Category Archives: War

America’s Two Political Parties: A Comparison.

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Some Americans have become convinced that there is no need to vote because they believe the two major political parties are essentially the same. Indeed, at one time, the parties shared many progressive beliefs. But, over the last six decades, the parties diverged until, today, they have almost nothing in common. To wit:

The Democratic Party gave us Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. And, if it could get a large enough majority in Congress, it would give you Canadian-style universal healthcare.

The Republican Party voted against Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and continues to try to privatize the programs. It also repeatedly voted against the Affordable Care Act. And it opposes any type of universal healthcare, even though it could save around 68,000 American lives annually and reduce American healthcare spending by roughly $480 billion per year.

The Democratic Party embraced public education as a springboard to give all Americans the opportunity to achieve the American dream. And it created the Department of Education to establish education standards across all communities. The Republican Party intends to dismantle it and privatize education with the greatest benefits going to those with the greatest wealth.

Almost every American financial crisis (the Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Covid economic collapse) has occurred while a Republican president was in office and, in each case, a Democratic president led the economic recovery.

Despite Republican cries to cut deficits and the national debt, Republican administrations have contributed more to the debt than Democrats. Under the last four Democratic administrations, the debt grew $699 billion less than during the last four Republican administrations even though two of the Democratic presidents were left with an economy in crisis and crippling wars that began during Republican administrations. Moreover, Bill Clinton is the last president to reduce the annual deficit and create a surplus!

Under the trickle-down economic plans of Republicans Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, we experienced the greatest consolidation of corporations and the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history. On the other hand, under Democratic president Joe Biden, we saw the highest average wage growth in modern history combined with the lowest unemployment and the strongest stock markets.

Over the past 60 years, Democrats have championed civil rights and voting rights for minorities, as well as women’s rights. On the other hand, Republicans have suppressed voting rights, women’s rights and DEI while championing corruption as evidenced by Watergate, Iran-Contra, the lead up to the Iraq War, Russiagate, the attempted coup of January 6, and the excesses of Trump and DOGE.

Yet in the last election many ordinary workers, believing somehow that Trump would benefit their economic standing, voted for a convicted felon, adjudicated fraudster and sexual assaulter who promised to be a dictator on day one.

Why? In a word: Propaganda.

Since Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine, wealthy libertarians and large corporations looking for more advantages in the form of lower taxes and fewer regulations have spent billions on rightwing media to convince working Americans to hate government, to hate immigrants and minorities, and to vote against their own best interests. In addition, billionaires have funded rightwing candidates with the money needed to buy elections.

So here we are, with our government being dismantled, our economy threatened, our longtime allies abandoned, our constitution assaulted, and our democracy in crisis, it should be abundantly clear to everyone that the two parties are nothing alike. And that the Republican Party has no interest in working Americans beyond their votes.

Complex Problems: Part 3 – The National Debt

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According to the National Debt Clock, our national debt is currently $36 trillion and counting. That’s because the government is currently spending more than $1.6 trillion than it receives from federal taxes. This is despite the fact that the annual deficit is currently $1 trillion less than when President Biden took office.

Of course, there are many who will say that the way to reduce the debt is to simply cut spending. Others will say that we need to raise taxes to increase revenue. But it’s not that simple. To understand why, you need to look at how we got here.

Since the end of World War II, we have endured two banking crises and 13 recessions. Many of those events resulted in the necessity of corporate bailouts, tax cuts, and increased spending to induce economic recovery. During that time, we have also fought in four costly wars, not including the estimated $26 trillion in today’s dollars spent on defense during the Cold War. More recently, the failed response to the Covid Pandemic resulted in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and the $1.2 trillion Inflation Recovery Act, which were necessary to stave off a second Great Depression and lower runaway inflation. Without those expenditures, we would have seen unemployment and inflation continue to skyrocket with many millions of Americans in soup lines and/or begging in the streets.

The point is, in a civilized society, there are certain events and economic conditions that require government to outspend its revenue.

Not the least of these are the climate-related disasters that annually cost billions of dollars to help victims and rebuild infrastructure. The National Centers for Environmental Information estimate that over the last five years those costs have totaled $764.9 billion! Do we turn our backs on the Americans ravaged by wildfires, droughts, hailstorms, tornados and hurricane victims to avoid budget deficits? Of course not.

And there are still more issues that have contributed to our debt, including self-inflicted problems such as trade wars, battles over the debt ceiling, and political shutdowns of the government which have cost many billions of dollars.

Taking all of this into consideration, you can see why, in modern times, our government has experienced a budget surplus only once. That was accomplished by the Clinton administration.

Now, you may say that I have overlooked one of the largest contributors to our annual deficits – the rising costs of “entitlements.” Certainly, it is true that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid payments comprise about 61 percent of the annual federal budget. But before you call for cutbacks to these programs, consider this: In reality, these programs should be entirely separate from the federal budget. That’s because the retired workers who benefit from them have paid for them over a lifetime of work through FICA (the Federal Insurance Contributions Act).

That’s right, these programs are not “entitlements” at all. They are, in fact, insurance – nonprofit retirement insurance for which you pay premiums that are deducted from your paycheck.

Since the founding of the programs, the premiums collected have gone into a trust fund where the money is invested in federal securities. And because these programs are insurance, they should be treated like all other forms of insurance by following the principles of actuarial tables, which match premiums to expenditures. (When the costs of your casualty and accident auto insurance go up, so do your premiums.) Unfortunately, Congress has refused to consistently and equitably raise premiums, which has placed the programs in some degree of jeopardy.

That leads us to the politics of deficits and debt.

Since the Citizens United v FEC decision of 2010, political campaigns are funded in large part by billionaires, lobbying groups, and large corporations. Of course, these groups all expect a return on their investments. For example, despite the impact on our climate caused by the burning of fossil fuels, the fossil fuel industry received more than $1 trillion in subsidies in 2023. Many others have similarly cashed in. And all of these paybacks contribute to the deficit.

Further, politicians love to promise tax cuts even when they know those tax cuts will lead to larger deficits. Perhaps that’s why the highest federal income tax rate has been cut from 91 percent in 1950 to 40.8 percent today. Indeed, we have seen at least five major tax cuts since WWII. And since many of those same politicians like to campaign on a platform of fear – fear of immigrants, fear of other religions, fear of terrorism, and fear of other nations – they routinely vote to increase our defense budget.

The requested Pentagon budget for 2025 is nearly $850 billion dollars. That’s more than the next nine countries combined! And, if you separate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid from the annual budget as is justified, it represents roughly 34 percent of the remaining (discretionary) budget. Add another $103.2 billion for Homeland Security, plus $303.8 billion for Veterans Affairs, and you’ll see that we’re spending an incredible amount for defense and the consequences of war – an annual total of more than $1.2 trillion that is nearly equal to our deficit.

And that doesn’t even include the $21 trillion in previous spending that the Pentagon couldn’t account for in a recent audit.

So, where do you cut? How do you raise more revenue? If you’re serious about reducing the debt, you absolutely have to do both. But if you do too much of either, you risk damaging the economy which will further add to the debt.

The planned tax cuts, inflation-inducing tariffs, and mass deportations of undocumented workers certainly isn’t the answer.

Our Problems Are Too Big For Simple-Minded Solutions.

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Or simple-minded politicians.

The US and the world are facing a growing and complex set of interrelated problems. But few people have the time and patience to understand them. Many politicians know this all too well. So, instead of being honest with voters, they lie. They offer simplistic “solutions.” They create easy targets for voters to blame. Targets who have already been victimized, such as migrants and transexuals.

These people, they say, are the reason low to middle income voters are struggling. They tell voters that migrants are taking our jobs, filling our housing stock, and driving up prices when, in fact, the only jobs they are taking are those that no American citizens want. They also falsely claim that migrants are driving up crime rates.

The same politicians claim that transexuals are defying God and destroying our nation’s morals. They want you to believe that aspiring young male athletes are willing to permanently change their bodies, to undergo extensive hormonal therapies and to have their genitals removed, so that they can invade girls’ locker rooms and unfairly compete with the so-called weaker sex.

Seriously? How stupid do they think voters are? Never mind. We already know the answer to that question.

Now let’s take a look at the real problems we face: Climate change, human rights violations, mass shootings, religious conflicts and wars, poverty and food insecurity, wealth disparity and greed, corrupt and repressive governments, corporate consolidation of markets and resources, corporate treatment of workers as mere commodities, propagandist media, overcrowded urban areas, and hollowed-out rural areas.

There are no quick and simple answers for any of these problems. The issues are complex, and, in most cases, one drives the others.

For example, mass migration is the result of many factors. Very few people on the planet would leave their homeland, uproot their families, and, in many cases, walk thousands of miles through a gauntlet of hardships, violence, and obstacles just to take a poverty-level, back-breaking job elsewhere. That is, they wouldn’t unless the conditions in their homeland were much worse.

These migrants are leaving their homelands under threat of death – from wars, violent gangs, drug cartels, vicious dictators, greedy oligarchs, religious and political persecution, ethnic cleansing, and climate-caused droughts. They aren’t just looking for the promise of a better life. These men, women, and children are escaping almost certain death.

What happens when we deport them? In all likelihood, they will die. And their deaths should be forever burned into our collective conscious. Of course, many of those in prosperous countries will simply shrug their shoulders, offer thoughts and prayers, and claim their deaths are God’s will.

In fact, the anti-immigrant crowd is more likely to be concerned about the possible economic consequences of mass deportations. Deporting up to 12 million undocumented workers from the US could be catastrophic to our economy. After all, these are the workers who pick our fruit and vegetables, who process our meat, who cook our food, who clean our offices and hotel rooms, who repair our roofs, who do our landscaping, and nanny our children. Many have become friends and neighbors. And the plain fact is, we need these people.

But they should have entered the country the right way, you say. They should have stood in line to apply for immigration. The unfortunate truth is that it takes approximately three years to enter “the right way.” Most of those escaping their homelands would be dead by the time they received approval.

So, if walls, razor sharp concertina wire, and the threats of deportation are not the answer to migration, what is?

Clearly, a big part of the answer is to deal with the causes of migration. Of course, addressing climate change is a multi-generational task. So, there needs to be some interim way to humanely house and feed its victims. That only takes a willingness to help and money – likely less than we’re spending on walls. The other factors driving migration require governmental fixes – deposing dictators, ending persecution, and jailing gangs.

That all seems very daunting. But, in many cases, we – the world’s most prosperous nations and empires – created these problems and supported corrupt governments. We absolutely should be part of the solution.

Of course, that takes an honest, caring and sensible government at home. One run by politicians that are willing to level with voters, to understand the complexities and explain them to voters, to address the issues, to inspire, and to lead.

Unfortunately, such a government is nowhere to be seen on our horizon.

The Greatest Challenges Of The 21st Century.

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Through the rest of this century, the world is facing a number of seemingly insurmountable problems – problems for which there appear to be no easy answers. Some so complex and so threatening that they could doom humanity for all eternity. Yet, even for those challenges, there are answers if we are willing to acknowledge the problems and make the changes so urgently required.

Here they are in ascending order of difficulty:

Rise of Authoritarianism – The solution for this one is exceedingly simple: Vote! Vote only for those politicians who are committed to democracy. Fight tyranny at every turn. No politician who embraces discrimination of any kind belongs in office.

Corporate Consolidation – The phenomenon of too-big-to-fail banks and multinational corporations has led to a wide variety of problems for humanity. These include a lack of competition leading to inflation, the elimination of pension funds for workers, the growing disparity of income between CEOs and workers, the exporting of jobs in the search for ever cheaper and more compliant labor…the list is long.

Fortunately, the solution is also simple. Indeed, Congress gave us a seldom-used tool to break up these industrial cabals and growing monopolies: The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. It’s time our government used it.

Wealth Disparity – Globally, the richest 10% of the global population currently take home 52% of the income. Those in the poorest half of the global population earn just 8%.

In the U.S., the wealthiest one percent of Americans hold more than 32 percent of the nation’s wealth. The top 10 percent hold 77 percent of the wealth, while the bottom 50 percent of households hold just one percent of the wealth. And 7.5 percent of the population has a negative net worth – meaning they are in debt.

By race, white households hold more than 86 percent of the wealth while black and Latino households hold less than 3 percent of the wealth.

And, until the election of President Biden the problem has only gotten worse, a result of the vicious economic policy called Trickle-Down Theory that was embraced by Ronald Reagan and every Republican president since. The subsequent wealth gap has led to growing poverty and food insecurity, unfair tax policies, a government that is bought and paid for by wealthy individuals and corporations, and a loss of tax revenue that has led to a growing national debt.

Yet there is some glimmer of hope for those at the bottom of the wealth scale. According to the Federal Reserve, the average wealth of the bottom half of Americans has increased by 80 percent since 2019, perhaps as a result of President Biden’s policies. (Of course, wealth growth is statistically much more profound if you have very little wealth to begin with.)

The solutions to wealth disparity also seem relatively simple: Enact a wealth tax and impose strict limits on donations to political campaigns. That could give all Americans a chance at the equal representation our Founders intended.

Gun Violence – The U.S. suffers approximately 20,000 violent gun deaths each year (not including suicides) and more than 35,000 gun injuries. Thanks to the NRA, other so-called gun rights groups, and gun manufacturers, police have to assume that every person they encounter is armed. Our schools and many public buildings have become virtual fortresses in an attempt to prevent mass shootings. And, from the age of 5, children are taught to live in fear of active shooters. No other developed nation in the world experiences these problems. But our gun manufacturers are trying to change that by exporting guns to criminal gangs worldwide.

It doesn’t have to be this way!

The solution is to follow Australia’s lead by banning and collecting guns, especially semi-automatics. Instead, as exemplified by the recent Supreme Court decision overturning the ban on bump stocks, the U.S. is headed in the opposite direction.

Climate Crisis – The U.S. has long led the world in the amount of fossil fuels burned per capita. And now we are the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas. For more than 50 years, scientists have been warning us that, by incinerating fossil fuels, we are in danger of incinerating our planet. Unwilling to believe them, we have protected our fossil fuel industry and refused to modify our unsustainable lifestyle.

Sure, we have made some limited progress by recycling, better insulating our homes, producing more energy efficient appliances, and expanding the use of renewable fuels. But those measures are far too little, too late.

We led the world in establishing an extravagant, disposable culture. Now we need to lead the world to live within our planet’s means. Change is possible. But we must hurry. As you can see by the ever-increasing, ever more violent storms and other climate-related disasters, time is running out, and quickly.

Mass Migration – In recent years, migrants have flooded the borders of the United States and other highly developed nations. As a result of wars, violent gangs, autocratic rulers, and natural disasters such as drought, storms, and flooding, millions of people are faced with the choice of either migrating or dying.

Think immigrants are ruining your country? Then demand that our politicians do something to improve circumstances in their home countries. And be willing to open your hearts as well as your pocketbooks to help.

Mass Extinctions – In Earth’s history, there have been 5 mass extinctions defined as the loss of 75 percent of all species within a relatively short period of time. Scientists tell us that we are about to experience a sixth mass extinction as the result of human activities such as deforestation, unsustainable food production, pollution, encroachment of habitat, and the burning of fossil fuels.

Currently, extinction of species is occurring 1,000 to 10,000 times more rapidly than the natural rate. Why should we care?

First, we are living in an ecosystem. The life of one species depends on the life of others. Second, the world will become a much less interesting and livable place without some of the most vulnerable species. And third, we’re one of the species that could go extinct!

You already know the ways to mitigate the sixth mass extinction: Stop wasting resources, limit the use of fossil fuels, limit travel, stop polluting, and quickly transition to a mostly plant-based diet.

We have been the problem. Now we must become the solution.

Artificial Intelligence – AI could be the answer to many of our problems. Or, it could add to them. It simply depends on how we use it.

Used properly, AI can help us eradicate diseases, streamline research, create solutions for complex problems, perform the most dangerous and boring jobs, and help us to objectively solve conflicts.

AI-driven vehicles could make our roads safer and more orderly. AI could make logistics more efficient and more predictable. The possibilities are endless.

But there’s a much darker side to AI.

AI is already creating deepfakes – fake videos and images of people saying and doing things they never intended or even imagined. Women have been victimized by fake images of them nude or engaging in sex acts. Even worse, deepfakes of political candidates and leaders could have profound consequences.

AI could eliminate millions of jobs making humans essentially obsolete.

Not surprisingly, AI has been embraced by the military to replace humans in battle. Future armies, navies and air forces could be dominated by AI-controlled robots making real-time decisions of life and death. Once that happens, will we become the predominate targets?

One AI researcher believes so. He estimates there’s a 99.9% chance that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) will lead to human extinction within the next 100 years claiming that no AGI model he has seen has been safe. And though other AI researchers are less certain that AGI will lead to our extinction, they are not particularly reassuring.

A Final Word: As daunting as some of these challenges seem, to some degree, they all can be addressed with one simple action: Vote! We must climb out of our media silos, ignore the misinformation and disinformation peddled by the moneyed interests, educate ourselves, and vote for the politicians who are willing to acknowledge the scope of the challenges and attack them in earnest.

How The Party Of Lincoln Became The Party Of Trump.

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The Republican Party was once the party of abolitionists and the party of progressives. Its first leader, Abraham Lincoln, not only held the nation together during the Civil War. He signed the Emancipation Proclamation that ended one of the saddest chapters in U.S. history.

Unfortunately, a political party operating under the same name is now attacking the very foundations of our nation…the democratic principles established by our founders. Of course, the transformation of the once Grand Old Party didn’t happen overnight. After Lincoln, the party soon embraced the privileged and the powerful – the entrepreneurs rightfully labeled the “robber barons” who presided over the Gilded Age, a period of excesses marked by political corruption and unbridled materialism.

During that time, the nation was controlled by a succession of Republican presidents who presided over runaway capitalism founded on “Horse and Sparrow” economics – the theory that if you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through and fall to the ground for the sparrows to eat.

As disgusting as that idea is, it didn’t disappear along with the Gilded Age. Though it was credited, in part, for the Panic of 1896 and the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Republican Party clung to the idea through every succeeding administration until it resurfaced under Reagan who renamed it “Supply Side” economics (aka “Trickle Down” theory or, perhaps more accurately “Voodoo” economics), and it continued under George W. Bush and Donald Trump. Again and again, it has resulted in economic failure for the majority of working Americans.

But failed economic policy alone is not responsible for where the Republican Party stands today.

In an effort to rig the 1968 election, Richard Nixon treasonously undermined the Vietnam peace talks, promising the Vietnamese that they would get a better deal if they stalled negotiations to help him be elected. During that period, Lee Atwater launched the party’s so-called southern strategy to embrace southern racists who were angry about integration and the Voting Rights Act. And in 1974, Nixon was forced out of office following the revelations of Watergate in which he overtly stole the 1972 presidential election.

In the late 70s and 1980s, Paul Weyrich used Roe v Wade to bring anti-abortion evangelical Christians into the Republican fold.

Not to be outdone by Nixon, Ronald Reagan also committed a treasonous act by undermining the Iran hostage negotiations. He, too, promised a better deal if the negotiations were delayed in order to help his electoral chances.

Of course, it was Reagan who also named the federal government – the government of the people, by the people and for the people – as the enemy of most Americans. He also famously led the attack against labor unions, favoring multinational corporations over workers. And his presidency ended in a cloud of corruption when his administration was caught illegally selling weapons to Iran to finance death squads in Central America.

In the 1990s, political divisions among Americans really began to take hold after Newt Gingrich was selected as Speaker of the House. To ensure his caucus would follow his lead, he threatened to have them “primaried” if they failed to vote as he wished, effectively ending true representation of their constituents.

During that time, the Republican congressional majority led an impeachment of President Bill Clinton that began with an unsuccessful investigation into a real estate and ended with the exposure of an illicit relationship with an intern.

In 2000, George W. Bush’s brother, Jeb, and a conservative majority Supreme Court helped “W” steal the presidential election. Once in office, he cut taxes for the wealthy, led us into an unpopular war with Iraq based on lies, and ended his term with a financial crisis that resulted in the Great Recession.

In 2016 and 2017, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blatantly stole two SCOTUS seats for conservatives. And that was far from the only Republican theft. Trump was able to steal the election through a variety of schemes with the help of Russia, news of an investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server, and a cover-up of Trump’s extramarital affairs with a porn star and a former Playboy centerfold model.

Once in power, Trump used the Oval Office for personal enrichment, a highly partisan failed response to a public emergency (the Covid-19 pandemic), and tax cuts for the wealthy. And, like Nixon, he turned to Roger Stone and a host of other dirty tricksters in an attempt to steal the 2020 election. He even encouraged his supporters to engage in a violent insurrection to prevent the peaceful transition of power.

Republican administrations have overseen repeated economic failures, financial inequality, increased poverty, at least one war based on lies, and corporate consolidation resulting in numerous monopolies. They have allowed the NRA to flood our streets with increasingly lethal military-style weaponry. They have weakened the institutions that have made this country great. And they have led us to the brink of autocracy.

It wasn’t just one man or one term that corrupted the GOP. The transition of the party from the idealistic Party of Lincoln to the criminal enterprise that is the Party of Trump is the result of a series of planned events that prioritized party over nation, money over freedom, and power over honesty.

The Hamas-Israeli War By The Numbers.

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70 million – the number of kilograms of explosives dropped on Gaza (the equivalent of 3 nuclear bombs of the type dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II.)

2.26 million – the approximate number of Palestinians living in the West Bank.

2.1 million – the approximate number of Palestinians living in Gaza prior to the war.

1.9 million – the number of Gaza Palestinians displaced since the beginning of the war.

450,000 – the number of Israeli settlers living in settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

250,000 – the number of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem.

220,000 – the number of Israeli settlers living in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.

77,084 – the number of Palestinians wounded since the start of the war.

34,000 – the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza and the West Bank since the start of the war.

14,000 – the number of Palestinian children killed by the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) since the start of the war.

1,410 – the total number of Israelis killed by Hamas since the start of the war.

1,139 – the number of Israelis killed by Hamas in the October 7 surprise attack.

520 – the approximate number of Palestinians held without charges by Israel in administrative detention (many of them children).

500 – the approximate number of healthcare workers killed by Israeli airstrikes.

317 – the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank since the start of the war (most by Israeli settlers).

250 – the approximate number of Israeli hostages taken in the Hamas attack.

200 – the number of humanitarian aid workers killed by the IDF.

140.93 – the number of square miles in the Gaza strip.

97 – the number of journalists killed trying to document the war – mostly by the IDF.

72 – the percentage of Gaza casualties who are children.

60 – the approximate percentage of Gaza buildings damaged or destroyed by the IDF.

20 – the number of Gaza hospitals damaged or destroyed by the IDF.

14 – the number of years it will take to remove debris and unexploded bombs as estimated by the UN.

2 – the number of Hamas-held Israeli hostages mistakenly killed by the IDF.

0 – the number of winners of the war.

Why do I say there will be no winners? Because, in war, there seldom are. And though Israel has the capacity to destroy all of Gaza, its disproportionate response to October 7 and its indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians has called attention to its long-standing practice of apartheid. That has resulted in a growing anti-Israeli sentiment worldwide.

We can only hope that the frustration and anger is directed at the rightwing leaders of Israel and not at the Israeli and Jewish people in general.

Criticism Is Not Antisemitism!

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After the inhumane October 7 attacks on Israeli civilians by the militant faction of Hamas, it seems that some believe any criticism of the Israeli government’s long-standing mistreatment of Palestinians and its mass bombings of Gaza is antisemitic.

It represents the same kind of twisted accusations leveled against me and others for criticizing the US government during its misguided war in Vietnam. Being appalled by the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinian civilians does not make one antisemitic any more than criticizing the Vietnam war made me un-American. And though it may be unpopular to criticize Israel’s conduct of its war on Hamas, I believe it’s important to add context to the situation.

The truth is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been festering since 1948 with no solution in sight. And though Israel’s long-standing occupation of the West Bank and its siege of Gaza does not excuse the horrendous crimes committed by Hamas (nothing can), the untenable conditions under which Palestinian refugees have been forced to live has paved the way for the rise of Hamas and its terrorism.

Consider the fact that the population of Gaza consists of Palestinians who were forced to leave their homeland during the 1948 war in addition to generations of their descendants. Consider that, since the occupation of the West Bank, Israeli “settlers” have continued to harass and kill Palestinians in order to force them off their land. (According to the UN, more than 500 Palestinian men, women and children living in the West Bank have been killed by Jewish settlers this year – most before the October 7 attacks.)

Or consider the fact that Palestinians living within the Israeli borders have fewer rights than their Israeli counterparts. And, because they are not permitted to serve in the Israeli military, they do not qualify for many of the higher-paying jobs.

But perhaps the most grievous treatment of Palestinians is the Israeli concept of administrative detention. That’s the term given to the process of detaining individuals indefinitely without charges, without trials, and with no opportunity to defend themselves. Some have never even been told why they were being detained.

Of the more than 1,300 being held, it was reported that about half had been held for longer than 6 months. Many were children as young as 12. Indeed, according to Save The Children, between 500 and 1,000 such children are held in Israeli custody each year. A majority reported being beaten and strip searched.

They may have been detained for straying too close to the Israeli-Gaza border, for waving a Palestinian flag, for saying something an Israeli found offensive, or for throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers (a crime that could receive a maximum sentence of 20 years). And those are the lucky ones. Before the current war, an Israeli general admitted that IDF forces were under standing orders to shoot at the legs of child rock throwers!

These are the hostages released by Israel as part of the hostage exchange during the temporary ceasefire.

During that exchange, US media waited breathlessly to report every detail of the hostages released by Hamas. What was their condition of health? How were they treated? Where were they held? But few US media showed any curiosity about the hostages released by Israel.

If they had, they might have discovered that Palestinian families were not even allowed to celebrate the return of their loved ones or to publicly display any signs of joy.

One of the great ironies of the moment is that, while many innocent Palestinian civilians are being held under questionable circumstances, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is free despite facing criminal charges for corruption.

Does any of this excuse Hamas’ horrendous attacks? Of course not. They are to be despised, hunted down, and brought to trial for crimes against humanity. They must be held accountable. But so, too, must the Israelis who commit war crimes in return.

And when the dust from this war settles, we must find a way for Palestinians to finally enjoy freedom and self-governance. And to give both the Palestinian and Israeli people the safety and security they deserve.

How Much Vengeance Is Enough?

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Out of an abundance of guilt following the Holocaust of WWII, Great Britain and much of the world decided to create a permanent homeland for Jews called Israel. In doing so, they displaced thousands of Palestinians.

What has happened over the ensuing years and generations is, to say the least, complicated.

Indeed, since its creation, Israel has been under attack by Palestinians seeking to reclaim their land and Arab nations who resented their new neighbors. Through it all, Israel seems to have adopted a strategy of disproportionate retaliation for the attacks. For each Israeli killed, many more Palestinians have died.

The current Israeli-Hamas war is no exception.

Following the horrific terrorist attacks that killed more than 1,200 Israeli citizens, Israel has so far killed more than 18,000 Palestinians in densely populated Gaza. And the Israeli government says it has no plans to stop.

Perhaps such a toll could be justified if the vast majority of the casualties were militants and terrorists. But, according to studies by two Israeli publications, 61 percent of the Palestinian casualties are civilians! The deaths in Gaza have also included 63 journalists and more than 100 UNRWA aid workers.

And, it seems, that’s only the beginning.

The Israeli government says it intends to continue its operations in Gaza for a month or more despite UN warnings that many of Gaza’s remaining population are in immediate danger of dying from starvation and disease.

And what will the war accomplish? Likely nothing. Certainly, the bombings will reduce the number of Hamas militants, and it will destroy most of their tunnels. But many of the surviving Gazans, having seen their families slaughtered, will become future terrorists who will themselves seek revenge.

Such a predictable outcome points to the extreme futility of the situation.

Until the world comes up with a permanent solution for the estimated 5.9 million Palestinian refugees, including reparations and self-government, they and the Israelis will be stuck in a continuing cycle of bloodshed that neither side can truly win.

Further, both sides and their supporters need to be reminded that one set of war crimes does not justify another.

The GOP Dilemma: Choosing The Most Cruel Candidate For 2024.

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Is it Don The Con Trump who ripped babies from the arms of immigrants, whose actions and inaction led to the deaths of 1.1 million Americans from Covid, who called for the murder of immigrants and protesters, who gave support to war criminal Vladimir Putin, who incited a violent coup?

Is it Mike Pence who, as Vice-President, blessed all of Trump’s cruel excesses and cloaked them in a veneer of religiosity?

Is it Ron DeSantis whose “War on Woke” has banned books, threatened teachers, and marginalized and denied rights to blacks and the LGBTQ community?

Is it Greg Abbott who has led the fight against women’s rights, who encouraged the proliferation of guns – even after the mass murder of children at Uvalde, who destroyed public schools, who competed with DeSantis in a game of busing immigrants to northern cities.

Or is it an as yet unknown candidate who is capable of even more deceit and cruelty – perhaps Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, John Bolton, Kristi Noem, Kim Reynolds, Bill Lee, Tate Reeves, Mark Meadows or Mike Pompeo?

Cruelty is, after all, the only thing the MAGA/Christian Nationalist/Own-The-Libs organization seems to care about. Certainly not a functioning federal government (witness the current House majority). Not the future of our democracy (witness January 6 and voter suppression laws). Not personal freedom (witness anti-abortion, anti-trans and anti-gay laws). Not law and order (witness gun proliferation). Not the future of our planet. (Climate crisis? What climate crisis?) Not human rights. (Who cares about immigrants and the poor?) And most certainly not the truth (witness the depositions in the Dominion v Fox News case).

The transformation of the organization from the Party of Lincoln to its current fascist state has taken more than 50 years. And even for someone like me, who was repulsed by the GOP’s actions at an early age, the change has been shocking.

That’s not to dismiss the GOP’s treasonous past, beginning with Nixon’s interference in the Vietnam peace talks by sending an emissary to convince the North Vietnamese into believing he would offer them a better deal if they postponed peace negotiations until after the election. There was also his dirty tricks squad which interfered with his opponents’ campaigns and ultimately broke into the Watergate headquarters of the DNC in an effort to improve Nixon’s election chances.

There was Reagan’s deal with Iran to delay the release of American hostages until after the election, apparently in exchange for weaponry as part of the Iran-Contra scandal.

There was Jeb Bush’s interference in the 2000 election which cost upward of 10,000 Floridians (mostly Democrats) their right to vote.

And, of course, there’s the GOP’s ongoing effort to rig elections through extreme gerrymandering, voter IDs, and reducing the number of polling places and voting hours in heavily Democratic and mostly black districts.

So, who will be next to best exemplify the sentiments of the Republican Party and become its 2024 presidential candidate? It’s a difficult question. Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, Vlad the Impaler, Josef Stalin, and Mao Zedong are no longer available.

Preaching Evil And Hate.

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Preaching Evil is the title of a new Peacock documentary about FLDS leader, Warren Jeffs. But the title could well be applied to hundreds of televangelists and evangelical Christian pastors, as well as fundamentalist Imams, Rabbis, and leaders of various other religions and sects who use their platforms to preach hate against others. There are no better examples than the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, who has blessed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and the white conservative “Christians” who encourage their followers to discriminate against people of differing faiths, races, and sexual preference.

Of course, none of this is new.

Most of the world’s violence has long been based on religious differences and misunderstandings. The Roman Catholic Church ordered the torture and murder of millions during the Inquisition. It ordered the slaughter of the Templars, the Cathars and the Huguenots. And its desire to conquer and convert “heathens” was behind the genocide of indigenous Americans.

Religious discrimination led European Christians to tolerate the imprisonment of Jews and the resulting death camps of the Holocaust. Southern Christians condoned the KKK with the Christian symbol of the cross integral to the terrorists’ gatherings and lynchings. More recently, religious differences are at the heart of the on-going conflicts in the Middle East, in India, Pakistan, and Myanmar.

Even when religions haven’t encouraged and committed genocide, they have dismissed others’ creation beliefs as myth. And they declared those they didn’t understand as infidels, witches, or demons.

To be clear, I believe that all people have a right to worship however, whatever, and whoever they please, as long as their worship does not encroach on the rights of others. As long as they respect the beliefs and customs of others.

And I do believe that organized religion can be positive.

I was raised in a small-town church where I was taught the Golden Rule and where most members tried to follow it. The church was a gathering place of joy for weddings, anniversaries, and other celebrations. It was a place where anyone could go to seek aid and guidance. It was also a place where locals gathered in support of those mourning a loss. Those kinds of churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques still exist. But they are being overwhelmed by the political and the crazies.

Surveys have shown that the number of people who attend church is declining in the US and elsewhere – likely the result of the crimes and excesses of religions: the violence, the sexual abuses of children, the hateful discrimination of the LGBTQ community, the misogyny which has led to attacks on a woman’s right to abortion, and the belief that you can still go to heaven despite your sins as long as you confess them and proclaim your faith in Christ.

Yet, somehow, evangelical Christians and megachurches are exerting more power than ever. They captured the Republican Party and celebrated one of history’s worst philanderers and conmen in order to force their beliefs onto others. In effect, many US churches have become little more than political clubs. And because they are tax exempt, we are all helping to pay for their clubhouses and their efforts to spread hate.

The Internal Revenue Service has a long-standing rule prohibiting churches and charities from engaging in politics by defining a 501(c)(3) organization as one “which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” It’s long past time that the IRS enforced it. Indeed, it also should be applied to campaigning on behalf of the GOP’s continuous culture wars.

That won’t solve all of the problems with organized religions. But it would be a start.