The Genocide of the Palestinian People
On 5 December, Amnesty International concluded after an investigation that “Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip”. A few days later, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) stated that after research and analysis, it concluded that “there is a legally sound argument that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza”.
A few days after that, Human Rights Watch (HRW) declared that “Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide”, and Médecins Sans Frontières reported that its medical “teams in the north of Gaza are seeing clear signs of ethnic cleansing”. Earlier in November, HRW also concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”, and appeared to “also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing”.
Following the issuing of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant by the international criminal court (ICC), also in November, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, all these recent judgments end the year with an emphatic categorisation of the assault in Gaza as a violation of international law. They join the International Commission of Jurists and the UN in condemning Israel’s war. The country, and its head of state, are now, according to the courts and human rights organisations that make up the world’s legal and moral authorities, outlaws.
But the judgments, strong language and suggested measures echo in a vacuum: there is no enforcement. The US continues to defend Israel against an emerging global consensus and to arm it. Nesrine Malik The Guardian
Stop the Genocide
US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Protests near you.
Seven Things UU Democracy Leaders Can Do Now to Save Democracy
Review the various resource materials provided below and do some independent research of your own, in preparation for bringing your democracy/voting team together to meet. It is very important that we maintain, and perhaps supplement, our democracy teams to be prepared for what is coming.
Provide some of the resources to your team members and to the broader congregation as appropriate.
Investigate potential local, regional and national partners to see what they are planning.
Organize a meeting with your team to discuss the current situation and make plans for moving forward as a team.
Thank them for what they have done and give them a chance to express how they are feeling, and what they are thinking about and doing
Discuss the current political situation, what is likely to happen in the Trump administration, and the urgent need for us to be prepared to take actions to respond effectively
Provide hope by discussing what the team can do moving forward
Work with your team to create or update a mission and vision statement that will support and ground you for the foreseeable future.
Work with your minister and staff to organize a meeting with your congregation to explain and discuss authoritarianism, what to expect from the Trump administration, what types of actions may be needed, and get their thoughts.
Organize yourselves to be prepared to act.
Emerging Resistance Resources: Post-Election 2024
Rachel Maddow’s Call to Action Nov 6, 2024 Blog version: https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/maddow-trump-election-win-defend-democracy-rcna179201
Youtube version: About 12 minutes.https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/maddow-trump-win-gives-us-a-really-big-to-do-list-to-defend-democracy-223778885530
Indivisible’s Post-Election Debrief Nov 6, 2024 Full of great information and advice from Indivisible’s founders. 1 hour video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrlQr8K-eq8
10 Ways to be Prepared and Grounded Now that Trump has Won Nov 4, 2024 Excellent 15-page piece by Daniel Hunter, author of “What If Trump Wins.” Published by Choose Democracy and Waging Nonviolence. Specific, inspiring advice based on lessons learned from experience fighting and, in some cases, overcoming authoritarian regimes around the world. Based on Hunter’s book “What If Trump Wins.” Hunter has been researching and planning for a Trump win for quite a while. https://wagingnonviolence.org/2024/11/10-things-to-do-if-trump-wins/
Democracy is a Verb: Resources for Resisting Authoritarianism Also published by Choose Democracy and Waging Nonviolence, this on-line guide reviews lessons learned from anti-authoritarian struggles around the world, Including Brazil, Gambia, South Africa, Serbia, Hungary, and others. Published July 18, 2024. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1kr0gQBEkHVc6taF9cg1f3stM-fPCB-K3IK62xaeGHSA/edit#slide=id.g30ebd8ca121_0_3168
A Practical Program for Resisting A Trump Second Term Nov 7 2024 “How to fight back against the implementation of fascism in America.” By Adam Gurri, Nov 7, 2024. Gurri is the founder of Liberal Currents. A “14-minute read” but very well-written with good advice.https://www.liberalcurrents.com/a-practical-program-for-resisting-a-trump-second-term/
Election Response Center National coalition with over 200 progressive groups. Leadership from Indivisible, Public Citizens, and Working Families Party and others. Organized first mass call as “Making Meaning of the Moment,” with over 140,000 people participating on youtube live-stream. This new site seems to be frequently updated with local, regional, and national events. https://www.mobilize.us/electionresponsecenter/event/734596/
“Worth Fighting For” Facilitator Guide Assembled by national coalition with over 200 progressive groups. Leadership from Indivisible, Public Citizens, and Working Families Party and others. Designed for anyone with good facilitation skills and the will to do this – to bring together like-minded and like-hearted people to plan how to resist this administration. https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/e/2PACX-1vR28nWuDMhOjf-Sa6UuMVeZ3Fc67nW5Kmn1IPDFTbYZQq1v9M6jjXKOIduMjGAoGvwN4RExMjI3Jd-4/pub?urp=gmail_link&pli=1 Google doc version you can copy, modify, and print https://docs.google.com/document/d/1faR_Rsu_TMVrZdxPm2t2nP9nvi8uKL4u3TxNvUTgxCQ/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.eqzc4wauqut2
DFAD Campaign Plan (https://dfadcoalition.org/team/) DFAD stands for Declaration For American Democracy, a coalition of 260+ liberal organizations, including the Brennan Center, Black Voters Matter fund, Center for American Progress, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, End Citizens United, and others. This is a 2-page outline of a plan described as follows on the website: “a scenario in which we have a House and Senate that are adversarial towards voting rights and democracy reform - paired with a Trump presidency - would be a dangerous scenario. We already know the MAGA agenda on democracy issues - as outlined in the American Confidence in Elections Act (ACE) (https://cha.house.gov/american-confidence-in-elections-act).” Here is a link to the DFAD 2-page plan for a Trump presidency: https://docs.google.com/document/d/180Lzas88U-mL_My0_BTfTJFwLyBAGx3UpuE51hZnRdo/edit?tab=t.0
Strategic Escalation in a Trump Era Slide show / workshop to learn effective strategies to resist autocrats, with lessons from Serbia & Chile. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1b0duAh4Yh5ARIS2FQF9_GUFOWr7DUN1kiaNAHRknbtM/edit?pli=1#slide=id.g30b0fd406e0_0_21
SURJ Post-Election Watch Party SURJ stands for Showing Up for Racial Justice (https://surj.org/). This excellent 12-minute video seeks to mobilize people for short-term action before the Inauguration as well as for the longer-term, and has a brief but compelling explanation of “race/class theory,” how white people in power have been effective throughout U.S. history in preventing working-class whites from allying with working-class people of color to fight for their common interests. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qp1g70EWUPUO6Yy4QTGOdfbUE10Gqpjh/view
Stop the Coup 2025 Toolkit for Community Organizers A more accurate title would be “Stop Project 2025.” 129 pages. Excellent but very long overview of P2025, followed by very detailed information about each component of Project 2025, structured by case studies, action strategies to deal with the component, and key talking points. There are 11 “components” including DEI/Racial Justice, Reproductive Rights, LGBTQIA+ & War on Gender, Poverty & Federal Benefits, Climate Change, Immigration, etc.https://www.stopthecoup2025.org/stc-toolkit?mc_cid=8ab13463db&mc_eid=2f6d808d66
Accountable.US is a nonpartisan watchdog organization dedicated to exposing corruption and ensuring transparency in government actions that affect the public. During the first Trump administration, Accountable.US and its predecessor organizations played a leading role in making sure the American people had full visibility into President Trump’s extreme nominees. Accountable.US’s Trump Accountability War Room will provide detailed analyses and oversight of nominations, personnel decisions, executive actions, ethical issues, and legislative agenda that would fundamentally reshape the functions of the federal government and erode the safeguards and policies protecting all Americans. Sign up for updates here: https://accountable.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/accountable/subscribe.jsp?subscription=197 And here’s the link to the War Room page: https://accountable.us/accountable-us-launches-trump-accountability-war-room/
Other Resources
People For the American Way https://www.peoplefor.org/ is a national progressive advocacy organization that inspires and mobilizes Americans to defend freedom, justice, and democracy from those who threaten to take them away. For more than four decades, we have been dedicated to making the promise of America real for everyone and have worked toward a vision of a vibrant America where basic rights and freedoms are upheld for all, not just the wealthy and the powerful.
Resist Project 2025 envisions an America where all Americans have an equal say in elections that are fair and safe – where Americans from every state, not just “battleground states,” get a vote that counts towards determining who will become president, where billionaires can’t buy elections and put out disinformation, and where threats and violence are unthinkable. It envisions an America where people have control over their own bodies. Where courts administer justice to all, not just the wealthy and powerful. Where nobody lives in fear because of their color, faith, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, ancestry, or political beliefs. You may know that women make up only 27% of Congress. But did you know that moms with young children make up less than 10% of Congress? That’s why we founded Moms Fed Up. Because we’re FED UP with watching decisions that impact our children and grandchildren be made without a fair representation of moms in the room. Amy Klobuchar etc.
MoveOn.org Political Action is a federal political action committee (PAC) MoveOn fought back. Thousands of our members called their representatives, and our voice was heard in the halls of Congress as well.
Defend The Vote is a political action committee dedicated to preserving our democracy through ensuring voting access, education and protection. https://wedefendthevote.org/
No Vote Left Behind We exist to develop and fund voter registration drives and Get Out the Vote programs targeted to the LGBTQ community in battleground states and districts. https://novoteleftbehindpac.com/
Other National Organizations
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – a talk, build your community https://www.instagram.com/aoc/reel/DCDRaRoxJYW/?hl=en (long, comforting)
American Civil Liberties Union The ACLU’s nationwide network of lawyers and organizers are standing by, ready to defend our rights in the courts and on the streets.
Common Cause We will resist any actions that seek to erode our democratic values, mobilize our communities to safeguard our nation’s principles, and strengthen resilience in the face of these profound challenges
Cultures of Resistance promotes and supports organizations, activists, and artists who seek a more peaceful, just, and democratic world. (see organizations below)
Center for Responsive Politics is the nation’s premier research group tracking money in US politics and its effect on elections and public policy. Nonpartisan, independent, and nonprofit, the organization aims to create a more educated voter, an involved citizenry, and a more transparent and responsive government. In short, the center’s mission is to inform citizens about how money in politics affects their lives, empower voters and activists by providing unbiased information, and advocate for a transparent and responsive government. The center pursues its mission largely through its award-winning website, OpenSecrets.org, which is the most comprehensive resource for federal campaign contributions, lobbying data, and analysis available anywhere. For other organizations and news media, the center’s exclusive data powers their online features tracking money in politics—counting cash to make change.
Democracy Now! is a daily, independent, global news hour hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González. The program features on-the-ground and breaking news coverage, as well as in-depth discussions on today’s most pressing issues with a diversity of voices from the frontlines of social movements around the world.
Donors Choose help a classroom in need
Global Exchange [Israel, Palestine] international human rights organization
Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) veterans
Maysles Institute [United States] production of documentary films
Southern Poverty Law Center [United States] mission is to reduce prejudice, improve intergroup relations, and support equitable school experiences for children in the United States. The organization believes that schools must educate all students for full participation in a diverse democracy. SPLC uses litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy to work towards the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal opportunity will be a reality. SPLC is among the United States’s leading providers of anti-bias resources, both in print and online.
Voices of a People’s History of the United States [United States] seeks to bring to light little-known voices from U.S. history, including those of women, African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and laborers.
WITNESS [International] uses the power of video to open the eyes of the world to human rights abuses.
Zinn Education Project [United States] promotes and supports the use of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States in middle and high school classrooms across the country.
Black Resistance activism, freedom, love, family and hope.
Resist Project 2025 is a Tides Foundation initiative focused on equipping targeted communities to actively protect their rights and well-being. We provide grassroots leaders with the resources they need to defend their civil rights and ensure fair representation in the decisions affecting their communities.
Critical Resistance / Dismantle Through strong coalitions and strategic grassroots campaigns, we fight to dismantle the prison industrial complex, including the caging, policing, and surveilling practices and larger systems that harm, control, oppress and impoverish our communities and greater society.
Corporate Accountability 10 Milk St. Suite 610 Boston, MA 02108 Telephone 617-695-2525 We wage strategic campaigns that compel transnational corporations, and the governments that do their bidding, to stop destroying our health, human rights, democracy, and planet.
UNHCR the UN Refugee Agency works to ensure that everybody has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge, having fled violence, persecution or war at home. UNHCR, helps to save lives and build better futures for the millions of people forced to flee their homes.
Nonprofit GIVING
The Right to Immigration Institute (TRII) - A nonprofit based in Waltham dedicated to providing free legal assistance to asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented members of the Greater Boston community.
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law - We stand for equal justice and the rule of law. We work to craft and advance reforms that will make American democracy work, for all.
Brady united the nation's leading gun violence prevention organization.
USA for UNHCR: the UN refugee agency - Families from Yemen to Ukraine from Ethiopia to Afghanistan
Doctors Without Borders - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) cares for people affected by conflict, disease outbreaks, natural and human-made disasters, and exclusion from health care in more than 70 countries.
Project Hope Ukraine,to Gaza, Ethiopia,to North Carolina
Lawyers for Civil Rights (Boston-based) We provide free, life-changing legal support, fight discrimination and foster equity through creative and courageous legal advocacy, education, and economic empowerment.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Freedom Defense Fund The ACLU has strategies and plans to fight back and stop Trump's threats to our civil rights and civil liberties, but needs your support to put our plans into action.
Corporate Accountability (Boston-based) stops transnational corporations from devastating democracy, trampling human rights, and destroying our planet.
League of Women Voters Membership & Local Leagues - Our members are passionate activists who support our work in all 50 states and in more than 700 communities.
Alternative News Media
Bowers News Media a one-person grassroots progressive activism email list run by Chris Bowers. Sign up to receive news and activism emails from Bowers News Media LLC by clicking here and filling out the form you see.
ProPublica To expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions
The Guardian UK, world and US news
CBC nightly news “The National.” Canada
Labor Notes Labor Education and Research Project ©
Jon Stewart a comedian, writer, producer, director, political commentator, actor, and television host of The Daily Show
Michael Moore film director, producer, screenwriter, and author. frequently addresses various social, political, and economic topics
Robert Reich Inequality Media Definitely get his updates
Heather Cox Richardson Letters from an American, best objective news with history, every morning, over 1.7 million subscribers.
RSN Reader Supported News Breaking stories from readers, not fact-checked.
John Oliver British-American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host
Current Affairs A Magazine of Politics and Culture
BBC NewsNight Comprehensive coverage of the day's important national and international news stories.
The Chris Hedges Report on Substack Covering US foreign policy, economic realities, and civil liberties in American society.
AYMAN on MSNBC Weekends 7PM ET
Rachel Maddow on MSNBC Mondays 9PM ET
Drop Site News Independent news on politics and war
A Closer Look on Seth Meyers Comedian
The Lever know where your activism is needed
Hammer & Hope A magazine of Black politics and culture.
More Perfect Union Building power for working people
The Katie Halper Show Apple podcast, a humorous look at the news
Night School with Marc Lamont Hill a nightly YouTube program with deep discussion, intense debate, and critical analysis
Citations Needed a podcast about the intersection of media, PR, and power,
Jewish Currents committed to the thought, activism, and culture on the Jewish left
Al-Jazeera English rely on Al Jazeera for truth and transparency
Ha’aretz Israel
Bette Dangerous By Heidi Siegmund Cuda
Slate Online magazine of news, politics, technology, and culture. Combines humor and insight in thoughtful analyses of current events and political news.
Politico Centrist, has a Massachusetts newsletter.
Collapse of the Union
in Three Parts
1) The Civil War
By April 4, 1865, Grant had decided to give Lee no respite until he knocked out his army and terminated the war. Nothing mattered any longer except tracking down the enemy and destroying it. Lee had been reduced to headlong flight to secure food and divert outright starvation.
That night, Lee abandoned his position there and raced to stay ahead of the Union Army, his abject soldiers reduced to pleading for food from spectators lining the route. At the battle of Sayler’s creek the next day, Sheridan isolated a corps of the Confederate infantry and shattered a solid quarter of Lee's army. Sheridan collared 6 rebel generals and 6000 prisoners. George Armstrong Custer captured and burned hundreds of confederate wagons. A correspondent wrote that “hundreds of men dropped from exhaustion, and thousands let fall their muskets from inability to carry them any further.”
The Union soldiers, who had learned to love Grant, spotted him on the porch and saluted him with exultant cheers as they swung by, crooning “John Brown's Body.” When Grant rose and stood by the banister, puffing his cigar, the ovation swelled in volume.
Grant wrote via messenger to Lee, calling for his surrender. Replying, Lee wrote: “General, I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless diffusion of blood and therefore, considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of the surrender of my army.”
General Grant replied, “Peace being my great desire, there is but one condition I insist upon, namely: that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified from taking up arms again against the Government of the United States.” [1]
***
The above recitation is factual. However, Grant made a catastrophic error, violated the U.S. Constitution and laid the groundwork for the eventual destruction of the Government of the United States.
Did 360,222 Union soldiers die for nothing?
Grant should have written the following terms for surrender:
“You, General Lee, and all of the Confederate Generals and officers, and all of the soldiers, are guilty of TREASON by levying war against the United States, per the United States Constitution Article III, Section 3, Clause 1.”
“Furthermore, 18 U.S.C § 2381, states that a person guilty of treason against the United States ‘shall suffer death or shall be imprisoned not less than five years.’”
“I hereby command, with the full support of President Lincoln, that all the Confederate generals and officers holding the rank of lieutenant or higher, shall face death by firing squad within this month of April 1865.”
“All remaining Confederate Government officers and lesser officers and soldiers in the Confederate armies, after swearing an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, may return home; provided that they shall actively support the Emancipation Proclamation and the Reconstruction provisions, and that any failure to do so shall result in their imprisonment for not less than five years.”
[1] Grant, by Ron Chernow, Penguin Books/Random House, 2017
2) Dark Money
The 2010 Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision allows corporations and special interest groups to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections—giving them a dangerous amount of influence over decisions that should be left to individual voters. Citizens United unleashed unlimited spending in our elections, and groups can now spend hundreds of millions without disclosing their sources of funding. The Trump campaign solicited donations from Big Oil and foreign sources. Russia-linked political ads were pervasive on every major internet platform. Political advertising boomed online, with a total cost of at least $15.9 billion in spending. There was also a surge in secret spending in state and local elections. Foreign countries, large corporations, and the super-rich, like Elon Musk, were able to direct the election toward Trump.
3) Project 2025
Project 2025 is an 800-plus-page road map that the Trump administration will implement on Day 1 in the White House. It lays out in detail how Trump could wield his power to systematically eliminate federal agencies, consolidate presidential power, and make Christianity central to government policy. The report, prepared by more than 400 conservative thinkers, was spearheaded by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. Here’s a quick overview of what’s in it.
It eliminates nonpartisan federal employees, replacing them with loyalists who will blindly follow Trump’s orders. It villainizes Democrats, characterizing them as elitists who don’t believe all men are created equal—”they think they are special.” In order to help a future Trump administration implement its plan, the Heritage Foundation created a LinkedIn–style database of over 10,000 personnel who have been vetted and trained by the group and are ready for hire.
It calls for a national abortion ban and undoing federal approval for the abortion drug mifepristone. It also includes a directive to review all U.S. policy to remove any taxpayer-funded initiatives that support abortion while also cutting off any pro-choice groups from receiving federal or foreign funds.
It calls for porn and transexual ideology to be banned and insists that “educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.” It directs the deletion of the words “sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity, equity and inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights” from every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, and piece of legislation that exists.
Immigration It recommends overhauling the current structure of the government’s various immigration enforcement agencies, including eliminating the Department of Homeland Security. Trump has promised a closed border and mass deportations of millions of immigrants. Advocates fear deportation plans will soon reach deep into American communities, targeting people who they say have a right to live here. “They will rip parents from their children, destroy businesses and livelihoods, and devastate the fabric of our nation and our economy,” said Juan Proaño, CEO of The League of United Latin American Citizens. The fear is that non-citizens will be targeted immediately and legal permanent residents, or “green card” holders, will be deported. Trump has threatened to use the military for deportation. Source: CNN
Project 2025 says the Department of Education should be eliminated and that the U.S. should lower the number of student visas issued every year and deny federal student loans to non-U.S. citizens.
The plan urges expanding tariffs to all Chinese products, so much so that it will eventually block “Made in China” products from being imported into the U.S. There’s also a recommendation to ban all Chinese social media apps—including TikTok. These tariffs will result in significantly higher prices for Americans on almost everything.
Project 2025 also calls for the roll back of environmental regulations. The ban on arctic drilling will be lifted, energy efficiency standards should be removed for household appliances, and the federal government more broadly should not impose pollution limits on industries. They also suggest that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration should be eliminated, along with other offices within the Department of Energy. They want to privatize the National Weather Service.
Project 2025 also proposes a major tax cut for the rich, as well as cutting the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 18 percent.
Finally, the Supreme Court recently overturned Chevron, which means “virtually every decision a federal agency makes will be subject to a free-floating veto by federal judges with zero expertise or accountability to the people.”
Trump has favored the Heritage Project for years, saying, “This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/07/project-2025-summary-history-goals-donald-trump.html
And the cruncher