The new year has hit with news flying in from a number of quarters. At home, minimum wage increased in nearly half of U.S. states; it has been 14 years since the last increase in the federal minimum wage, the longest stretch since 1938 according to the AFL-CIO. NPR correspondent David Gura quoted Goldman Sachs’s chief equity strategist to note, ”The S&P 500 index returned 26% including dividends in 2023, more than 2x the average annual return of 12% since 1986.”
That so many of the Islamic and Arab countries have called for a peaceful resolution based on a two-state solution is encouraging. Perhaps the Israelis will finally see the light, and end their persecution of Palestine, and Hamas will be out of power. A glimmer of hope in a situation that has festered for too long.
I’ll say it again, please everyone email the White House and tell President Biden to start a Fireside Chat reminiscent of FDR. He needs to get his message out and he is not doing so now. You can go on the White House site and repeat the request every day.
'Lots of pieces moving around the board on this second day of January 2024.' (Letter)
Is that not prose poetry at this time of what, uncertainty mixed with woe? Today's letter
is full of events, questions and threats. Our presidential election is crucial and not alone
in its importance.
The following is a long excerpt by Ishaan Tharoor with Mikhail Klimentov, in Washington Post's newsletter, Today's WorldView, as appears today.
'More than 60 countries, with some 4 billion people, are set to stage national elections in 2024. That means roughly half the planet could go to the polls in what could be the greatest rolling spectacle of democracy in human history.'
'We might not see this number of elections matched until 2048, when the world’s political landscape could look considerably different. The “third wave” of democracy — the steady global expansion of democratic governments that surged through the end of the Cold War — has ebbed over the past decade. Elections are still staged, but the underlying political culture seems to be shifting worldwide.'
'In society after society, illiberal values and politicians who embrace them are gaining ground. Numerous elected governments seem bent on undermining core tenets of the democratic project, from the freedom of the press to the independence of institutions such as the judiciary to the ability of opposition parties to fairly compete against the ruling establishment.'
'According to Freedom House, a Washington think tank that monitors the health of democracies, global freedom declined for the 17th consecutive year in 2023. The organization’s annual report cites a wave of coups that ousted elected leaders in Africa and increasing threats to the rights of journalists in dozens of countries. Separately, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, a Sweden-based intergovernmental watchdog, said in its annual report that “across every region of the world, democracy has continued to contract” and that 2022 marked a sixth consecutive year in which more countries experienced net democratic declines than improvements, per its data. It projects that 2023 will be no better.'
'The news this year could be more drastic still. The outcomes of pivotal elections in the United States — the world’s oldest democracy — and India — the world’s largest — may underscore a deepening public appetite for norm-bending strongman rule. In their shadow, elections from Mexico to the European Union to Bangladesh may each offer their own showcase of the growing traction of nationalist, authoritarian politics. “We’re electing illiberal leaders democratically,” Maria Ressa, a prominent journalist and Nobel laureate from the Philippines, said during an address to the National Press Club in Washington in September. “We will know whether democracy lives or dies by the end of 2024.” (WAPO)
So let me get this straight. The US is sending money and selling arms to Israel, which will be used to murder Palestinians. And the US is sending money for humanitarian aid to Palestine so that we can help the victims of Israeli attacks. The world is beyond crazy.
I don't agree with the conclusion about lots of pieces moving about the board.
Heather Cox Richardson's today (good economic news in the U.S. notwithstanding) instead emphasizes the ongoing paralysis by which Republicans throttle their own country.
Early on she notes how, "The Republican House has been one of the least effective in history," but of course we all know that do-nothing-ism deliberately repeats for us now the know-nothing-ism of similarly racist and hate-filled Americans of the 1850s.
The tens of thousands of immigrants spilling over the U.S. southern border? Serves the Republicans perfectly, letting them avoid any real programs to remedy that problem -- because their real agenda, their only agenda, is to keep the MAGA base riled up, sensationalized, paranoid, full of hate just as the enslavers of the U.S. South wanted poorer whites to feel way back. They hated government programs then. They hated everything about Yankee urban, immigrant, diverse culture as counter to the proto-billionaire-ism for enslavers then.
The boasts that Biden has Arab moderate states coordinating diplomatically? I'd believe it were I to see any mention of anyone checking the far-right Israeli settlers as they ever thieve more West Bank land for themselves, ever provoke Palestinians there -- guaranteeing more madness such as birthed Hamas in the first place.
It's ironic that the majority of people baying for an airtight southern border are probably themselves the children or grandchildren of immigrants. Whatever happened to "Give me your tired and your poor..."?
I just bought the Khalidi book on the history of Palestine. I’ve read histories before, but I have to say, I am so confused. Why the unquestioned support of Israel, why the allowance of colonial settlers, why arm Israel to teeth in a war they have as much as said is aimed at the genocide
of a people. I know it is complicated, but Bibi is horrendous. How did he get back in office?
Hold on to your hats and be ready for anything because anything just might happen. We know we should have been hard at work yesterday and not be planning to start tomorrow. We can only do what we can do, better get on it now.
Nitwityahoo is in need of termination. Permanently. Along with the Fascist Fundamentalists masquerading as "Jews" of his cabal that's masquerading as a "government."
Assume that the Supreme Court rules, in January, 2024, that a President is not Criminally, or Civilly, liable for actions taken during his time in office. Assume in March, President Biden declares by Executive Order, National Martial Law using the Insurrection Act. In May he declares all individuals either indicted, or charged, and convicted, for Insurrection subject to the death penalty. The penalty is to be performed within 15 days of this Executive Order. In July 2024, Martial Law is rescinded and the election can proceed in November.
TONIGHT is a nightmare. Japan lost another airliner on the runway, the US is sinking terrorist boats, North Korea is flexing,
And 2024 is going to be a difficult year... we must hope that Ukraine, NATO and Moscow, Gaza, Lebanon, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthi's, the blessed Yazedi in Mount Sinjar, can find their way -
What’s more important, more complicated, more acute, more difficult...AND more dangerous - tonight - than the complex of issues and actions mentioned in tonight’s Letters from an American... I turn 85 this month, and well remember... the 1940s seem like yesterday. We had war everywhere, peace nowhere... and North Korea followed, then came Vietnam and Laos... with nuclear war threatened, On the Beach was playing... and people were thinking of moving to Australia or New Zealand and the children that had them were hiding under their desks for the fire drill... as SAC B-47s refueled over the Pole and visions of one way bombing with no return were the nightmare scenario .... well, tonight we can worry about Iran and the Houthi movement, Lebanon again, GAZA, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran... not Kuwait, we devoted 550,000 troops called up by GHWB for that one... but it never ignited, while this one is overdue for a major conflagration...
We are looking down the barrel... and it's hot. Should Israel pop a few more Hezbollah and Houthi boats in the Gulf... should Iran tempt our fly boys, should we fire into the hot zone with missiles... and kill and kill and kill... Hamas will be a distant memory as we mop up Iran, avenge Nadia Murad's Yazidi people in Mount Sinjar, they may be the oldest religion in north eastern Iraq, they have their own Pope... and ISIS wants to do to them what Hamas to Iran wants to do with us...
Cuba is no longer on the path... the poverty is heavy, the boom box music in Havana.. Haiti is erupting, Venezuela is a total mess, Mexico is over run, and warming and war are combined to send them... they are never going back, either, and many of lost everything...
Maybe it is a necessary diplomatic step, but I don't see how a so-called two state solution is either a solution or even a salve on wounds regarding the governance and sovereignty challenges in the territories that are under Israel's domination. Would some sort of superior plus inferior state situation put to rest the many grievances of the Palestinians? If not, would it provide Israel with a sense of long term security with its neighbor? Plus there is the issue of the West Bank settlements that were established after the '67 and '73 wars. Would a so-called two state solution just forget about those and the old deal about a Palestinian capital in some portion of Jerusalem, which was part of what was being negotiated back in the late '70s?
It sounds an awful lot like Quanah Parker's fairly eloquent description of how Native Americans felt about their ever shrinking territories, and then reservations. He invited his questioner to sit with him on a log in his front yard, and then asked him to move over a bit. He kept on asking his guest to move over, until he fell off the end of the log - question answered.
Then there is the longer term likelihood that the current cycle of periodic violence will recur sometime in the future. Even if every last member of Hamas is killed, the grievances and lack of equal justice under fair laws and symbols of nationhood that are personally meaningful to all, surely some children not yet born will grow up hating everything Israel stands for relative to the Palestinians. And just as there is a steady stream of new generations of Armenians, Kurds, and even some Greeks who grow up unhappy with the Turks and what they either did in the past or are doing now, going back to the days of Mustafa Kemel Ataturk, it would seem that any conceivable two state solution would guarantee the same for the Israeli and Palestinian relations. I just don't see how two states is a meaningful concept in any sentence that includes the word "solution."
"News flying in...", "pieces moving around the board... " . The world in turmoil...
And yet the puffed up, self-important folks are off on holiday for another week... another one.... letting it brew and getting their spanners ready to throw in the works. Then they will feel more important and consequential.
Israel (Netanyahu) won't see the light until we threaten or actually cut aid or really get in his face. He's a smug as Trump and. just as corrupt. The coalition to rebuild Palestine is the most encouraging news in a sea of despair.
That so many of the Islamic and Arab countries have called for a peaceful resolution based on a two-state solution is encouraging. Perhaps the Israelis will finally see the light, and end their persecution of Palestine, and Hamas will be out of power. A glimmer of hope in a situation that has festered for too long.
I’ll say it again, please everyone email the White House and tell President Biden to start a Fireside Chat reminiscent of FDR. He needs to get his message out and he is not doing so now. You can go on the White House site and repeat the request every day.
'Lots of pieces moving around the board on this second day of January 2024.' (Letter)
Is that not prose poetry at this time of what, uncertainty mixed with woe? Today's letter
is full of events, questions and threats. Our presidential election is crucial and not alone
in its importance.
The following is a long excerpt by Ishaan Tharoor with Mikhail Klimentov, in Washington Post's newsletter, Today's WorldView, as appears today.
'More than 60 countries, with some 4 billion people, are set to stage national elections in 2024. That means roughly half the planet could go to the polls in what could be the greatest rolling spectacle of democracy in human history.'
'We might not see this number of elections matched until 2048, when the world’s political landscape could look considerably different. The “third wave” of democracy — the steady global expansion of democratic governments that surged through the end of the Cold War — has ebbed over the past decade. Elections are still staged, but the underlying political culture seems to be shifting worldwide.'
'In society after society, illiberal values and politicians who embrace them are gaining ground. Numerous elected governments seem bent on undermining core tenets of the democratic project, from the freedom of the press to the independence of institutions such as the judiciary to the ability of opposition parties to fairly compete against the ruling establishment.'
'According to Freedom House, a Washington think tank that monitors the health of democracies, global freedom declined for the 17th consecutive year in 2023. The organization’s annual report cites a wave of coups that ousted elected leaders in Africa and increasing threats to the rights of journalists in dozens of countries. Separately, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, a Sweden-based intergovernmental watchdog, said in its annual report that “across every region of the world, democracy has continued to contract” and that 2022 marked a sixth consecutive year in which more countries experienced net democratic declines than improvements, per its data. It projects that 2023 will be no better.'
'The news this year could be more drastic still. The outcomes of pivotal elections in the United States — the world’s oldest democracy — and India — the world’s largest — may underscore a deepening public appetite for norm-bending strongman rule. In their shadow, elections from Mexico to the European Union to Bangladesh may each offer their own showcase of the growing traction of nationalist, authoritarian politics. “We’re electing illiberal leaders democratically,” Maria Ressa, a prominent journalist and Nobel laureate from the Philippines, said during an address to the National Press Club in Washington in September. “We will know whether democracy lives or dies by the end of 2024.” (WAPO)
So let me get this straight. The US is sending money and selling arms to Israel, which will be used to murder Palestinians. And the US is sending money for humanitarian aid to Palestine so that we can help the victims of Israeli attacks. The world is beyond crazy.
I don't agree with the conclusion about lots of pieces moving about the board.
Heather Cox Richardson's today (good economic news in the U.S. notwithstanding) instead emphasizes the ongoing paralysis by which Republicans throttle their own country.
Early on she notes how, "The Republican House has been one of the least effective in history," but of course we all know that do-nothing-ism deliberately repeats for us now the know-nothing-ism of similarly racist and hate-filled Americans of the 1850s.
The tens of thousands of immigrants spilling over the U.S. southern border? Serves the Republicans perfectly, letting them avoid any real programs to remedy that problem -- because their real agenda, their only agenda, is to keep the MAGA base riled up, sensationalized, paranoid, full of hate just as the enslavers of the U.S. South wanted poorer whites to feel way back. They hated government programs then. They hated everything about Yankee urban, immigrant, diverse culture as counter to the proto-billionaire-ism for enslavers then.
The boasts that Biden has Arab moderate states coordinating diplomatically? I'd believe it were I to see any mention of anyone checking the far-right Israeli settlers as they ever thieve more West Bank land for themselves, ever provoke Palestinians there -- guaranteeing more madness such as birthed Hamas in the first place.
There’s so much going on. I appreciate the concise and extremely clear summary. No wonder my head felt like it was on a swivel.
It's ironic that the majority of people baying for an airtight southern border are probably themselves the children or grandchildren of immigrants. Whatever happened to "Give me your tired and your poor..."?
I just bought the Khalidi book on the history of Palestine. I’ve read histories before, but I have to say, I am so confused. Why the unquestioned support of Israel, why the allowance of colonial settlers, why arm Israel to teeth in a war they have as much as said is aimed at the genocide
of a people. I know it is complicated, but Bibi is horrendous. How did he get back in office?
Hold on to your hats and be ready for anything because anything just might happen. We know we should have been hard at work yesterday and not be planning to start tomorrow. We can only do what we can do, better get on it now.
Nitwityahoo is in need of termination. Permanently. Along with the Fascist Fundamentalists masquerading as "Jews" of his cabal that's masquerading as a "government."
Assume that the Supreme Court rules, in January, 2024, that a President is not Criminally, or Civilly, liable for actions taken during his time in office. Assume in March, President Biden declares by Executive Order, National Martial Law using the Insurrection Act. In May he declares all individuals either indicted, or charged, and convicted, for Insurrection subject to the death penalty. The penalty is to be performed within 15 days of this Executive Order. In July 2024, Martial Law is rescinded and the election can proceed in November.
Would President Biden have permanent Immunity?
TONIGHT is a nightmare. Japan lost another airliner on the runway, the US is sinking terrorist boats, North Korea is flexing,
And 2024 is going to be a difficult year... we must hope that Ukraine, NATO and Moscow, Gaza, Lebanon, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthi's, the blessed Yazedi in Mount Sinjar, can find their way -
What’s more important, more complicated, more acute, more difficult...AND more dangerous - tonight - than the complex of issues and actions mentioned in tonight’s Letters from an American... I turn 85 this month, and well remember... the 1940s seem like yesterday. We had war everywhere, peace nowhere... and North Korea followed, then came Vietnam and Laos... with nuclear war threatened, On the Beach was playing... and people were thinking of moving to Australia or New Zealand and the children that had them were hiding under their desks for the fire drill... as SAC B-47s refueled over the Pole and visions of one way bombing with no return were the nightmare scenario .... well, tonight we can worry about Iran and the Houthi movement, Lebanon again, GAZA, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran... not Kuwait, we devoted 550,000 troops called up by GHWB for that one... but it never ignited, while this one is overdue for a major conflagration...
We are looking down the barrel... and it's hot. Should Israel pop a few more Hezbollah and Houthi boats in the Gulf... should Iran tempt our fly boys, should we fire into the hot zone with missiles... and kill and kill and kill... Hamas will be a distant memory as we mop up Iran, avenge Nadia Murad's Yazidi people in Mount Sinjar, they may be the oldest religion in north eastern Iraq, they have their own Pope... and ISIS wants to do to them what Hamas to Iran wants to do with us...
Cuba is no longer on the path... the poverty is heavy, the boom box music in Havana.. Haiti is erupting, Venezuela is a total mess, Mexico is over run, and warming and war are combined to send them... they are never going back, either, and many of lost everything...
Maybe it is a necessary diplomatic step, but I don't see how a so-called two state solution is either a solution or even a salve on wounds regarding the governance and sovereignty challenges in the territories that are under Israel's domination. Would some sort of superior plus inferior state situation put to rest the many grievances of the Palestinians? If not, would it provide Israel with a sense of long term security with its neighbor? Plus there is the issue of the West Bank settlements that were established after the '67 and '73 wars. Would a so-called two state solution just forget about those and the old deal about a Palestinian capital in some portion of Jerusalem, which was part of what was being negotiated back in the late '70s?
It sounds an awful lot like Quanah Parker's fairly eloquent description of how Native Americans felt about their ever shrinking territories, and then reservations. He invited his questioner to sit with him on a log in his front yard, and then asked him to move over a bit. He kept on asking his guest to move over, until he fell off the end of the log - question answered.
Then there is the longer term likelihood that the current cycle of periodic violence will recur sometime in the future. Even if every last member of Hamas is killed, the grievances and lack of equal justice under fair laws and symbols of nationhood that are personally meaningful to all, surely some children not yet born will grow up hating everything Israel stands for relative to the Palestinians. And just as there is a steady stream of new generations of Armenians, Kurds, and even some Greeks who grow up unhappy with the Turks and what they either did in the past or are doing now, going back to the days of Mustafa Kemel Ataturk, it would seem that any conceivable two state solution would guarantee the same for the Israeli and Palestinian relations. I just don't see how two states is a meaningful concept in any sentence that includes the word "solution."
"News flying in...", "pieces moving around the board... " . The world in turmoil...
And yet the puffed up, self-important folks are off on holiday for another week... another one.... letting it brew and getting their spanners ready to throw in the works. Then they will feel more important and consequential.
What would we do without you to pull these disparate pieces together in a coherent manner?
Today's events feels like the starting gun went off to start 2024. So much for easing back into things after the holidays!
Israel (Netanyahu) won't see the light until we threaten or actually cut aid or really get in his face. He's a smug as Trump and. just as corrupt. The coalition to rebuild Palestine is the most encouraging news in a sea of despair.