Category: Politics

No Other Land: A Story That Must Be Told

The Academy Awards take place tonight, but I may not watch.

I have misgivings, particularly about the industry’s apparent exclusion of films that highlight the Palestinian plight in Israel.

Like many others, I don’t miss theaters. It’s nice just lounging in an easy chair, scrolling through endless streaming choices on a big-screen TV, microwaved popcorn at hand. Traditional studios have taken the hint, shifting their priorities toward digital platforms.

A few times, I’ve ve been tempted to return to the theater to see films like Top Gun: Maverick for its effects, or Oppenheimer, for its brilliant portrayal of a conflicted scientist. But I always hold off, knowing that within months, I can rent or buy the film and avoid the steep ticket prices.

Now comes another film, a documentary No Other Land, winner of the Berlin International Film Festival and the Gotham Award for Best Documentary, now an Oscar nominee.

Yet no American studio dares to sponsor it.

Jointly directed by Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, No Other Land lays bare the struggles of Masafer Yatta, a West Bank community facing near-daily assaults from Israeli Defense Forces and encroaching settlers who want them gone, the latter, an updated version of the Ku Klux Klan. The IDF claims it needs the land for a military training base.

Two weeks before the film’s Oscar nomination, masked settlers stormed Masafer Yatta, destroying homes. In one instance, caught on film, a resident was shot in the stomach. The filmmakers themselves have been harassed, even shot at, over five years of production.

Palestinian director Basel Adra, a Masafer Yatta resident, has been targeted multiple times. Yet he refuses to leave the land where his family has lived for generations.

His Israeli co-director, Yuval Abraham, told The New York Times:
“I look at Basel, who’s living a much more difficult life than myself, and as long as he’s continuing, I feel like I also have to continue. Even if reality is only changing for the worse, it’s not as if we know what would happen if there is no documentation.”

So far, the film has reached just 23 American theaters. Still, the directors hope for broader exposure to awaken audiences to Israel’s deepening colonization of the West Bank and shift public perception.

But in America, supporting Palestinian rights often invites accusations of antisemitism. Trump has proposed deporting Palestinian student protesters. As for Gaza, he advocates expelling its 2 million inhabitants without a right of return.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book, The Message, devotes half its pages to his time in the West Bank. Some criticize him for omitting Hamas’ attack on Israel and its atrocities. Daniel Berner of The Atlantic calls Coates’s analysis simplistic. Yet liberal Israelis, though a minority, may find his perspective compelling.

Coates focuses on the West Bank, not Gaza. In an interview with New York Magazine, he remarked: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel.”

As expected, some have labeled him antisemitic. The New Republic sees it differently, calling the backlash a massive media failing: “Coates is not antisemitic to defend Palestinian human rights” (Shiner, October 2, 2024).

If No Other Land makes it to my local theater, I’ll give up my easy chair, venture out to the theater, pay the ticket price, not only to witness a remarkable documentary, undertaken at great risk, but to lend my support to a story centered in truths that must be told.

RJoly

Ambush at the White House: A Hero Humiliated

Zelensky arrived at the White House, mocked openly by Trump for not wearing a suit. Zelensky soon discovered that the anticipated signing of an agreement for access to 50% of Ukraine’s minerals offered no security guarantees. Unwilling to sign, Zelensky was lured into an ambush before a gathered press. If you are defined by the friends you keep, then the reality sinks in: Trump’s friend is Vladimir Putin. In what followed. he lavished praise for the dictator, who he said can be trusted to keep his word.

As usual, Trump couldn’t get the facts straight. Boasting of the US giving Ukraine $340b, the truth is $119b, a not inconsiderable sum, but Europe has given more at $138b.

Zelensky was expelled and the planned celebratory luncheon canceled.

Trump appears ready to cut off all military aid to the besieged nation. Meanwhile, the Russian press has been exuberant in its praise of Trump.

We are in a shameful moment of a fascist government, run by incompetents, trampling on dissent, imperiling our obligations to the marginalized, abandoning its allies, and subordinating itself to corporate oligarchy.

Stand up for Ukraine. Incorporate its flag into your FB profile. Support the boycott movement, the public protests. It isn’t just about Ukraine. It’s coming cuts to Medicaid, the suspension of environmental and health safeguards, the cut off of aid to developing nations.

America is engaged in a war—a moral one. We can win, and with your help, we will.

–RJoly

Putin’s Aggression, Trump’s Betrayal, and Europe’s Challenge

  • Photo by Ukraine.ua on September 07, 2023.

You may not have heard of Tim Snyder, but he’s worth knowing. A Yale professor of Eastern European history and authority on the Holocaust, his vitae includes sixteen books and many academic awards. A Brown and Oxford graduate, he speaks five European languages and reads in ten.

I mention him because of his ardent defense of a free Ukraine, whose fate now lies in jeopardy. This month he’s been in Ukraine, a participant in a dedication of a new underground school for children a mere twenty miles from the front and within twenty second reach of Russian cruise missiles.

Today marks the end of three years of Ukraine’s brave resistance to its Russian invaders, who now occupy twenty percent of its land. The school has to be underground, as Russian targets include schools as well as hospitals, civilian housing, energy infrastructure, and even shopping malls.

Now Ukraine confronts its most insidious danger—Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine. Snyder reminds us that Trump cares little about Europe. What matters is making deals in exchange for profit as seen in his demand Ukraine grant rights to fifty percent of its minerals. Like Gaza, Greenland, and the Panama Canal, it’s about adding real estate to his portfolio.

Ukraine’s destiny now lies in European hands, but their commitment isn’t assured. Rewarding Kremlin aggression makes more aggression likely, particularly involving the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, each with a considerable Russian minority similar to that of Ukraine.

There are ways you can help Ukrainians. Snyder sponsors Documenting Ukraine, which affords Ukrainians a voice. There is also Come Back Arrive, supporting Ukrainian soldiers; RAZOM assisting civilians; and United 24, the Ukrainian government’s site for donations.

Few will read my lengthy post, but for those who do, donate, if you can—and while at it, join the resistance. You know what I mean.

—RJoly

Defending Democracy: What We Must Do

A year ago this month, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in a labor camp under circumstances that strongly suggest Kremlin involvement. His courageous fight against Russian despotism should have inspired a global recommitment to democracy. Instead, we see authoritarianism advancing—both abroad and at home.

Donald Trump, long an admirer of Vladimir Putin, has once again echoed Kremlin propaganda, calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” and blaming him for the war—simply because Zelensky rejected his negotiating Ukraine’s surrender on Putin’s terms.

Unsurprisingly, Russian state media has embraced Trump as a political rock star, amplifying his rhetoric to weaken Western resolve.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, our own democratic values are under siege, the rule of law undermined, institutions eroded, and authoritarianism on the rise.

The threats we face today, both at home and abroad, make the world more dangerous for all who believe in freedom.

But we will not stand idly by. We must resist—through the courts, in Congress, and in the streets through peaceful protest.

The fight for America’s soul is far from over. If we stay united, we will prevail. In two years, we have the opportunity to reclaim Congress, hold those who threaten democracy accountable, and ensure that America remains a beacon of freedom—not an ally to autocrats.

—R Joly

Reaping What We Sowed

Like many of you, I shudder at each day’s news. I ask, what have we done to ourselves, electing a convicted felon, rapist, and con srtist, wielding bluff, vengeance, and ridicule to smother dissent—a man nefarious in his acumen for malice, his syntax simplistic, governing by impulse and running the country by the seat of his pants; impulsive and isolationist, bent on walling out the interweave of the world’s nations and reviving imperialism.

Devoid of any empathy, he deigns to displace two million Palestinians from their homeland, negotiate Ukraine’s fate on Putin’s terms, bully allies Canada and Mexico, cut off aid to those in need, disenfranchise America’s working class, while deepening racial divides and fueling the oligarchy of greed.

Denying climate change despite accelerating consequences, he imperils evolution’s age wrought marvels and forfeits our children’s future.

Alas, we will reap what we have sowed; harvest tares and not wheat. —rj

What Happens Then? Trump’s Myopic Climate Change Agenda

Caring about Mother Earth like many of you, I lament Trump’s myopic approach to climate change reflected in his pledge to curtail the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act and withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

Renewable energy alternatives like solar, wind, and electric vehicles will be curtailed, prolonging our fossil fuel dependency.

Unfortunately, climate change didn’t resonate as an important issue for many voters, inflation, job security, healthcare, and immigration taking precedence.

Not infrequently, public attention to climate concerns follows the oscillations of natural disasters and temperature rise, snuffed out shortly after each by more immediate local concerns.

As is, we’re already behind in our efforts to mitigate climate change, hastening earth’s demise and dooming future generations to apocalyptic consequences formerly the realm of science fiction.

Unlike the biblical Joseph, we are unlikely to stow up for the future. Alas, the seemingly distant phenomena of melting glaciers, droughts, famines, and biodiversity loss may falsely shelter us from their unfolding consequences.

The danger looms that Trump’s intransigence on climate change may motivate developing nations to do the same in view of budget restraints.

An excerpt from poet Neil Gaiman’s moving tribute to Rachel Carson, “After Silence,” speaks to our malaise.

What happens then?
Are consequences consequent?
The answers come from the world itself
The songs are silent,
and the spring is long in coming.

There’s a voice that rumbles beneath us
and after the end the voice still reaches us
Like a bird that cries in hunger
or a song that pleads for a different future.
Because all of us dream of a different future.
And somebody needs to listen.
To pause. To hold.

Beyond Identity Politics: The Case for Economic Unity

Two weeks to go until America decides!

I’m with those who believe Kamala Harris will win. Even so, America will remain deeply divided, unless the grievances of America’s working class, transcending race and ethnicity, are addressed.

Healing lies in abandoning the separation of the political and the economic.

While minority rights matter, they musn’t be set against the economic rights of all Americans to a fair share. Otherwise, we reap continuing resentment, social fissure, and exploitation.

What matters isn’t who you are, or where you’re from, but what you believe. Identity politics conversely promote discord.

Unions have shown us the way, promoting shared economic interests transcending identity factions of Left and Right.

Achieving class unity, America secures a vibrant future, true to its promise of shared equality in the pursuit of happiness.

As distinguished economist Robert Reich rightly observes, unless the new administration enlarges the economic franchise, “future demagogues like Vance will almost surely exploit the same bitterness for their own selfish ends.”

“The strongest defense we have against a future of Trumpist fascism is a large and growing middle class comprised of people who, although they may have supported Trump, come to feel they have a stake in America.”

—rj

Sending the Wrong Signal: The Obamas

We have an economy that is out of balance. It’s one in which most of the people in this room have benefited enormously over the last decade — and I include myself in that group. But it is an economy that has left millions of Americans behind” (Obama, political.com).

It’s the DNC, August 20, 2024: A crestfallen Michelle Obama, dressed in a belted, sleeveless, navy blue pant suit costing $3000 plus, shares lessons she’s learned from her family legacy, her audience, mesmerized and adoring:

…they were suspicious of folks who took more than they needed. They understood that it wasn’t enough for their kids to thrive if everyone else wanted around us was drowning.

Her words trigger flashback, a former president, his trademark poise and eloquence, exhorting the wealthy to give back.

As she speaks, millions of Americans struggle daily with making ends meet. Thirty-eight percent of Gen Zers, born since 1997, think themselves less secure than their parents at the same point, their living expenses ceasingly escalating (cnbc.com)—groceries, housing, transportation, clothing, their jobs tentative or inadequately remunerated. Even with a college degree, obtained at considerable debt, the American dream eludes their quest.

In a CNN poll conducted earlier this year, 71% of Americans rated the economy “poor”; another 38%, “very poor.”

Millennials (born 1981-1996), find themselves burdened with crushing debt, subjecting them to losing it all if another financial crisis occurs like that of 2008.

Since 2022, house prices alone have mushroomed 20 to 30% and interest rates jumped from 3% to nearly 8%. It’s become cheaper to rent than own.

Having children is a luxury (“What Broke the American Dream,” CNN, 2024).

The tab for childcare at a day care center runs an average $800-$900 monthly per child (care.com).

A family’s outlay for a health insurance policy reimbursing 70% of medical expenses averages $3,682 as of August, 2024 (kff.org).

While Michelle speaks, 132,232 homeless seek nightly shelter in NYC, 45, 745 of them children (June, 2024; coalition forthehomeless.com).

They’re the lucky ones. Thousands more sleep in subways, in parks, on the streets, or in cars.

Across America, you see them on city street corners with their cardboard signs, begging help.

As for racial demographics, 52% of heads of households in NYC shelters are disproportionately black; 32% hispanic (coalition for the homeless).

In 2021, an estimated 300,000 of all races and ethnicities in NY state lived doubled up with relatives and friends.

HUD reports an estimated 653,100 people across America are homeless, up 12% since 2022. Their numbers include not only the mentally ill and drug addicts, but the unemployed and underemployed.

Those numbers include 200,000 veterans, suffering post-traumatic stress from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, sleeping nightly on city streets (National Coalition for Homeless Veterans).

All too often, we’ve this tendency to compartmentalize: it’s them, not us.

Truth be told, millions of Americans are separated from homelessness by a thin thread of tentative circumstance in a market economy where jobs can vanish in an inkling amid economic flux.

Meanwhile, the Obamas have financially estranged themselves from the the middle class they claim ro champion, their estimated net worth between $70 and $135 million, and climbing (NY Post, September 26, 2024).

Why shouldn’t the Obamas, having decried greed on many occasions, not be scrutinized, their feet held to the fire?

Let’s take a closer look.

After leaving the White House, the Obamas purchased a home in D. C.’s plush Kalorama neighborhood of diplomats, the wealthy, and the famous, for $8.1 million (2017). At 8,200 sq. feet, it features 8 bedrooms and 9 1/2 bathrooms. They’ve since made extensive revisions, adding a pool and a brick wall surrounding the property. Parking is available for ten cars.

Not long after (2020), they purchased a 29.3 acre property on exclusive Martha’s Vineyard with pristine water views and a dedicated pathway to the ocean beach. At 6,892 sq. feet, it has 7 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms and special design features. Cost: $11.5 million.

In 2000, the Obamas purchased a residence in Kenwood, a suburb adjacent to Chicago, featuring six bedrooms and six baths for a modest $1.65 million. They lived there from 2004-2008, or until Barack Obama became president. Frequented by tourists and blocked off, the Obamas are seldom there.

In 2015 Obama’s close friend, financier Marty Nesbitt, purchased a three acre Oahu property for the Obamas in a proxy deal for $8.7 million. Its $15 million dollar mansion, formerly home to Magnum PI TV series, has been leveled to accommodate something more grandiose, a compound consisting of three homes, one of them presumably for Secret Service. 

It hasn’t hasn’t been without controversy. Despite state and county laws protecting the coastal environment against the intrusion of sea walls, believed to inhibit beach migration inward, loopholes were exploited and exemptions granted to build a 70 foot seawall.

Obama, the environmental president, is keeping silent, deferring any comments to Nesbitt’s office.

Setting the record straight, the Ivy League Obamas have never been absent from privilege, victims of white bias or corporate exclusion—or bluntly, unemployed.

While a Senator, Barack and Michelle collectively earned $1.6 million.

As President, he made $400,000 along with a $50,000 expense account, a $100,000 tax free travel account, and $19,000 entertainment account (afrotech.com).

In retirement, former presidents receive $1 million in travel expenses yearly; their spouses, $500,000 (ntu.org).

There’s also a generous allowance for office space and staff.

According to Business Insider, Obama garnered $15.6 million in book royalties from 2005-2016.

He presently receives a $246,424 pension, indexed to inflation (National Tax Union Foundation).

With more than five years in Federal office, medical care at the nation’s best hospitals, is free, unlike for millions of retired Americans paying up to $200 monthly for Medicare that excludes vision, hearing and dental benefits and makes it necessary for seniors to fill in the gaps for deductibles and copays with supplemental insurance and a drug plan.

Their social security is likely to be taxed.

Longterm care for a dehabilitating illness or injury is out-of-reach for most middle class Americans, averaging $35,000 to $108,000 annually (National Council on Aging).

Since leaving the White House, Obama reportedly received $850,000 for two speeches and $2 million for three talks in 2017.

In 2018, the Obamas entered into an estimated $50 million production deal with Netflix.

Business Insider estimates the Obamas will ultimately earn $250 million in post White House earnings for books, speeches, tours, and movie productions.

As for Michelle, last year saw her walk away with $750,000 for a one hour speech in Germany before the Bits and Pretzels forum in Munich associated with the annual Oktoberfest (NY Post, September 26, 2024).

Her normal speaking fee starts at $200,000. Barack commands a minimal $400,000, matching Joe Biden’s annual presidential salary in every speech.

For her memoir, Becoming (2018), Michelle received a $65 million advance.

In Becoming, Michelle wrote, “When you’re president of the United States, words matter.” They do, but doing matters more.

Exemplary leadership seeks not its own gain, but the welfare of the many. It sets precedent for a new politics that eschews platitude, the ethereal, and the partisan. Centering on doing, it knows its limits. Simplicity and restraint govern its personal conduct in daily life. In its moral construct, it sets an example that inspires and achieves a democratic altruism transcending the factional.

On the other hand, economic advisor and Huffington columnist Zachary Carter writes, “Obama isn’t running for office again, but his sellout sends even uglier signals to the electorate.”

As for the Democratic Party, dominated by managers, venture capitalists, Hollywood and media celebs, it can no longer boast being the party of Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have so little.”

–rj

 

Freedom’s Warrior: Timothy Snyder


Chances are you don’t know who Timothy Snyder is, though all who love a free Ukraine should. Snyder is an esteemed centrist Yale historian, graduate of Brown University (B.A.) and the University of Oxford (D. Phil).

Snyder specializes in central and eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. Fluent in English, German, Polish, and Ukrainian, he reads in ten languages.

He’s also a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Science in Vienna. Prolific, Snyder has authored sixteen books to date, translated into forty languages, with a forthcoming book to be published in September, 2024.

Raised by Quaker parents in Ohio with leftist leanings, there’s a moral insistence conveyed in unadorned prose throughout his many books. In his classes, he uses no notes and with ease can blend Plato, Hegel, DuBois, and polymath René Girard to make his point (Baird, The Guardian, March 23, 2023).

His international awards are numerous. They include Carnegie and Guggenheim fellowships and Hannah Arendt Award for Political Thought. He was a Marshall scholarship student at Oxford.

I hadn’t anticipated an ardent defense of Ukraine, buttressed from someone at Yale, but there he was, Timothy Snyder, forthright, unapologetic, in his op-ed appearance in the New York Times:

“As in the 1930s, democracy is in retreat around the world and fascists have moved to make war on their neighbors. If Russia wins in Ukraine, it won’t be just the destruction of a democracy by force, though that is bad enough. It will be a demoralization for democracies everywhere. Even before the war, Russia’s friends — Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orban, Tucker Carlson — were the enemies of democracy. Fascist battlefield victories would confirm that might makes right, that reason is for the losers, that democracies must fail” (NYT, May 19, 2022).

I’ve been following Snyder ever since.

Snyder has his detractors, of course, some regarding him more as a pundit, offering personal opinion in the guise of expertise. For a good summation, and counterpointing (see LA Review of Books, Unshared History, Oct. 16, 2012).

His Marxist critics principally object to his inclusion of Russia as fascist under Putin, as they like to reserve the term for their right wing opponents. Historically, fascism was a term used by the Soviets to denounce Nazis and other factions opposed to its dictates.

Snyder answers that “People disagree, often vehemently, over what constitutes fascism. But today’s Russia meets most of the criteria that scholars tend to apply. It has a cult around a single leader, Vladimir Putin. It has a cult of the dead, organized around World War II. It has a myth of a past golden age of imperial greatness, to be restored by a war of healing violence — the murderous war on Ukraine” (NYT, May 19, 2022).

If you’re curious about Snyder’s political biases, he endorsed Biden in 2020 and in a Guardian interview, shared, “I vote Democrat!” He sees Trump as an autocrat appealing to popular prejudices inimical to American democracy’s survival. Trump’s policies are about making White people feel comfortable.

Snyder’s immediate concern, however, is the war in Ukraine, about to enter its third year, pitting a David against a Goliath, pitiless and unpausing in attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure in a crucial struggle presently overshadowed by events in Gaza.

To his credit, Snyder has tried valiantly to keep the Ukrainian conflict center-stage: “If Ukraine does not win, we can expect decades of darkness” (NYT, May 19, 2022).

Hospitals, churches, shopping centers, apartment dwellings, it’s all fair game to Putin, whose aim is to inflict maximum terror, destroy food supplies, disrupt the electricity grid, and deny water resources to a nation he regards as historically integral to the Russian empire.

Much of Putin’s onslaught comes from not only cruise missiles, but thousands of drones, many of them supplied by North Korea and Iran.

The Biden administration and its NATO allies have been slow to respond. Patriot defense batteries are just now arriving, antiquated, and short of the seven President Zelensky says Ukraine needs to ward off the daily aerial assaults.

In contrast, Israel has 32 up-to-date batteries proven highly effective against Iran’s massive missile and drone response of April 14, 2024 (Defense Express, April 15, 2024).

If Ukrainian skies are safer now, it’s because Timothy Snyder stepped in, not the White House, raising $2,300,000 for Safe Skies, a program allowing Ukraine to install thousands of sensors throughout eight Ukrainian regions.

Safe Skies provides an early-warning alert and rapid response to drones and cruise missiles: “I visited one of the sites and saw some of the technology at work, as well as the impressive cooperation between the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the armed forces,” Snyder said (The Free Press, Substack, August 17, 2024).

Donations were largely individual worldwide, with a few corporations also contributing.

We nearly lost Snyder in 2019 when, feeling ill, he resorted to ER in New Haven, spending seventeen hours there, before being diagnosed with a baseball-sized tumor in his liver along with sepsis. Snyder would subsequently spend the next three months in five hospitals.

But you don’t mess with Snyder, who kept notes on his hospital sojourn, the later basis of a scathing indictment of American healthcare: Our Malady:
Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary.

Thankfully, he’s still with us, a boon for freedom lovers everywhere,

–rjoly