because of their “purity”
Janine di Giovanni is the Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author, most recently, of “The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches From Syria.” At The New York Times she writes a most powerful piece—Flawed Justice for the Butcher of Bosnia:
For many years, most of the bigger fish responsible for the worst crimes of the war — General Mladic, the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and the president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic — roamed free while their victims were either dead or had to live with the fact that these men remained unpunished. There was little faith in the effectiveness of the tribunal in places far from The Hague — in Sarajevo, in Zvornik, in Mostar, the places where truly wicked things happened.
The war crimes tribunal, set up in 1993, has indicted more than 160 people. Handing down the Mladic sentence is the end piece, the culmination of 5,000 witnesses giving gruesome accounts of what happened in those dark days.
But that is a minute number compared with the number of women who were raped, the villages that were ethnically cleansed, the humiliation and agony of those whose lives were halted in time while the war dragged on. As I saw firsthand, the men who did the truly nefarious acts — those who pulled the triggers on women and children, who dug the mass graves in Srebrenica, who took part in the mass rapes in Foca and other towns in Bosnia — walked free. Those men, to me, were the truly evil ones.
Many years after the war, in Srebrenica, I met a broken woman who had been held in the notorious Foca gymnasium as a teenager and raped dozens of times. Justice for her was a laughable illusion. She told me that she saw one of her rapists every day in the village that they both came from. She knew he would never go to The Hague and face justice: Very few men were tried there for rape.
It was she, the victim, who dropped her eyes in shame when they passed each other on the street, and he, the rapist, who walked by triumphantly. This was not a rare occurrence. I interviewed mothers and daughters who were raped side by side and still saw their rapists in the towns they had returned to after the war.
George Monbiot writes—Too right it's Black Friday: our relentless consumption is trashing the planet:
Everyone wants everything – how is that going to work? The promise of economic growth is that the poor can live like the rich and the rich can live like the oligarchs. But already we are bursting through the physical limits of the planet that sustains us. Climate breakdown, soil loss, the collapse of habitats and species, the sea of plastic, insectageddon: all are driven by rising consumption. The promise of private luxury for everyone cannot be met: neither the physical nor the ecological space exists. [...]
With every generation, the baseline of normalised consumption shifts. Thirty years ago, it was ridiculous to buy bottled water, where tap water is clean and abundant. Today, worldwide, we use a million plastic bottles a minute.
Every Friday is a Black Friday, every Christmas a more garish festival of destruction. Among the snow saunas, portable watermelon coolers and smartphones for dogs with which we are urged to fill our lives, my #extremecivilisation prize now goes to the PancakeBot: a 3D batter printer that allows you to eat the Mona Lisa, the Taj Mahal, or your dog’s bottom every morning. In practice, it will clog up your kitchen for a week until you decide you don’t have room for it. For junk like this, we’re trashing the living planet, and our own prospects of survival. Everything must go.
Charles Alexander at The Nation writes—Don’t Let the Koch Brothers Buy ‘Time’ Magazine:
Can you imagine what it would be like to see your life’s work suddenly go down the drain? I can—right now. As a former Time editor who spent 13 years editing the magazine’s coverage of environmental issues, I am in despair over reports that Time Inc. will soon sell itself to Meredith Corp. in a deal that includes a $600 million investment from Charles and David Koch, whose Koch Industries is a big player in the oil and gas business and whose philanthropy has long funded climate denial.[...]
The story is not just about the fate of Time. The story is about the fate of the world.
So far, media coverage of the proposed deal (which is separate from AT&T’s attempt to buy Time Warner, which the Trump administration has sued to block) has missed the most important point. The problem is not that the Koch brothers are “conservative.” Henry Luce, who co-founded Time in 1923 and ruled the magazine company for more than four decades, was conservative, too—a staunch opponent of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Time thrived as a conservative publication, and the bias persisted for a long time after Luce’s death in 1967. The first cover story I ever wrote for Time, which was totally rewritten by the editors above me, was titled “Making Reaganomics Work.”
The biggest problem with the modern conservative movement is that it has sold its soul to the Kochs, Exxon Mobil, and other kingpins of the fossil-fuel industry. For decades, the Kochs’ “dark money,” as The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer called it, has financed a campaign of disinformation designed to convince the public and politicians that climate change is nothing to worry about.
Yael Bromberg and Eirik Cheverud at The Guardian write—Anti-Trump protesters risk 60 years in jail. Is dissent a crime?
On the morning of President Trump’s inauguration, police trapped and arrested more than 230 people. Some were anti-Trump demonstrators; some were not. The next day, federal prosecutors charged them all with “felony rioting”, a nonexistent crime in Washington DC. The prosecution then launched a sweeping investigation into the defendants’ lives, demanding vast amounts of online information through secret warrants.
Prosecutors eventually dropped a few defendants, like journalists and legal observers, but simultaneously increased the charges against everyone else. The most recent indictment collectively charged more than 200 people with felony rioting, felony incitement to riot, conspiracy to riot, and five property-damage crimes – all from broken windows.
Each defendant is facing over 60 years in prison. [...]
Compare this crackdown with the government’s response to the pre-planned, armed violence and rioting by white supremacists and private militia groups in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Toly Rinberg and Andrew Bergman at The New York Times writes—Censoring Climate Change:
The Trump administration is making it harder to find government information about climate change on the web.
By altering and removing climate websites built over years and paid for by tax dollars, the Trump administration is actively working to muddy the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity drives climate change. These actions only generate confusion about the issue and delay progress toward reaching a policy solution supported by the public.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Pruitt have made it clear that they want an America that prioritizes unfettered exploitation of fossil fuels, ignores the negative effects of greenhouse gas emissions and undermines global efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
E.J. Dionne Jr. at The Washington Post writes—The journalist I most want to thank:
Since journalists are human beings, we are by our very natures flawed. It’s not hard to point to our shortcomings. So in the interest of offering a model of what journalism is supposed to be (and, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, to express appreciation to someone I hold dear), permit me to introduce you to Shelly Binn, one of the best editors I will ever know.
Shelly, who died 11 years ago at the age of 83, was the New York Times’ metropolitan political editor back when I covered state and local politics for the paper. [...]
The best lesson Shelly ever taught me came when I shared information with him about alleged corruption by a politician. I knew another newspaper had it, too, but I wasn’t sure it all checked out.
Shelly said something more editors should be willing to say in this age of instant publication online: “Sometimes, it’s better to be second.”
He was not trying to quell my competitive instincts. He very much wanted us to be first when we were right. But above all, he didn’t want us to be wrong, especially when someone’s reputation was at stake.
The competing paper published the charges first — and they turned out to be false.
Parker Abt at The Washington Post writes—There’s a third-world America that no one notices:
In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Americans in Puerto Rico have spent weeks without reliable accessto clean water, electricity and cellphone service. The conditions on the ground remain deplorable, with shattered homes and damaged infrastructure everywhere.
But what if hundreds of thousands of Americans lived in these conditions for generations and no one noticed? That’s exactly what some border communities in Texas experience on a daily basis: third-world conditions compounded by public and official indifference to their plight.
In the “colonias” of the American Southwest, hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens have lived without running water for decades (not to mention the lack of electricity, sewage treatment and drainage). Homes are built without regard for safety codes or regulations. The result is structures that look like shacks, hastily built by residents with little money and even less construction expertise.
Ira Shapiro at The Washington Monthly writes—Remembering Byrd’s Rule:
America celebrates this year the centennial of President John F. Kennedy, whose achievements, idealism, and charisma inspired generations of Americans. But at a time when our political system faces its most fundamental challenge since the Civil War, it is one of Kennedy’s colleagues in the Senate and a fellow centenarian—Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia—whose legacy is equally, if not more, relevant today.
Byrd believed that our political system and our freedom rested on a strong Congress—and particularly a strong Senate—to balance the executive, check the tendency of presidents to overreach and, as he put it, “do battle over politics, policies and priorities.” The frequently-mentioned “Byrd Rule,” for example, perhaps the senator’s most famous and enduring procedural legacy, ensures that budget measures are not misused for far-reaching legislative aims. Byrd would have been shocked by Donald Trump’s presidency and appalled when the Senate fails to fulfill its duty as the principal check on the president. If there is anyone that Congress needs now, it’s a leader in the mold of Byrd, whose respect for process, deliberation and the institution of the Senate would be a welcome counter to the freewheeling chaos of the current White House, and the radical, right-wing policies of the Republican House of Representatives.
Byrd’s record is by no means unblemished. Early in his political career, he belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, and in the first years of his Senate tenure, he waged a shameful fourteen-hour filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the moral touchstone of the Democratic Party, and probably the greatest legislative achievement in our country’s history. Over the years, however, he earned a reputation as an ardent champion of progressive causes, ultimately joining such liberal lions as Sen. Philip Hart (D-MI), Edmund Muskie (D-ME), Eugene McCarthy (D-MN)—with whom he entered the Senate—and Ted Kennedy (D-MA).
Emily Atkin at The New Republic writes—The Toxic Chemical Industry Is Having a Really Great Year:
The scariest part about the 2014 chemical spill in West Virginia was that, in the beginning, no one really knew anything about the chemical that poisoned their drinking water. Ten thousand gallons of a licorice-scented chemical called MCHM had leaked from a storage container into the Elk River, a tap water source for 300,000 people in Charleston. Schools closed, hospitals evacuated patients, and the local economy of the state’s most populated city came grinding to a halt. For weeks, citizens were unsure whether they had been exposed to unsafe levels of the chemical, and what exactly MCHM would do to their bodies if they consumed it.
West Virginians did eventually get a clearer picture of MCHM. Tom Burke, who served as the Environmental Protection Agency’s chief science adviser under President Obama, thinks that’s partially because of an EPA program called the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), which assesses the health risks of thousands of chemicals across the country. “When there is a mystery like West Virginia, it’s those world-class scientists in the IRIS program that do the exposure assessment and risk analysis that lead to future decision-making about the chemical,” he told me. Congress is well aware of its value. “From the dusts of the World Trade Center and the faucets of Flint; to the toxic waters of Katrina and Harvey; [IRIS scientists] are there, working selflessly to protect our nation’s environment and public health,” Burke said in September before a House Science Committee hearing on the program. “Our health depends on them.”
We may not be able to depend on them for much longer. On Monday, the Republican-controlled Senate released a spending bill that eliminates IRIS. [...]
But this is good news for companies that produce and disseminate chemicals.
Joan Walsh at The Nation writes—A President Accused of Sexual Misconduct by 16 Women Endorses a Senate Candidate Accused of Sexual Misconduct by 9:
Trump, accused of sexual abuse by 16 women and elected president anyway, endorsed a far-right Republican who’s been accused by nine women. Of course he did. Both men deny the charges against them. Trump never accepted the increasingly common belief that we need to at least listen to these women. He depicted his accusers as crazy, or too ugly for him to have assaulted; he threatened to sue them (and of course he did not). If he came out and said he “believed” Moore’s nine accusers, he’d be opening himself to questions about how all 16 of his own accusers could be lying.
Also, he has no conscience.
In a typically herky-jerky joust with the media, Trump said he does not believe the women who’ve come forward to say Moore preyed on them as teenagers (or the police and retail and security workers who said Moore was banned at the local mall for hitting on high-school girls). “If you look at what is really going on, and you look at all the things that have happened over the last 48 hours, he totally denies it,” Trump said. “He says it didn’t happen. You have to listen to him also.”
There’s a new GOP slogan: “Listen to the predators.”
David Dayen at The New Republic writes—How Our Broken Justice System Led to a Sexual Harassment Crisis:
That powerful people face little sanction for misbehavior is an old story, as true in gender as it is in class. But brazen impunity for the powerful is a hallmark of our era.[...]
This inequity has scratched at the social fabric of America for practically forever. Racism, sexism, and classism create imbalances in a system intended to be blind and without prejudice. Today, any reasonable observer has to have lost some faith in traditional modes of justice to protect the weak and the powerless. [...]
There’s a toxicity to a two-tiered justice system that goes well beyond the particular crimes being excused, whether they pertain to financial malfeasance or sexual harassment. It creates a rot at the heart of our society. And it creates rage, which shoots out in unpredictable ways. [...]
So those who are handwringing about treating people fairly in this moment need to look at the root cause. We haven’t been treating people fairly in America for a long time. Too many have suffered from a broken justice system. The best response to the #MeToo revolution is to restore the rule of law so women don’t have to use a hashtag to ensure their story of assault gets heard.
Harvey Wasserman at Truthdig writes—Is Puerto Rico Being 'Ethnically Cleansed' for the Superrich?
Two months after the Sept. 20 landfall of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico—like the nearby Virgin Islands—is still in a state of horrifying devastation. The help being offered by the Trump administration is thin to the point of being cruel and unusual.
At this point one must ask: Is Trump’s astonishing lack of aid part of a larger plan to cleanse the islands of their native populations, drive down real estate values and create a billionaire’s luxury hotel-casino-prostitution playground à la Cuba before the revolution?
In other words: ethnic cleansing for the superrich.
There is just one piece of good news: Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., has joined Rep. Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands in proposing that Puerto Rico’s electric grid be rebuilt with wind, solar and a network of micro-grids. More than half the original electric grid is still not functioning, with frequent blackouts occurring in areas where the grid is operational.