How West Bank Settlements Led to the Conflict in Gaza

How West Bank Settlements Led to the Conflict in Gaza: Having to defend them clearly imperils Israeli security.

7 Steps to end the cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine

 7 steps to end the cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine

The path to peace requires nonviolent action not just from Israelis and Palestinians, but also Americans, the media, aid organizations and others.

Mubarak Awad October 12, 2023

 

 

 

https://wagingnonviolence.org/2023/10/mubarak-awad-7-steps-to-end-the-cycle-of-killing-in-israel-and-palestine/

The Divisions in DSA

The Divisions in DSA: Today on TAP: And why, after 48 years in the organization, I’m quitting.

Harold Meyerson. 

Sanders on the Continuing Violence in Israel and Gaza

 Sanders Statement on Continuing Violence in Israel and Gaza

 

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday issued the following statement on the continuing violence in Israel and Gaza following Hamas’ horrific attack on Saturday:

Hamas’ terrorist assault on Israel will have horrific short- and long-term consequences.

As a result of this attack, thousands of Israelis and Palestinians – including many women and children – have been killed and injured. That toll will rise. The gunning down of young Israelis at a music festival is an image the world will not soon forget.

Longer term, this attack is a major setback for any hope of peace and reconciliation in the region – and justice for the Palestinian people. For years, people of good will throughout the world, including some brave Israelis, have struggled against the blockade of Gaza, the daily humiliations of occupation in the West Bank, and the horrendous living conditions faced by so many Palestinians. For many, it is no secret that Gaza has been an open-air prison, with millions of people struggling to secure basic necessities. Hamas’ terrorism will make it much more difficult to address that tragic reality and will embolden extremists on both sides, continuing the cycle of violence.

Right now, the international community must focus on reducing humanitarian suffering and protecting innocent people on both sides of this conflict. The targeting of civilians is a war crime, no matter who does it. Israel’s blanket denial of food, water, and other necessities to Gaza is a serious violation of international law and will do nothing but harm innocent civilians. The United States has rightly offered solidarity and support to Israel in responding to Hamas’ attack. But we must also insist on restraint from Israeli forces attacking Gaza and work to secure UN humanitarian access. Let us not forget that half of the two million people in Gaza are children. Children and innocent people do not deserve to be punished for the acts of Hamas.

 

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Alexandria Ocasio Cortez - Solidarity Is the Strategy. UAW

AOC Speaks at UAW Strike Rally Solidarity IS the strategy

English Learning In Sacramento

 this is the plan for English Learner instruction in Sacramento City Unified.

 

https://www.scusd.edu/principal-bulletin/el-master-plan-2023-24

 

Teachers Describe Chilling Impact of Anti Education Movement

 

Teachers Describe Chilling Impact of Anti-Education Laws

September 1, 2023

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We are teaching in dangerous times. The right is suppressing elections, health care, education, urgent climate policies, affirmative action, and human rights.

While book bans make the headlines, the chilling effect of the bans and anti-education laws have an even deeper impact. Our Teaching for Black Lives study groups provide support for teachers in the face of these dire conditions. However, we want to alert everyone to the nature of the repression. What are often reported as individual incidents actually reflect a concerted effort to suppress what students can learn and discuss.

Below are comments from educators about the impact of these laws.

Our school library now looks like a ghost town 😔. — Florida

The Superintendent demanded that my NEA Black Lives Matter poster be taken down. — Texas

We are told to downplay the effects of slavery and racism in the history of our country. — Texas

We are legally not supposed to discuss slavery at all and I teach the Civil War. It’s mind-boggling. — Texas

Teachers feel like they can’t teach factual history or even talk about current events without fear of losing their job. — Texas

I have been threatened by anti-education parents. — Utah

Students are confused as to why they are not “allowed” to learn the things that affect our current reality. — Georgia

I’m not allowed to use any texts that are believed to have any LGBTQ or racial content. — Florida

Our governor has taken every measure to undo what educators had developed to teach a truthful history of our state. He has made teachers afraid choose any history lessons that deviate from the traditional norm of white supremacy. — Virginia

I am an American History teacher. Every lesson I teach is a chance that I will enrage the wrong person and put a target on my back. — Virginia

The new history standards limit the truth being taught about slavery and Native Americans. Books are also being banned. — Virginia

I have to deal with so many people, from parents to students to staff, who buy into right-wing conspiracies and want them included or validated in my teaching. — Virginia

I was scheduled to have a student teacher for the ’23–’24 school year. But, due to the fear and backlash from the governor, nine of the student teachers, including the one attached to my class, opted to teach another field/topic. The laws have had a negative impact for our district. — Virginia

An elementary school reading program in my district was cancelled after a complaint was made that it integrated too many “out of the mainstream” social studies topics. — New Hampshire

It is creating divides among teachers who are scared of the law and those who refuse to stop teaching the truth. — New Hampshire

The law itself is so vague that teachers are concerned about what they are allowed to speak on during class. Parents can bypass the school administration and go straight to the state with any complaints, which creates a sense of fear for many teachers. — New Hampshire

We’ve had to rearrange our library because we had books that were considered “inappropriate” for middle school. It’s scary. — Missouri

We have to send a disclaimer with our syllabus about “controversial topics.” The atmosphere absolutely has changed how I speak in the classroom. — Arizona

My students have a right to learn about the world around them as it is, and not as the most conservative people in our society think it should be. However, I am always second-guessing myself, because I fear having to deal with complaints from people who are unqualified to judge my teaching practice, and who are empowered by the anti-history agenda of our state legislature. — Iowa

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/repression-of-freedom-to-learn/

School Violence in Sacramento,

Katie Valenzuela

Sacramento City Council.

In recent weeks, swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti have appeared on multiple campuses in our region, including Del Dayo Elementary School in Carmichael. Last November, a known Proud Boy got 21% of the vote for a competitive school board seat in the region. 

 

And now, a school board member within the same district, Tanya Kravchuk, has rejected funding for anti-bias training. Her reason? She’s worried the state’s curriculum will create bias against people with “deeply held religious beliefs,” insisting that sections on gender do not “force teachers to violate their conscience.” 

 

These incidents all occurred at a school district right here in Sacramento County: the San Juan Unified School District. You might be wondering why a city council member from Sacramento is concerned about what happens at a school district outside her area. I know and care about a lot of people who work at, govern and attend San Juan schools. A lot of city of Sacramento residents attend and work at these campuses. More than that, though, is my concern about how schools — and our children — are becoming increased targets for political extremists

 

A recent series of articles from ProPublica, “Chaos at the School Board,” puts stories and photos to this scary trend. “Once considered tame, even boring, school board meetings have become culture-war battlegrounds in recent years,” the ProPublica series states. “On dozens of occasions, tensions have escalated into not just shouting matches and threats but also arrests and criminal charges.” 

 

What’s happening at San Juan is a warning bell for our region that we should all be taking very seriously. Influencing actions at school boards is not the end goal: The same Proud Boy who ran for school board at San Juan, Jeffrey Perrine, now routinely calls into Sacramento City Council meetings to spew anti-Semitic rhetoric and other hateful speech. He is not alone.

 

 Scholars have warned that people may be less likely to run for office if they fear for their safety. It’s just common sense. Intimidating qualified candidates from putting their names on the ballot is just one of many tactics currently being used to shift the politics of our elected bodies.

 

 As someone who has faced threats to my safety, I understand how real that dynamic is. While I decided to run for reelection, I have talked to many who haven’t — or who have decided to sit out an election entirely — due to fear for their personal safety and their families’ well-being. 

 

San Juan is only one of many targets, but we cannot allow our kids’ futures to be influenced by people who only seek to spread their harmful agendas. 

 

This will not stop until we loudly and clearly declare, in every space it appears, that hate is absolutely not welcome here. You have an opportunity to help. 

 

The San Juan Unified School District’s Board of Education has their next meeting on Tuesday, September 12 at 6:30 p.m. in the board room of the district office, located at 3738 Walnut Avenue, Carmichael. You can also email the board at boardmembers@sanjuan.edu. Please show up and speak up. We cannot allow hate and bigotry to go unanswered. Katie Valenzuela is a city council member in Sacramento.  Posted in opinion in the SACRAMENTO BEE. 

 

RELATED STORIES FROM SACRAMENTO BEE VIEWPOINTS

 

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article279022789.html#storylink=cpy

Chilean Coup of 1973

 

 

Chilean  Coup of 1973  and the U.S.A.

We have a new post up on our blog.  Chilean Coup of 1973. 

Note. They are still at it. 

September 3, 2023 Ariel Dorfman  THE NEW YORK REVIEW

 

On September 4, 1973, an enormous multitude of Chileans—I was one of them—poured into the streets of Santiago to back the besieged government of Salvador Allende. Ever since he had won the presidency three years earlier with 36.6 percent of the vote in a three-way race, forces from inside and outside the country had been conspiring to destroy his attempt—the first in world history—to build a socialist state through nonviolent, democratic means. One shout from a chorus of voices echoed through the air: “Allende, Allende, el pueblo te defiende,” emphasizing the need to defend the president. After one thousand days of unrelenting opposition, his enemies seemed close to orchestrating a coup d’état that would wipe “the Marxist cancer” from Chilean society forever.

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/chilean-coup-of-1973-and-the-usa

  

The Meaning of Labor Day

 This antagonism toward unions and worker power is out of step with most Americans. New polling for the AFL-CIO shows historic support for unions across party lines, with especially strong support from young Americans. Navigator Research finds that most Americans view teachers unions favorably, including majorities of both parents and nonparents. And more than 50 groups of workers have joined the American Federation of Teachers so far this year—a pace unseen in decades. America knows: It’s better in a union.

At a time when so many forces are spreading fear and division, unions literally unite people. In the face of fear, we have hope. In the face of despair, we have dreams. In the face of silence, we tell our stories. In the face of smears, we offer solutions. We bring people together to be the most powerful we can be.

The AFT is the home of the people who make a difference in other people’s lives. We offer real solutions for kids and communities. We address hard issues like learning loss, loneliness and literacy challenges. We take on the extremists who want to defund public services, dismantle our democracy, destroy public education and demonize the vulnerable, and the corporations that are more concerned about healthcare profits than patients. And we encourage our members to vote so we have leaders who share and fight for our values.

We have each other’s backs—whether it’s winning safe healthcare staffing levels, as we just did in Oregon, or defending educators’ obligation to teach honest history, as we are doing in New Hampshire. We’re there to help with our free trauma counseling benefit for members, and with the 9 million free books and other resources we have distributed to spark the love of reading. And we have helped members save millions of dollars in student debt, freeing them to buy a home, start a family or buy a car. This is what unions do: We care, we fight and we show up.

This Labor Day, let’s recommit to helping working people and their families gain a better life. Whether it’s members of the United Auto Workers or the Writers Guild of America; workers at Starbucks, Amazon or Apple; or you and your fellow members of the AFT—together we can accomplish things that would be impossible on our own.

Thank you for making a difference in the lives of others, and thank you for being a member of our union. We wish you a wonderful Labor Day. 

In solidarity,

Native Boarding Schools Led to Death and Destruction

 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/30/us/native-american-boarding-schools.html

Biden’s NLRB Brings Workers’ Rights Back From the Dead

Biden’s NLRB Brings Workers’ Rights Back From the Dead: A decision last Friday makes union organizing possible again.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 2023.

 

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

by Peter Dreier.

"50 Years After the March on Washington, What Would MLK March For Today?" Washington Post, August 22, 2013.   The March on Washington, where King delivered his great "I Have a Dream" speech, took place on August 28, 1963.  I wrote this article in 2013 to celebrate the march's 50th anniversary.  If he were alive today, King would be fighting for the same causes - peace, women's reproductive health, affordable housing, desegregation, immigrant rights, gun control, and others.  

 Asante-Muhammad and Chuck Collins, "We Still Have a Dream," Sun-Sentinel, August 27, 2023   Black Americans have endured the unendurable for too long. Sixty years after the famed March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his landmark “I Have a Dream” speech, African Americans are on a path where it will take 500 more years to reach economic equality.  Our country has taken significant steps towards racial equity since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ‘60s. But growing income and wealth inequality over the last four decades has supercharged historic racial wealth disparities, slowing and even reversing some of those gains. Sixty years without substantially narrowing the Black-white wealth divide is a policy failure. But just as federal policy helped create the racial wealth gap, it can also help close it. The op-ed column by Asante-Muhammad and Chuck Collins is a summary of their report, "Still A Dream: Black Economic Inequality 60 Years After the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," which looks in detail at the state of that racial and wealth divide and recommends policy reforms that would substantially narrow it within one to two generations.

Peter Dreier. 2023.

 

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/march-on-washington-for-jobs-and-freedom-2021

 

 

RS Seminar- Economic Crisis: Four Stages of a Coup

RS Seminar- Economic Crisis: Four Stages of a Coup:   Robert Reich,   Trump’s attempted coup against the United States continues. We are now in Phase 3. Phase 1 was his refusal to concede the ...

The Constitution Prohibits Trump From Becoming President Again

 

J. Michael Luttig and Laurence H. Tribe  August 19, 2023 The Atlantic The only question is whether American citizens today can uphold that commitment.

, Illustration by Jared Bartman / The Atlantic. Sources: Chip Somodevilla / Getty; U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

As students of the United States Constitution for many decades—one of us as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge, the other as a professor of constitutional law, and both as constitutional advocates, scholars, and practitioners—we long ago came to the conclusion that the Fourteenth Amendment, the amendment ratified in 1868 that represents our nation’s second founding and a new birth of freedom, contains within it a protection against the dissolution of the republic by a treasonous president. This protection, embodied in the amendment’s often-overlooked Section 3, automatically excludes from future office and position of power in the United States government—and also from any equivalent office and position of power in the sovereign states and their subdivisions—any person who has taken an oath to support and defend our Constitution and thereafter rebels against that sacred charter, either through overt insurrection or by giving aid or comfort to the Constitution’s enemies. The historically unprecedented federal and state indictments of former President Donald Trump have prompted many to ask whether his conviction pursuant to any or all of these indictments would be either necessary or sufficient to deny him the office of the presidency in 2024. Having thought long and deeply about the text, history, and purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause for much of our professional careers, both of us concluded some years ago that, in fact, a conviction would be beside the point. The disqualification clause operates independently of any such criminal proceedings and, indeed, also independently of impeachment proceedings and of congressional legislation. The clause was designed to operate directly and immediately upon those who betray their oaths to the Constitution, whether by taking up arms to overturn our government or by waging war on our government by attempting to overturn a presidential election through a bloodless coup. The former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and the resulting attack on the U.S. Capitol, place him squarely within the ambit of the disqualification clause, and he is therefore ineligible to serve as president ever again. The most pressing constitutional question facing our country at this moment, then, is whether we will abide by this clear command of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause. We were immensely gratified to see that a richly researched article soon to be published in an academic journal has recently come to the same conclusion that we had and is attracting well-deserved attention outside a small circle of scholars—including Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Anjani Jain of the Yale School of Management, whose encouragement inspired us to write this piece. The evidence laid out by the legal scholars William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen in “The Sweep and Force of Section Three,” available as a preprint, is momentous. Sooner or later, it will influence, if not determine, the course of American constitutional history—and American history itself. Written with precision and thoroughness, the article makes the compelling case that the relevance of Section 3 did not lapse with the passing of the generation of Confederate rebels, whose treasonous designs for the country inspired the provision; that the provision was not and could not have been repealed by the Amnesty Act of 1872 or by subsequent legislative enactments; and that Section 3 has not been relegated by any judicial precedent to a mere source of potential legislative authority, but continues to this day by its own force to automatically render ineligible for future public office all “former office holders who then participate in insurrection or rebellion,” as Baude and Paulsen put it. Among the profound conclusions that follow are that all officials who ever swore to support the Constitution—as every officer, state or federal, in every branch of government, must—and who thereafter either “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution or gave “aid and comfort to the enemies” of that Constitution (and not just of the United States as a sovereign nation) are automatically disqualified from holding future office and must therefore be barred from election to any office. Regardless of partisan leaning or training in the law, all U.S. citizens should read and consider these two simple sentences from Section 3: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. The Fourteenth Amendment was promulgated and ratified in the context of postbellum America when, even after losing the Civil War, southern states were sending men to Congress who had held prominent roles in the Confederacy or otherwise supported acts of rebellion or insurrection against the United States. The two of us have long believed, and Baude and Paulsen have now convincingly demonstrated, that notwithstanding its specific historical origin, Section 3 is no anachronism or relic from the past; rather, it applies with the same force and effect today as it did the day it was ratified—as does every other provision, clause, and word of the Constitution that has not been repealed or revised by amendment.

AOC and the Squad’s List of Left-Wing Accomplishments Is Quite Long

  

AOC and the Squad’s List of Left-Wing Accomplishments Is Quite Long

 

BY

BRANKO MARCETIC

As with any elected official, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad should be criticized when needed. But left-wing vitriol is unwarranted: it ignores the Squad’s many progressive accomplishments and their legislation’s aid to activist campaigns.

JACOBIN. 

WE POST THE JACOBIN PIECE HERE.

HTTPS://WWW.DSANORTHSTAR.ORG/BLOG/AOC-AND-THE-SQUADS-LIST-OF-LEFT-WING-ACCOMPLISHMENTS-IS-QUITE-LONG

It’s tough being a member of the “Squad” these days. Once the darlings of the American left, the group of progressive and socialist House members that includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, and others are as likely to be savaged these days from the Left as they are from the Right. Popular YouTube commentators regularly denounce them as “sellouts,” protesters interrupt their meetings calling them warmongers, and even committed socialists question what the point of the Squad has been.

The lion’s share of this ire has been trained on Representative Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who’s faced relentless criticism since winning office from all sides, sometimes over substantive issues (once failing to show up for an Amazon union rally, casting a vote that denied railworkers the ability to strike), sometimes over remarkably petty ones (conciliatory rhetoric, the positioning of her hands while being arrested).

Much of this was crystallized in a recent critical analysis of Ocasio-Cortez’s record in New York magazine by Freddie deBoer, who charged she has drifted “from radical outsider to Establishment liberal,” making mere “token gestures of resistance to solidify the illusion that she is a gadfly,” and argued that her and the rest of the Squad’s entry into Congress has been entirely fruitless.

Read more.

https://jacobin.com/2023/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-aoc-the-squad-left-criticism-policy-accomplishments

 

Photo

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaking in front of the US Capitol, 2022. (Nathan Posner / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

It Took a Village in Georgia

  

It Took a Village to Try to  Seize the American Presidency 

 

On the NS blog 

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/it-took-a-village-to-try-to-seize-the-presidency

 

With 19 indicted conspirators and 30 unindicted conspirators, there are now almost as many Republicans caught up in Fulton County’s wheels of justice as there are Republican candidates for president. At some point, we may want to indict those candidates (among whom only Chris Christie and, lately and reluctantly, Mike Pence have noted that Trump appears to have broken the law), too. On the charge of contributing to the erosion of American democracy, any number are guilty as sin.
by Harold Meyerson 

Congressman Kevin Kiley Supports Massive Cuts to Schools. Do You?

 

Americans are still recovering from the ripple effects of the pandemic, particularly our most vulnerable populations. Students still have a vast array of social, emotional and academic needs as they head back to school, and workers are re-entering a changing workplace. On top of that, the need for accessible healthcare is only growing. Now is not the time for Congress to make massive cuts to the programs we depend on, but that’s exactly what many Republicans are trying to do. It’s up to us to spread the word to make sure our communities know what’s at stake.   Click here to write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper; you can potentially reach thousands of people with this simple action that takes just minutes of your time. Here’s what you need to know about the House Republicans’ appropriations bill. It would:  Cut $63.8 billion from public K-12 education—a 28 percent decrease from 2023 funding and the lowest possible funding for the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill since 2008.  Cut Title I funding by 80 percent, which could force a nationwide reduction of 220,000 teachers from classrooms serving low-income students. This would make our already unsustainable nationwide shortage of educators even worse.  Eliminate programs for English language learners (Title III), supports for educators (Title II-A), social and emotional learning grants, Promise Neighborhoods and Magnet Schools.  Cut funding for community schools—schools that serve not just students but their families.   Decimate funding for job training, cancer research, health initiatives for mental health, addressing the opioid crisis, eliminating HIV/AIDS, and more.   Continue the Republicans’ attacks on women’s health by cutting programs to support maternal health, eliminating programs that provide contraception and health services, and adding amendments to push their draconian agenda to ban abortion and make reproductive healthcare harder to access.  It’s up to us to spread the word and show lawmakers that the public refuses to allow our educational institutions to be attacked by political extremists. At the AFT, we’re working to ensure that every child has what they need to thrive. Our Real Solutions for Kids and Communities campaign is all about focusing on students’ loneliness, learning loss and literacy. But our communities must understand who is trying to cut vital education and community programs—because it takes resources to support educators and school staff.  We need your help to do that. Please write a letter to the editor and spread the word. In unity,  Randi Weingarten  AFT President

School Funding

50 Years Older and Deeper in Debt

The Shaky Foundations of U.S. School Funding

By Stan Karp

Illustrator: Boris Séméniako

Reproducing Inequality Instead of Eradicating It

The process of remaking school funding in the United States begins with understanding how the current system reproduces inequality instead of eradicating it.

In most countries the right to education is enshrined in the national constitution and supported by a centralized, national funding system. The patchwork U.S. system of local property taxes and 50 separate state funding systems makes it an outlier. As with voting rights, the lack of strong federal protections provides room for less transparent and less equitable state and local systems. 

https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/50-years-older-and-deeper-in-debt/