Along with these challenges ...which will not end......I want to praise the brilliant, freedom-loving men and women who sacrifice themselves....their gifts, talents, time (and for their precious families who sacrifice their presence) for working with other countries to maintain peace and a better goodness in this world.
It is easy to blame and "throw stones" but peace...negotiation is difficult. My heart is deeply moved by the leaders of other nations who have been a major part of these negotiations.
Peace is more profitable for everyone except for those who deal in weapons of war.
President Joe Biden and his team have demonstrated that negotion works. He has demonstrated that people of various faiths/beliefs can work together and want to work together for a more productive and profitable world for everyone.
President Joe Biden and his brilliant, hardworking team have shown us what is possible. Other powerful leaders in this world have demonstrated that peace and decency are possible.
Younger or older....who stands in higher regard at home or around the world, than our President Joe Biden and the USA's team of diplomats? (I do not believe the polls!)
Thank you, Emily, for this post especially your noting that negotiations are difficult. I have great impatience with those who persist on throwing stones. Also you note the profits of war which Mitch points out when he observes that help to Ukraine gives profit to defense industries here. I did love Heather noting how much we spend on beer and snacks in contrast to foreign aid. That is somehow disgusting.
The stats on beer and snacks were eye opening. So, we as an overweight nation could use to lose a few pounds, improve our health, and keep Russia from over powering Eastern Europe. What a win win opportunity..
Credit where it's due, Heather was quoting Tom Nichols on the beer and snacks numbers. Tom's article is well written and worth reading if you can access The Atlantic.
You should submit your statement to your newspaper(s). We certainly see very little press on all the good the Biden/Harris Team is doing on many different fronts, foreign and domestic. It’s up to each of us to spread the word.
How can you say Biden has done a great job of diplomacy? It took him over a month to get some progress. Yet in that time over 15,000 Gaza citizens, close half of them children, have been killed by Israeli bombings. Biden could have stopped this by telling the Israel right wing leaders to stope it immediately by telling them that the U.S. would stop giving them $Billion and weapons. I believe Joe has done a really good job as president in most other areas, but it's obvious he's afraid of AIPAC's influence on Congress and many Jewish voters. He may have cost himself the next presidential election by not stopping this awful war in its tracks. If he and Congress live in Hell, which is Gaza and the West Bank, and had no power to get out, they might actually understand the meaning of the word 'fear.' That is my opinion, and I am not an anti-Semite.
I get your point - though I believe that, unlike Trump, Biden chooses to engage by the rules - our checks and balances, influencing rather than demanding actions by sovereign states.
Thank you. I believe Biden is out of step and has been unsympathetic to Palestine all his life. He has the power to shut down this war but decided instead to allow Israel to kill 11,000 (6,000 of whom are children, according to Al Jazeera) people. Indeed, Biden blew it.
Yes, and Al Jazeera network has been the only network with journalists actually in Gaza reporting the real stories. Israel and the U.S. told them to stop telling the truth from Gaza. I believe Al Jazeera ignored those warnings and is continuing their reporting.
I believe one of Al Jazeera's journalists had his entire family blown up in Gaza. I recall the Iraq war where Bush had an air strike destroy Al Jazeera's Baghdad office, so nothing surprises me.
One thing I have read in several places is that the Palestinian Health Ministry is the only agency that has accurately reported on the number of casualties. Israel usually inflates the number of Israeli deaths and minimizes the number of Palestinians.
This is not really a war but an ongoing massacre. There is little point in it other than killing people with the excuse that they're looking for Hamas, who is probably running out of ammo, and Russia isn't able to send more. And this is not a ceasefire, but only a pause. When the hostages are exchanged, the bombing will resume. I wish people would stop calling it a ceasefire.
Maybe not an anti-semitre, but other deleterious adjectives describe you well; stupid, shortsighted, and COMPLETELY ill-informed. Why don’t YOU try some diplomacy with fold NOT MUCH INTERESTED in you OR working together AT ALL. Because that describes both Hamas a terrorist group AND Netanyahu, a bumbling, self- centered, and mostly criminal man - who recently invited Elon Musk to have a chat about APARTHEID. Get a grip. Richard Burrell.
Dana, you also have a right to comment here. Thanks for what you said. Perhaps you could go more deeply into what is happening in the Middle East. Have a great day!
Jeffery Sachs' opinions are somewhat limited. He neglects democratic aspirations of Syrians, Ukrainian, Libyans and Palestinians in favor of authoritarian regimes that unlike enlightened countries have no respect for the will of their populations and their neighbors borders.
I too have big questions around a lot of Sachs’ opinions and policies. He is, among many other “lauded” people also an apologist for Russia. I was encouraged to read his ideas by a family member who, after Russia invaded Ukraine stated that the world had absolutely nothing to fear in Putin. I was flabbergasted.
You were flabbergasted because you have been fed American propaganda from the cradle. We have far more to fear from our own government than from what Putin does.
Excuse me? We, and I’m talking America here, have wrecked the democratic aspirations of every one of the peoples you noted, via proxy war, coup/proxy war, assassination, and acquiescence to apartheid, respectively.
I heard that it's okay to annex Ukraine. Rule of law, 70% vote ousting your puppet president and treaties don't matter if you control an Army. Didn't matter in Georgia and Chechnya so it shouldn't matter in Ukraine, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, East Germany... sorry not the 18th century any more. NATO worked to preserve peace and prosperity for 75 years. It works!
The thing I admire about Sachs is that he learns from his mistakes. He helped wreck Russia in the 90s, but then realized the IMF/World Bank austerity/privatize path just opens the door to oligarchy.
Many high-placed Americans "helped wreck Russia in the 90s."
New Ivy League grads in finance, older, distinguished U.S. banks, and a U.S. Department of State eager to befriend and fund the most rotten of former Soviet and secret police officials.
Even then, this coddling of high-placed corruption wasn't new. U.S. Marine General Smedley Butler from his own lifetime experience spoke with disgust of it 90 years ago, at the same time Stalin was first trying mass murder on the Ukrainians, as Heather Cox Richardson today here commemorates.
Smedley Butler has many more admirers than just me. It horrifies me that all the modern generals and people appointed by Trump that are warning us about Trump aren't being listened to as Smedley Butler was. Perhaps, back then the plotters were more ashamed of being exposed.
Now, the Citizens United undercutting our ability to limit the ability of the rich and powerful to have domineering influence over who provides our news has put us seriously at a disadvantage to be heard (and have all our votes counted).
The plutocrats seem to be copying the acquiescence of the German industrialists that thought they would benefit from Hitler gaining power they thought hey could manage.
Maybe Musk could give former president George W. Bush a free ride to Mars. I believe when Bush was the prez, he made the statement that he would like to go to mars.
Tom High, thanks so much for sharing what Jeffrey Sachs said to the U.N. I agree with him wholeheartedly. We must hope that the world powers will listen to him. One wonders if they ever will.
Destroying grain at the very moment the Horn and East Africa are in dire need because climate change is making their harvest fail is a crime against humanity. Truly grotesque.
I'm so grateful to have a government that faces such crisis head on and does the hard work of trying to solve it. While many of us turn away, not wanting to face the harsh realities I have such respect for those who work on solutions. Politicians and the political establishment from think tanks to ambassadors to negotiators to policy makers are not just parasites and opportunists. Some actually care to govern.
Yes, "Netanyahu and Hamas have expiration dates". But there is absolutely no equivalence between the two in regard to accomplishments, errors, crimes, how they got in power, how they stay in power, what kind of relationships they have with the rest of the world, how they will "expire", and the kinds of possibilities open up after that ... And your words, suggesting equivalence, reflect Dr. Richardson's ignorance and bias in this letter, I'm afraid.
Do you really find equivalence between "a terrorist organization" and being "far from a beacon of humanity"?
Listen - I'm not saying that Netanyahu has committed no errors or crimes or misuses of power .... but the numbers and degrees of misdeeds are simply not on the same scale.
No - hard to describe. Someone who has no hesitation at ordering the bombing of hospitals, refugee camps and ambulances with no thought of the many children and women that were killed may not be on the same scale as Hamas, but really hes doing the same thing! And frankly, the 39 Palestinians released from prisons - none over 19 - all security threats? I read there are 6,000 Palestinians in those prisons. All security threats?
Thank you for highlighting the war in Ukraine in your letter. It has been pushed to out of the spotlight by the Hamas/Israel conflict and likely will be again by the renewed government funding crisis.
It seems like even the former papers of record like the New York Times and Washington Post now believe their readership can no longer think about two issues at once, and that we no longer deserve broad and deep coverage of events. Instead we are getting horse-race polling and no policy coverage. This has been documented in an article from the Columbia Journalism Review.
It is time for all of us to start making our outrage at this known to the Boards of Directors and editorial boards of these companies. They have turned to subscriber based revenue models so subscriber-based outrage can get attention.
As WaPo motto says, "Democracy Dies in Darkness." We all have to do our part to make sure that our news outlets are held accountable for biased coverage and placement and resource allocation decisions being made by editorial boards.
Yes, Georgia. The Post and the Times headlines get it wrong frequently. But there is a lot of information in those publications, that if it were lost, we would suffer. They are more than headlines - they are engines of information. If we don't like their focus, tell them. If we want more information about a subject, tell them. Our "media" has a lot of problems. The incessant Biden vs Trump obsession drives me nuts. The polls are ridiculously obsessed with what could be a non-existent match-up. Trump is fading. Joe could change his mind. And why would he announce his departure before he had to? He would only "lame duck" himself. President Johnson announced his decision on March 31, 1968. Let's stop the speculation and know that if Joe did step aside there are dozens of wonderful candidates who would rise to the occasion. Or...Biden could follow the Diane Francis suggestion of replacing Harris with Newsom - talk about a campaign booster! I digress...but please compare our media with that of the UK or other nations. We could be a lot better. But we are also a lot better.
And only "Two issues at once"? I think most of us can think about several issues during the day. What haunts me is that every minute there is a story about the horrors of Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, our House Of Clowns - we are not talking about the destruction of our home.
A recent PBS Newshour segment highlighted the hypocrisy and horror of our so-called "recycling" of plastics to other countries. In the story, an authority in Thailand said that 70 to 80% of the plastic it receives is not processed or repurposed. It is taken to landfills, burned or simply dumped into waterways that lead to the ocean. OUR plastic. This is a disaster.
A recent story revealed that the largest percentage of microplastics in our oceans comes from vehicle tires - tiny bits of the tires flying off as we drive - washed into our water ways. The resulting pollution is found in our food supplies and now us. We are now walking talking plastic people. BTW, the heavier the vehicle, the faster the wear. EVs generally weigh 30% more than conventional autos. With the right focus and the right science, we could fix this.
All of what Senator Schumer proposes should be easy peasy logical legislation. And then we could get back to saving our home - that we are currently treating like a dump.
Bill Alstrom, yesterday I wrote that in effect, cancelling the NYT is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. It got around 20 “likes.” (Sorry I don’t have an exact count.) Thank you for writing at length.
We aren't going to cancel ours, Virginia, because of the many aspects of the Times I enjoy. I confess to not reading the op ed pages or most of their news, but my husband reads that part of it.
Yes, I too enjoy a lot of the Times, but am often infuriated. I have written many letters stating this but nothing really changes. The huge spread they did the other day on who Trump might pick as is VP was one such article. I looked at the reader’s comments. Huge numbers of them were really furious!
I keep my blood pressure low by not looking at articles like that. And it is infuriating. The guy is a criminal with 91 indictments and hopefully will be in jail sometime next year. Also he is increasingly senile and it shows despite his handlers trying to hide it. He goes off script and then it's bonkers time.
I have a huge file of recipes from the NYT. I do sometimes cook them. I also belong to the Burlap and Barrel spice blog where people are cooking up astounding things. The WaPo now has a way to access their recipes.
Bill, that plastics/old -technology- parts story was also on CBS Sunday morning. It was a devastating indictment of our developed world's wasteful lifestyle. We dump our waste on other, poorer countries whose people( including lots of young men and children) do " urban mining" in very toxic landfills to find copper and other components which they sell for a pittance. It was such a disturbing and horrific story. One suggestion was that the makers of the products be held responsible for and reclaim the waste they produce. Samsung was the only company to give an interview and they have begun, and are extending, projects to do just that.
The "outsourcing" of our trash should be illegal. Maybe if we had to deal with it here, we would change our ways. Our recycling programs are not serious. There are very few restrictions on single use plastics. Our town does not permit single use plastic bags at retailers. The town next door will not allow the sale of bottle water in plastic containers (it's not really healthier, anyway). It's a small something.
The process of "single stream recycling" is a joke. There are places where glass, plastic and paper products are completely separated. It's easy to do. But we are lazy.
True. But we outsource our rubbish because we are a self-serving first world behemoth, of course. The outsourcing doesn't include the megatons of plastic trash we dump in the oceans. But it's all good because we've got wind farms and EVs. Next we'll ship our crap to other planets, no doubt.
I too am questioning the reporting of the "news." Why is it that at the beginning of this Israeli/Hamas mess, we were told that the Palestinian prisoners freed 3 to 1 Jew were terrorists and criminals and that just yesterday I learned that that many of the 3000 Palestinians detained by the Israeli authority are women and boys under the age of 18? Why were they abducted and detained and given no reason? Why is this group referred to as prisoners and not hostages? Why don't we hear about the pain the Palestinians feel after having their family members abducted? Why don't we hear how the Palestinians in the West Bank feel having Israeli soldiers running around with machine guns (a very powerful symbol BTW) harassing them? Why are Jewish settlers encouraged to land-grab in Palestinian neighborhoods? It is the Israeli government that is to blame for hate crimes against innocent Jews around the world and the US is complicit! No more 3 billion/year carte blanche for the Israeli government!
Its a truly awful disease - I had a cousin diagnosed at 80 and a friend who passed away last year after a fairly short time with it - it just completely wiped him out. And I'm not surprised that its linked to plastic pollution. I watched the story on Sunday morning too (Carol mentioned above). What destruction this technology brings down on other countries just so our consumption can keep on!
Georgia, I cancelled my subscription (after almost 40 years) to NYT last year just after the ‘22 elections. Their obviously biased polling, Red Wave nonsense and as you noted, lack of policy coverage, was dangerous to our democracy in my opinion, and I was done with their agenda.
You have to call in order to cancel a subscription and I was subjected to one of the worst marketing pushes I’ve ever endured - it took over 20 minutes just to cancel - Really? When asked why I was cancelling, the guy on the other end actually started arguing about the premise for my anger and subsequent decision to cancel. Talk about hubris!
I sent a scathing letter to the Board of Directors. I followed up with several letters to the editor.
Crickets.
Your ideas are valid and will definitely help long term. But after thinking about this a great deal myself, my choice is to spend whatever spare time I have helping get out the vote in 2024. And whatever extra money I have on good candidates, important campaigns, and the best Substack has to offer (HCR, Robert Hubbell, Bill McKibben, Joyce White Vance, Jessica Craven, more).
When I was in college, my J school professors insisted that students subscribe to one national paper and our home town newspaper.
I highly doubt they would recommend the New York Times these days.
Good you told them why your were canceling. But my fear is that cancelations just drive them further towards clickbait because it is more profitable because it is cheaper to produce. I just posted another article on my Substack on a huge essay that A. G. Sulzberger, the publisher of the NY Times ,wrote back in May on the independent press in the Columbia Journalism Review., the place that jsut published the damning statistics on coverage of policy a week ago. Sulzberger is self-justifying and completely misses the forest for the trees. It is breathtaking in how far off the mark and naive he is. We have to do more to protest or there will lose an independent free press forever.
NYT doesn't depend as much on its online subscriptions as it does its print newspaper, so clickbait isn't a reason to support a newspaper (realistically, subscribing to stop the influx of clickbait?). None of the content in the NYT is free - there's a paywall, so they get their money.
Protest? How? Newspapers have been dying off for decades. Don't worry about the NYT; the real tragedy is the loss of smaller, local papers.
Or you can hit them where it hurts and cancel your subscription. Just because you don't have access doesn't mean you won't know what they are writing as most outlets (including this one) report any "fit" to print news they might offer.
I personally subscribe to the "be part of the solution to make it better" school of thought. But if you do cancel, tell them why--and not just Sulzberger but the whole Corporate Board.
I unsubscribed a month ago! My long time habit of surfing the NYT has ended. I am happy to report the quality of my life is still very good! WAPO subscription ends in a couple weeks. I soldier on...
This Columbia University review looked at the New York Times coverage of the issues 3 months prior to the 2020 election and concluded “If voters had wanted to educate themselves on issues, they would not have learned much from reading the Times.” They said it was typical of other major outlets as well, but I trust that is not reassuring.
“We found that the Times and the Post shared significant overlap in their domestic politics coverage, offering little insight into policy. Both emphasized the horse race and campaign palace intrigue, stories that functioned more to entertain readers than to educate them on essential differences between political parties. The main point of contrast we found between the two papers was that, while the Post delved more into topics Democrats generally want to discuss—affirmative action, police reform, LGBTQ rights—the Times tended to focus on subjects important to Republicans—China, immigration, and crime."
I have been a long-time digital subscriber deeply interested in the issues and policies and I want to hear more about the substantive programs President Biden’s team is successfully reaching across the aisle to implement.
A colleague recently wrote...”Biden has worked for the working class; Trump worked for the oligarchs. Biden passed a massive infrastructure bill; Trump did not. Biden was part of the Obama administration and helped pass the ACA; Trump claimed he would “repeal and replace Obamacare” and failed to do either. Trump bullied NATO partners to organize without the help of the US; Biden reinforced our relationship with our European partners, as well as our Asian-Pacific partners with coalitions that strengthen the bargaining power of smaller countries with our influence. Through Trump’s reckless spending cuts to balance all the tax giveaways he offered to the rich, the Infectious Disease team stationed in Wuhan China was scrapped three months before the nexus of COVID 19. Biden coordinated and executed one of the largest US vaccination initiatives since the polio vaccine, bringing back a stronger, more sustainable economy to the USA and North America as a whole. Why isn’t anybody talking about this? “
I strongly encourage the board to in turn, encourage editors and writers to participate more positively, more actively in “deeply reporting” as you say in your editorial mission. Accurate information on policy in the days, weeks, and months ahead of the 2024 election are crucial. Thank you. "
Value Act is an activist investor group that likes to work with companies for the long term to improve profitability. The have recently established a sizeable position in NYT stock.
"It seems like even the former papers of record like the New York Times and Washington Post now believe their readership can no longer think about two issues at once..."
If that were the truth, democracy would indeed die in darkness. We cannot self-govern without sufficient information about what is going on. I suppose we still have that, if one digs; but we need it from "town criers" as well, so that few get left out. The "media" felt like a public asset during the Vietnam War and Watergate, but lately there has been far too much in-bedded journalism.
My local paper of record, The Dallas Morning News, does a decent job, considering that they are in crazy Texas. However, they have a delivery problem with their print edition. It only comes half the time. I have complained every way I know how, besides cancelling. The response is, “people just don’t want to work anymore.” What BS. Papers can’t be delivered on bikes anymore, so pay people enough to get the job done. Anyway, I have wondered if they want people to just go digital so they won’t have to bother with print anymore. I am trying to support my local paper, but they don’t support my need to get what I pay for. BTW, if people don’t want to work anymore, why are so many trying to hold down two jobs. Sorry for the early morning rant…
Jeri I can't find a neighborhood kid to help me with heavy outdoor work around the house for 25. an hour cash. Insane. We used to help our neighbors because they were our neighbors. Everything seems transactional today.
You can't work with your nose in your cell phone or other devices. At Thanksgiving we talked about problems in various institutions. Our neighbor's daughter is a cardiac nurse in Portland and she described how broken the health system is. She described one case where plain old red tape got in the way of the needs of the patient. We agreed that the pandemic has made everything much worse. One of the things we also talked about was getting an appointment with the vet. Ours is excellent, but very busy especially after a local clinic went corporate. If some corporation or hedge fund is involved, you can be sure that whatever they buy will go down hill. And everything is transactional because everything is a commodity. Read Braiding Sweetgrass for a view on this.
When I worked at high school, I always knew some kids who were happy to earn some money. Since then, nada. Yep, different world. Although grands work in fast food, hope temporary.
Also less social. Less in person interaction between neighbors period, in my experience, myself included. I think that hunger for community is part of what fuels the MAGA cult.
In all likelihood people don't want to work at a job where they can't make a living. We learned during the height of the Pandemic just how much we depend on social workers. Wages need to be adjusted and we need the very wealthy to show more patriotism by funding more of the cost of government. It's to their benefit more than anyone else's.
In assisted living where I live, many work two jobs. I'm sure they love it, NOT. Yep, the rich need to pay fair share. Which they have defined as nothing.
So, Jeri, what is the solution? From my vantage point, the workers need to unite and this means unions. Without the ability to bring strength in numbers to the negotiating table, they'll end up with subsistence wages, assuming that there is any such thing as a negotiating table. The other possibility is minimum wage laws. Good luck with this idea in Trump-dominated states.
…on the ‘Rich Getting Richer’ by not paying their fair share front…. The new guy joining the GOP race for the White House, Stuckenberg, making one of his major planks to eliminate inheritance tax. In NYS, I believe inheritance isn’t taxed until it is valued over 1 mil. Who’s that plank for?
Agreed. The wealthy just need to pay a fair share of taxes or pay them at all. The author of Poverty, by America says that if people just paid their taxes, we would be in much better shape.
The "Middle Class" was growing when taxes on the wealthy and corporations was much higher. It's complicated and while the the 1950's middle class was largely white and male, efforts at inclusion seems to expand up to Reagan; but who gained and who a suffered as a consequence of 40+ years of Reaganomic laws and policies? The truth is out there.
Thank you Heather.
These things linger:
* Netanyahu and Hamas have expiration dates
* Funding our government and defending democracy
* Stalin and now Putin’s attempts to erase the Ukrainian identity
Such a dynamic time we live in. We truly are living at the precipice.
Jean-Pierre Garau,
Agree with these major challenges!
Along with these challenges ...which will not end......I want to praise the brilliant, freedom-loving men and women who sacrifice themselves....their gifts, talents, time (and for their precious families who sacrifice their presence) for working with other countries to maintain peace and a better goodness in this world.
It is easy to blame and "throw stones" but peace...negotiation is difficult. My heart is deeply moved by the leaders of other nations who have been a major part of these negotiations.
Peace is more profitable for everyone except for those who deal in weapons of war.
President Joe Biden and his team have demonstrated that negotion works. He has demonstrated that people of various faiths/beliefs can work together and want to work together for a more productive and profitable world for everyone.
President Joe Biden and his brilliant, hardworking team have shown us what is possible. Other powerful leaders in this world have demonstrated that peace and decency are possible.
Younger or older....who stands in higher regard at home or around the world, than our President Joe Biden and the USA's team of diplomats? (I do not believe the polls!)
I would like to share your post on the WH fb page. The MAGA s are posting in full force & I think we need to show them there are more of us than them!
Yes!
Excellent idea Carole!
Thank you, Emily, for this post especially your noting that negotiations are difficult. I have great impatience with those who persist on throwing stones. Also you note the profits of war which Mitch points out when he observes that help to Ukraine gives profit to defense industries here. I did love Heather noting how much we spend on beer and snacks in contrast to foreign aid. That is somehow disgusting.
You can drop the modifier “somehow”, or replace it with “completely”.
The stats on beer and snacks were eye opening. So, we as an overweight nation could use to lose a few pounds, improve our health, and keep Russia from over powering Eastern Europe. What a win win opportunity..
Credit where it's due, Heather was quoting Tom Nichols on the beer and snacks numbers. Tom's article is well written and worth reading if you can access The Atlantic.
We do subscribe to the online Atlantic which I read nearly every day.
Tom's articles are a high point, but it's a daily must for me too.
Emily,
Beautifully stated.
You should submit your statement to your newspaper(s). We certainly see very little press on all the good the Biden/Harris Team is doing on many different fronts, foreign and domestic. It’s up to each of us to spread the word.
How can you say Biden has done a great job of diplomacy? It took him over a month to get some progress. Yet in that time over 15,000 Gaza citizens, close half of them children, have been killed by Israeli bombings. Biden could have stopped this by telling the Israel right wing leaders to stope it immediately by telling them that the U.S. would stop giving them $Billion and weapons. I believe Joe has done a really good job as president in most other areas, but it's obvious he's afraid of AIPAC's influence on Congress and many Jewish voters. He may have cost himself the next presidential election by not stopping this awful war in its tracks. If he and Congress live in Hell, which is Gaza and the West Bank, and had no power to get out, they might actually understand the meaning of the word 'fear.' That is my opinion, and I am not an anti-Semite.
I get your point - though I believe that, unlike Trump, Biden chooses to engage by the rules - our checks and balances, influencing rather than demanding actions by sovereign states.
Thank you. I believe Biden is out of step and has been unsympathetic to Palestine all his life. He has the power to shut down this war but decided instead to allow Israel to kill 11,000 (6,000 of whom are children, according to Al Jazeera) people. Indeed, Biden blew it.
Yes, and Al Jazeera network has been the only network with journalists actually in Gaza reporting the real stories. Israel and the U.S. told them to stop telling the truth from Gaza. I believe Al Jazeera ignored those warnings and is continuing their reporting.
I believe one of Al Jazeera's journalists had his entire family blown up in Gaza. I recall the Iraq war where Bush had an air strike destroy Al Jazeera's Baghdad office, so nothing surprises me.
One thing I have read in several places is that the Palestinian Health Ministry is the only agency that has accurately reported on the number of casualties. Israel usually inflates the number of Israeli deaths and minimizes the number of Palestinians.
This is not really a war but an ongoing massacre. There is little point in it other than killing people with the excuse that they're looking for Hamas, who is probably running out of ammo, and Russia isn't able to send more. And this is not a ceasefire, but only a pause. When the hostages are exchanged, the bombing will resume. I wish people would stop calling it a ceasefire.
Maybe not an anti-semitre, but other deleterious adjectives describe you well; stupid, shortsighted, and COMPLETELY ill-informed. Why don’t YOU try some diplomacy with fold NOT MUCH INTERESTED in you OR working together AT ALL. Because that describes both Hamas a terrorist group AND Netanyahu, a bumbling, self- centered, and mostly criminal man - who recently invited Elon Musk to have a chat about APARTHEID. Get a grip. Richard Burrell.
Dana, you also have a right to comment here. Thanks for what you said. Perhaps you could go more deeply into what is happening in the Middle East. Have a great day!
Very well said, Jean-Pierre and Emily.
And agree w/ Carole, would like to share with attribution.
Yes, standing at the precipice, looking into the abyss, shining a light on the enablers and the perpetrators.
As long as we’re talking about shining a light, and enablers and perpetrators. Sachs at the UN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm4qLWc_Co0&t=0s
Jeffery Sachs' opinions are somewhat limited. He neglects democratic aspirations of Syrians, Ukrainian, Libyans and Palestinians in favor of authoritarian regimes that unlike enlightened countries have no respect for the will of their populations and their neighbors borders.
I too have big questions around a lot of Sachs’ opinions and policies. He is, among many other “lauded” people also an apologist for Russia. I was encouraged to read his ideas by a family member who, after Russia invaded Ukraine stated that the world had absolutely nothing to fear in Putin. I was flabbergasted.
https://youtu.be/D_3itcQ9wqQ?si=WJBPFgts-yQNNaRO
Time 10:19 Salman Rushdie at his Peace Prize acceptance explains the different definitions of peace and freedom.
Worth the time if you have it.
Fabulous talk, beautifully illustrated with fables which help us see the complexity of truth. THANK YOU!
You were flabbergasted because you have been fed American propaganda from the cradle. We have far more to fear from our own government than from what Putin does.
Excuse me? We, and I’m talking America here, have wrecked the democratic aspirations of every one of the peoples you noted, via proxy war, coup/proxy war, assassination, and acquiescence to apartheid, respectively.
Get a clue.
What does your opinion of the US' foreign policy have to do with a subscriber's opinion of Jeffery Sachs?
You’re a smart guy, Fern. I’m sure you can figure it out. Might have something to do with ‘democratic aspirations’.
Aaron, I wonder if we both heard what Jeffrey Sachs said.
I heard that it's okay to annex Ukraine. Rule of law, 70% vote ousting your puppet president and treaties don't matter if you control an Army. Didn't matter in Georgia and Chechnya so it shouldn't matter in Ukraine, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, East Germany... sorry not the 18th century any more. NATO worked to preserve peace and prosperity for 75 years. It works!
Thank You.
Sachs is a brilliant man.
The thing I admire about Sachs is that he learns from his mistakes. He helped wreck Russia in the 90s, but then realized the IMF/World Bank austerity/privatize path just opens the door to oligarchy.
Many high-placed Americans "helped wreck Russia in the 90s."
New Ivy League grads in finance, older, distinguished U.S. banks, and a U.S. Department of State eager to befriend and fund the most rotten of former Soviet and secret police officials.
Even then, this coddling of high-placed corruption wasn't new. U.S. Marine General Smedley Butler from his own lifetime experience spoke with disgust of it 90 years ago, at the same time Stalin was first trying mass murder on the Ukrainians, as Heather Cox Richardson today here commemorates.
Smedley Butler has many more admirers than just me. It horrifies me that all the modern generals and people appointed by Trump that are warning us about Trump aren't being listened to as Smedley Butler was. Perhaps, back then the plotters were more ashamed of being exposed.
Now, the Citizens United undercutting our ability to limit the ability of the rich and powerful to have domineering influence over who provides our news has put us seriously at a disadvantage to be heard (and have all our votes counted).
The plutocrats seem to be copying the acquiescence of the German industrialists that thought they would benefit from Hitler gaining power they thought hey could manage.
See https://www.rsn.org/001/billionaires-are-lining-up-to-fund-donald-trumps-antidemocratic-agenda.html
Musk is going to visit the Israeli president to be scolded for his antisemitism too.
I wish Musk would fly into a black hole.
I wish he'd set up his Mars biodome for billionaires already, and settle there for good.
Maybe Musk could give former president George W. Bush a free ride to Mars. I believe when Bush was the prez, he made the statement that he would like to go to mars.
Tom High, thanks so much for sharing what Jeffrey Sachs said to the U.N. I agree with him wholeheartedly. We must hope that the world powers will listen to him. One wonders if they ever will.
Which precipice are you referring to?
WWIII, the end of democracy in America and elsewhere, mass starvation thanks to Russia blocking and destroying grain.......
Maybe precipices, or will one do…
Definitely plural.
Destroying grain at the very moment the Horn and East Africa are in dire need because climate change is making their harvest fail is a crime against humanity. Truly grotesque.
Yes.
Must deal with the end of '23 & the start of 2024 now.
I'm so grateful to have a government that faces such crisis head on and does the hard work of trying to solve it. While many of us turn away, not wanting to face the harsh realities I have such respect for those who work on solutions. Politicians and the political establishment from think tanks to ambassadors to negotiators to policy makers are not just parasites and opportunists. Some actually care to govern.
Yes, "Netanyahu and Hamas have expiration dates". But there is absolutely no equivalence between the two in regard to accomplishments, errors, crimes, how they got in power, how they stay in power, what kind of relationships they have with the rest of the world, how they will "expire", and the kinds of possibilities open up after that ... And your words, suggesting equivalence, reflect Dr. Richardson's ignorance and bias in this letter, I'm afraid.
more of an equivalence than not - Netanyahu - his corruption - wasnt he indicted for it?
Yes Hamas is a terrorist organization - Netanyahu is far from a beacon of humanity.
Do you really find equivalence between "a terrorist organization" and being "far from a beacon of humanity"?
Listen - I'm not saying that Netanyahu has committed no errors or crimes or misuses of power .... but the numbers and degrees of misdeeds are simply not on the same scale.
No - hard to describe. Someone who has no hesitation at ordering the bombing of hospitals, refugee camps and ambulances with no thought of the many children and women that were killed may not be on the same scale as Hamas, but really hes doing the same thing! And frankly, the 39 Palestinians released from prisons - none over 19 - all security threats? I read there are 6,000 Palestinians in those prisons. All security threats?
I would add the figures regarding the amounts spent on snacks and beer. Speaks volumes about our real priorities, and it is embarrassing.
We may well be living in dynamic times but personally, I’d appreciate a little less dynamism in my life.
Thank you for highlighting the war in Ukraine in your letter. It has been pushed to out of the spotlight by the Hamas/Israel conflict and likely will be again by the renewed government funding crisis.
It seems like even the former papers of record like the New York Times and Washington Post now believe their readership can no longer think about two issues at once, and that we no longer deserve broad and deep coverage of events. Instead we are getting horse-race polling and no policy coverage. This has been documented in an article from the Columbia Journalism Review.
https://www.cjr.org/analysis/election-politics-front-pages.php
It is time for all of us to start making our outrage at this known to the Boards of Directors and editorial boards of these companies. They have turned to subscriber based revenue models so subscriber-based outrage can get attention.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/new-york-times-revenue-chart/#google_vignette
Below is the link to the corporate board of the NY Times.
https://www.nytco.com/board-of-directors/
As WaPo motto says, "Democracy Dies in Darkness." We all have to do our part to make sure that our news outlets are held accountable for biased coverage and placement and resource allocation decisions being made by editorial boards.
The stakes couldn't be higher.
For $46.45 you can buy a share of NYT and go to shareholders meetings and make your feelings known in a venue with more clout.
Yes, Georgia. The Post and the Times headlines get it wrong frequently. But there is a lot of information in those publications, that if it were lost, we would suffer. They are more than headlines - they are engines of information. If we don't like their focus, tell them. If we want more information about a subject, tell them. Our "media" has a lot of problems. The incessant Biden vs Trump obsession drives me nuts. The polls are ridiculously obsessed with what could be a non-existent match-up. Trump is fading. Joe could change his mind. And why would he announce his departure before he had to? He would only "lame duck" himself. President Johnson announced his decision on March 31, 1968. Let's stop the speculation and know that if Joe did step aside there are dozens of wonderful candidates who would rise to the occasion. Or...Biden could follow the Diane Francis suggestion of replacing Harris with Newsom - talk about a campaign booster! I digress...but please compare our media with that of the UK or other nations. We could be a lot better. But we are also a lot better.
And only "Two issues at once"? I think most of us can think about several issues during the day. What haunts me is that every minute there is a story about the horrors of Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, our House Of Clowns - we are not talking about the destruction of our home.
A recent PBS Newshour segment highlighted the hypocrisy and horror of our so-called "recycling" of plastics to other countries. In the story, an authority in Thailand said that 70 to 80% of the plastic it receives is not processed or repurposed. It is taken to landfills, burned or simply dumped into waterways that lead to the ocean. OUR plastic. This is a disaster.
https://youtu.be/kXpzWWv0b0U
A recent story revealed that the largest percentage of microplastics in our oceans comes from vehicle tires - tiny bits of the tires flying off as we drive - washed into our water ways. The resulting pollution is found in our food supplies and now us. We are now walking talking plastic people. BTW, the heavier the vehicle, the faster the wear. EVs generally weigh 30% more than conventional autos. With the right focus and the right science, we could fix this.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/08/16/world/tyre-collective-microplastic-rubber-waste-climate-hnk-spc-intl/index.html
And what about drinking water? Need I go on?
All of what Senator Schumer proposes should be easy peasy logical legislation. And then we could get back to saving our home - that we are currently treating like a dump.
Bill Alstrom, yesterday I wrote that in effect, cancelling the NYT is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. It got around 20 “likes.” (Sorry I don’t have an exact count.) Thank you for writing at length.
We aren't going to cancel ours, Virginia, because of the many aspects of the Times I enjoy. I confess to not reading the op ed pages or most of their news, but my husband reads that part of it.
Yes, I too enjoy a lot of the Times, but am often infuriated. I have written many letters stating this but nothing really changes. The huge spread they did the other day on who Trump might pick as is VP was one such article. I looked at the reader’s comments. Huge numbers of them were really furious!
I keep my blood pressure low by not looking at articles like that. And it is infuriating. The guy is a criminal with 91 indictments and hopefully will be in jail sometime next year. Also he is increasingly senile and it shows despite his handlers trying to hide it. He goes off script and then it's bonkers time.
For the first time online I have the recipes! May not cook any, but they’re lovely to read!
I have a huge file of recipes from the NYT. I do sometimes cook them. I also belong to the Burlap and Barrel spice blog where people are cooking up astounding things. The WaPo now has a way to access their recipes.
Bill, that plastics/old -technology- parts story was also on CBS Sunday morning. It was a devastating indictment of our developed world's wasteful lifestyle. We dump our waste on other, poorer countries whose people( including lots of young men and children) do " urban mining" in very toxic landfills to find copper and other components which they sell for a pittance. It was such a disturbing and horrific story. One suggestion was that the makers of the products be held responsible for and reclaim the waste they produce. Samsung was the only company to give an interview and they have begun, and are extending, projects to do just that.
The "outsourcing" of our trash should be illegal. Maybe if we had to deal with it here, we would change our ways. Our recycling programs are not serious. There are very few restrictions on single use plastics. Our town does not permit single use plastic bags at retailers. The town next door will not allow the sale of bottle water in plastic containers (it's not really healthier, anyway). It's a small something.
The process of "single stream recycling" is a joke. There are places where glass, plastic and paper products are completely separated. It's easy to do. But we are lazy.
True. But we outsource our rubbish because we are a self-serving first world behemoth, of course. The outsourcing doesn't include the megatons of plastic trash we dump in the oceans. But it's all good because we've got wind farms and EVs. Next we'll ship our crap to other planets, no doubt.
Well done.
I too am questioning the reporting of the "news." Why is it that at the beginning of this Israeli/Hamas mess, we were told that the Palestinian prisoners freed 3 to 1 Jew were terrorists and criminals and that just yesterday I learned that that many of the 3000 Palestinians detained by the Israeli authority are women and boys under the age of 18? Why were they abducted and detained and given no reason? Why is this group referred to as prisoners and not hostages? Why don't we hear about the pain the Palestinians feel after having their family members abducted? Why don't we hear how the Palestinians in the West Bank feel having Israeli soldiers running around with machine guns (a very powerful symbol BTW) harassing them? Why are Jewish settlers encouraged to land-grab in Palestinian neighborhoods? It is the Israeli government that is to blame for hate crimes against innocent Jews around the world and the US is complicit! No more 3 billion/year carte blanche for the Israeli government!
And then there is this. I now know several people who have (or who had)
Parkinson
https://www.sciencealert.com/nanoplastics-linked-to-changes-in-brain-proteins-associated-with-parkinsons-study-finds
My brother-in-law lost his Dad to Parkinson’s, and I have a friend whose Parkinson’s set in at 60.
Its a truly awful disease - I had a cousin diagnosed at 80 and a friend who passed away last year after a fairly short time with it - it just completely wiped him out. And I'm not surprised that its linked to plastic pollution. I watched the story on Sunday morning too (Carol mentioned above). What destruction this technology brings down on other countries just so our consumption can keep on!
Georgia, I cancelled my subscription (after almost 40 years) to NYT last year just after the ‘22 elections. Their obviously biased polling, Red Wave nonsense and as you noted, lack of policy coverage, was dangerous to our democracy in my opinion, and I was done with their agenda.
You have to call in order to cancel a subscription and I was subjected to one of the worst marketing pushes I’ve ever endured - it took over 20 minutes just to cancel - Really? When asked why I was cancelling, the guy on the other end actually started arguing about the premise for my anger and subsequent decision to cancel. Talk about hubris!
I sent a scathing letter to the Board of Directors. I followed up with several letters to the editor.
Crickets.
Your ideas are valid and will definitely help long term. But after thinking about this a great deal myself, my choice is to spend whatever spare time I have helping get out the vote in 2024. And whatever extra money I have on good candidates, important campaigns, and the best Substack has to offer (HCR, Robert Hubbell, Bill McKibben, Joyce White Vance, Jessica Craven, more).
When I was in college, my J school professors insisted that students subscribe to one national paper and our home town newspaper.
I highly doubt they would recommend the New York Times these days.
Good you told them why your were canceling. But my fear is that cancelations just drive them further towards clickbait because it is more profitable because it is cheaper to produce. I just posted another article on my Substack on a huge essay that A. G. Sulzberger, the publisher of the NY Times ,wrote back in May on the independent press in the Columbia Journalism Review., the place that jsut published the damning statistics on coverage of policy a week ago. Sulzberger is self-justifying and completely misses the forest for the trees. It is breathtaking in how far off the mark and naive he is. We have to do more to protest or there will lose an independent free press forever.
NYT doesn't depend as much on its online subscriptions as it does its print newspaper, so clickbait isn't a reason to support a newspaper (realistically, subscribing to stop the influx of clickbait?). None of the content in the NYT is free - there's a paywall, so they get their money.
Protest? How? Newspapers have been dying off for decades. Don't worry about the NYT; the real tragedy is the loss of smaller, local papers.
Or you can hit them where it hurts and cancel your subscription. Just because you don't have access doesn't mean you won't know what they are writing as most outlets (including this one) report any "fit" to print news they might offer.
I personally subscribe to the "be part of the solution to make it better" school of thought. But if you do cancel, tell them why--and not just Sulzberger but the whole Corporate Board.
I unsubscribed a month ago! My long time habit of surfing the NYT has ended. I am happy to report the quality of my life is still very good! WAPO subscription ends in a couple weeks. I soldier on...
I did the same last year. I got tired of the opinion section, mostly. Toxic and salacious, especially the right wing goons on WaPo.
Thank you Georgia, this is helpful and I will encourage their participation in the democratic awakening of citizens everywhere.
Her it goes out the door...
To: New York Times Board of Directors,
A.G. Sulzberger
Amanpal S. Bhutani
Manuel Bronstein
Beth Brooke
Rachel Glaser
Arthur Golden
Hays N. Golden
Meredith Kopit Levien
Brian P. McAndrews
David Perpich
John W. Rogers, Jr.
Anuradha B. Subramanian
Rebecca Van Dyck
New York Times Bureau
New York City, NY
November 26, 2023
Re: Warped Front Pages
https://www.cjr.org/analysis/election-politics-front-pages.php
– Columbia Journalism Review, Nov 20, 2023
I write to strongly encourage the New York Times to be more of an active participant in the "Awakening of Democracy" in America.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/07/democracy-awakening-review-heather-cox-richardson-us-history
This Columbia University review looked at the New York Times coverage of the issues 3 months prior to the 2020 election and concluded “If voters had wanted to educate themselves on issues, they would not have learned much from reading the Times.” They said it was typical of other major outlets as well, but I trust that is not reassuring.
“We found that the Times and the Post shared significant overlap in their domestic politics coverage, offering little insight into policy. Both emphasized the horse race and campaign palace intrigue, stories that functioned more to entertain readers than to educate them on essential differences between political parties. The main point of contrast we found between the two papers was that, while the Post delved more into topics Democrats generally want to discuss—affirmative action, police reform, LGBTQ rights—the Times tended to focus on subjects important to Republicans—China, immigration, and crime."
I have been a long-time digital subscriber deeply interested in the issues and policies and I want to hear more about the substantive programs President Biden’s team is successfully reaching across the aisle to implement.
A colleague recently wrote...”Biden has worked for the working class; Trump worked for the oligarchs. Biden passed a massive infrastructure bill; Trump did not. Biden was part of the Obama administration and helped pass the ACA; Trump claimed he would “repeal and replace Obamacare” and failed to do either. Trump bullied NATO partners to organize without the help of the US; Biden reinforced our relationship with our European partners, as well as our Asian-Pacific partners with coalitions that strengthen the bargaining power of smaller countries with our influence. Through Trump’s reckless spending cuts to balance all the tax giveaways he offered to the rich, the Infectious Disease team stationed in Wuhan China was scrapped three months before the nexus of COVID 19. Biden coordinated and executed one of the largest US vaccination initiatives since the polio vaccine, bringing back a stronger, more sustainable economy to the USA and North America as a whole. Why isn’t anybody talking about this? “
I strongly encourage the board to in turn, encourage editors and writers to participate more positively, more actively in “deeply reporting” as you say in your editorial mission. Accurate information on policy in the days, weeks, and months ahead of the 2024 election are crucial. Thank you. "
Done
It is cheaper to buy one share of the NYT than to subscribe for one year!
And here is a link to what is likely the best pressure point to write to get action NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/11/business/media/new-york-times-valueact-stock.html
Value Act is an activist investor group that likes to work with companies for the long term to improve profitability. The have recently established a sizeable position in NYT stock.
Follow the money, profitability rules, and we are the fools
"It seems like even the former papers of record like the New York Times and Washington Post now believe their readership can no longer think about two issues at once..."
If that were the truth, democracy would indeed die in darkness. We cannot self-govern without sufficient information about what is going on. I suppose we still have that, if one digs; but we need it from "town criers" as well, so that few get left out. The "media" felt like a public asset during the Vietnam War and Watergate, but lately there has been far too much in-bedded journalism.
My local paper of record, The Dallas Morning News, does a decent job, considering that they are in crazy Texas. However, they have a delivery problem with their print edition. It only comes half the time. I have complained every way I know how, besides cancelling. The response is, “people just don’t want to work anymore.” What BS. Papers can’t be delivered on bikes anymore, so pay people enough to get the job done. Anyway, I have wondered if they want people to just go digital so they won’t have to bother with print anymore. I am trying to support my local paper, but they don’t support my need to get what I pay for. BTW, if people don’t want to work anymore, why are so many trying to hold down two jobs. Sorry for the early morning rant…
No people don't want to work, for a pittance, that is.
exactly, my bros delivered papers on their bikes. Different world
Jeri I can't find a neighborhood kid to help me with heavy outdoor work around the house for 25. an hour cash. Insane. We used to help our neighbors because they were our neighbors. Everything seems transactional today.
You can't work with your nose in your cell phone or other devices. At Thanksgiving we talked about problems in various institutions. Our neighbor's daughter is a cardiac nurse in Portland and she described how broken the health system is. She described one case where plain old red tape got in the way of the needs of the patient. We agreed that the pandemic has made everything much worse. One of the things we also talked about was getting an appointment with the vet. Ours is excellent, but very busy especially after a local clinic went corporate. If some corporation or hedge fund is involved, you can be sure that whatever they buy will go down hill. And everything is transactional because everything is a commodity. Read Braiding Sweetgrass for a view on this.
When I worked at high school, I always knew some kids who were happy to earn some money. Since then, nada. Yep, different world. Although grands work in fast food, hope temporary.
Also less social. Less in person interaction between neighbors period, in my experience, myself included. I think that hunger for community is part of what fuels the MAGA cult.
"Living wage" jobs seem popular.
In all likelihood people don't want to work at a job where they can't make a living. We learned during the height of the Pandemic just how much we depend on social workers. Wages need to be adjusted and we need the very wealthy to show more patriotism by funding more of the cost of government. It's to their benefit more than anyone else's.
In assisted living where I live, many work two jobs. I'm sure they love it, NOT. Yep, the rich need to pay fair share. Which they have defined as nothing.
So, Jeri, what is the solution? From my vantage point, the workers need to unite and this means unions. Without the ability to bring strength in numbers to the negotiating table, they'll end up with subsistence wages, assuming that there is any such thing as a negotiating table. The other possibility is minimum wage laws. Good luck with this idea in Trump-dominated states.
…on the ‘Rich Getting Richer’ by not paying their fair share front…. The new guy joining the GOP race for the White House, Stuckenberg, making one of his major planks to eliminate inheritance tax. In NYS, I believe inheritance isn’t taxed until it is valued over 1 mil. Who’s that plank for?
Fair share for those who pay zip is not a new idea.
Agreed. The wealthy just need to pay a fair share of taxes or pay them at all. The author of Poverty, by America says that if people just paid their taxes, we would be in much better shape.
The "Middle Class" was growing when taxes on the wealthy and corporations was much higher. It's complicated and while the the 1950's middle class was largely white and male, efforts at inclusion seems to expand up to Reagan; but who gained and who a suffered as a consequence of 40+ years of Reaganomic laws and policies? The truth is out there.