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Dissecting Christian Zionist (and Israeli) Propaganda

Let’s begin by watching a recent CBN (Christian Broadcast Network) report on the violence unfolding in Israel/Palestine. The reporter is Chris Mitchell who lives in Israel.

As far as I can tell, all the on-screen personnel at CBN are avid Christian Zionists, meaning that they believe Israel is God’s chosen nation now preparing the way for the second coming of Christ.

Let’s start by observing the major points in this report:

  1. The current violence in Jerusalem begins with Hamas rockets launched at Israel from Gaza. Thus, Palestinians are the aggressors. Jews are only defending themselves.
  2. Netanyahu warns the Palestinian “terrorists” that Israel will respond firmly and decisively in self-defense.
  3. Mahmud Abbas (the West Bank leader of Fatah) is the instigator behind all the Palestinian “riots” in Jerusalem
  4. Palestinian residents in Sheikh Jarrah are protesting their home evictions unreasonably because the original Jewish property owners had reached a generous compromise that was then rejected by Mr. Abbas.

Let’s take these points one at a time:

First, CBN adopts the standard storyline of explaining the issues according to something I call APR time. APR time means After Palestinians Respond. It’s as if the Palestinians simply woke up one morning and decided to riot and fire rockets in Israel, just for the fun of it. 

Actually, the current violence has its roots in Israel’s unilateral decision, made several weeks ago, to close off the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City during the Muslim period of Ramadan. The Damascus Gate is the main thoroughfare used by Palestinians going to pray at al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock during Ramadan.

Palestinians naturally took offense at this closure and challenged the decision in the streets. Events have escalated from there.

Second, Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been unable to form a new government since the recent national elections. As a right-wing politician, he knows that the easiest way to gather support is to rally people by fear-mongering over an alleged, national threat. American politicians do it all the time. In Israel, Palestinians serve as the standard, cardboard cutout for the state’s ever-present boogeyman.

Third, Mahmud Abbas is the leader of the Palestinian political party known as  Fatah and the head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. Since the Oslo Accords, the PA has served as the West Bank wing of the Israeli security forces.

Abbas has no connection to the Hamas party in Gaza. In fact, Hamas considers the PA to be a traitorous organization given its cooperation with the Israeli military.

Mitchell’s claim that Abbas has somehow orchestrated the Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza is ludicrous. Here he reveals that he is not a journalist but a faithful propagandist for the Israeli government.

It is true that Abbas is a corrupt scoundrel who has postponed the West Bank elections. But there is no evidence that he can influence the Palestinians citizens of Israel to take up mass demonstrations to distract from his shenanigans in the West Bank.

That claim makes no sense. Palestinian Israelis cannot vote in the West Bank elections. They don’t have a dog in Abbas’s election fight. He has no influence over them and they have little to no regard for him.

Fourth, Mitchell’s attempt to explain the tensions raised by Palestinian evictions in Sheikh Jarrah is a complete fabrication. Once again, he shows that he works as a tool for the Israeli government. He is not a journalist.

Mr. Mitchell is merely repeating the public relations bulletin handed to him by the Israeli Ministry of Public Affairs.

I shared a document yesterday that explains the actual history of the Sheikh Jarrah evictions, and it has nothing to do with the foolishness repeated by Mr. Mitchell. You can read it here.

The CBN anchorman asks the question, “Why are we not hearing that story in the western media?” The implication is that this is “omission” yet another instance of the western, antisemitic conspiracy against Israel.

In fact, the reason this supposed story has not been mentioned by other western, news outlets  is because it is complete balderdash; another Zionist myth fed to gullible, ignorant devotees of Israeli apartheid who will foolishly repeat it for American, Christian Zionist consumption.

Sadly, this fallacious, inaccurate reporting on Israel/Palestine is typical of the “news” made available on Christian broadcasting.

I strongly suggest that my readers not take it seriously. It is NOT a reliable source of accurate information about the world we live in.

Reframing: It’s Not a “Conflict.” It’s Colonialism

Israel was the last successful colonial project taken on by the British Empire — THE western, colonial power par excellence. We cannot accurately understand what is happening in Israel/Palestine today until we grasp that point.

As in every project of settler colonialism throughout history, the native people must be replaced, eliminated, expelled, made to disappear.

When the natives resist, the colonizers justify their rampant land theft and brutalization of the indigenous people by labeling them as sub-human savages, blood thirsty brutes, terrorists who live only for violence.

This dehumanization of the native people frames the settlers’ ongoing attacks against the stubborn natives as justifiable acts of “self-defense.” Even ethnic cleansing is excusable as the noble act of brave pioneers paving the way for civilization.

Colonialism always creates conflict. But colonial conflicts are always asymmetrical. That is, one side is the conquering aggressor who comes with superior weapons and technology.

For my money, the colonial aggressor is always in the wrong.

The other side, the native side, is always the victim forced to act defensively, whose resistance against colonial aggression is turned against them as justification for another wave of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Remember Geronimo.

What is happening right now is Israel/Palestine is NOT another round in a long-standing “conflict” between Jews and Arabs.

That is the dominant framing chosen by Israel’s Jewish colonizers. It is the framing that gets all the air-time and publicity because Israel is the overpowering aggressor who holds all the power in a very, very asymmetrical relationship with the suppressed and occupied Palestinians.

The only accurate, historical framing for the violence occurring today in Jerusalem is to see that Israeli colonialism continues by force of arms.

Israel is still colonizing the West Bank; still working to eradicate “the natives.” Oh, how troublesome those pesky natives can be.

Palestinians, for their part, are still resisting their colonizers; still standing up against the most powerful military in the Middle East.

No, this is not a conflict. It is a bloody, grotesque anachronism.

An outpost of western colonialism in the Middle East, originally underwritten by a now defunct imperial empire, is still trying to use 19th century tactics in a 21st century world.

So far, the world has turned a blind eye to Israel’s colonial, ethnic cleansing industry. I hope and pray that that time is coming to an end.

Below is a good clip from Al Jazeera News giving a fairly balanced perspective on the recent attacks against Palestinian worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque.

At the 6:47 mark, an interview begins with Ines Abdel Razek, the Advocacy Director for the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD). She does an excellent job of explaining what is happening today in Jerusalem and placing it in its proper context.

The Historical and Legal Background to the Sheikh Jarrah Evictions

Today I am writing a series of posts about the tragic stream of events unfolding in Israel.

The Israeli government is in the process of evicting numerous Palestinian families from their homes in the East Jerusalem area called Sheikh Jarrah. East Jerusalem, including the Old City of Jerusalem, is part of the occupied West Bank.

The entire West Bank was captured and occupied by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967 — a war begun by Israel’s offensive attacks against Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

Ever since, Israel has persisted in violating International Law and the

Palestinian family expelled from their Sheikh Jarrah home byby Jewish settlers
A Palestinian woman reacts as she carries a toddler, while Jewish settlers move out the belongings of a Palestinian family from a house in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009.  (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

Geneva Convention by a) forcing Palestinian residents from their homes, and b) encouraging Jewish settlers to move into Palestinian Occupied Territory.

These types of evictions have been happening for a long time all throughout Israel/Palestine. The Israeli government refers to the process as “Judaization.” That’s Israel’s term, not mine.

The Israeli government is justifying the Sheikh Jarrah evictions by claiming that these properties were originally owned by Jews prior to the war in 1948. So, they are only “reclaiming” Jewish property.

Imagine an Irish-American organization sending its “settlers” into what are now Jewish neighborhoods in New York City. They pass through the streets knocking on doors announcing, “This property used to be owned by Irish people. Get out.”

I would call that kind of behavior racist. The Jewish Defense League would call it antisemitic.

Can these displaced Palestinians return to their original homes and properties taken from them (or more likely demolished) by Jewish militias in 1948?

Of course not. They are Palestinians. They have no right of return. Only Jews can claim that “right” in Israel.

That’s what makes Israel an apartheid Jewish Supremacist State.

Several Palestinian rights organizations have submitted a  “Joint Urgent

Israeli settlers in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah mock anti-settler demonstrators from the Palestinian home they have taken over. April 16, 2021. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP)

Appeal to the United Nations Special Procedures on Forced Evictions in East Jerusalem” to the UN. This proposal carefully documents the legal circumstances at play in right now in East Jerusalem.

It is important to understand this history because most US media outlets will never fill-in these blanks. I have posted an excerpt below.

I encourage you to read the entire document, complete with its abundant citations and corroborating documentation:

Since the forcible displacement of 85 per cent of the Palestinian population during the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 by Zionist settler-colonial forces,
Israel designed and issued a series of discriminatory laws, policies, and practices, forming the foundation of its institutionalised regime of racial domination and oppression over the Palestinian people as a whole, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory, and Palestinian refugees and exiles abroad.

Israel has ensured the maintenance of its apartheid regime over the Palestinian people through its policies and practices, such as the strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian people, including by denying Palestinian refugees and other persons displaced from their homes their inalienable right to return, and the appropriation of their homes, lands and property, coupled with the creation of a coercive environment designed to drive the ongoing transfer of Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line. In occupied and illegally-annexed East Jerusalem, 15 Jerusalemite families totalling 37 households of around 195 Palestinians, residing in Karm Al-Ja’ouni area in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood and Batn Al-Hawa neighbourhood in Silwan, are currently at imminent risk of forced eviction. Unlawfully applying Israeli domestic law to occupied territory, Israeli courts have ruled in favour of lawsuits undertaken by settler organisations to evict the 15 Palestinian families. Most of the families living in Karm Al-Ja’ouni area and Batn Al-Hawa neighbourhood, who are facing the threat of forced eviction, are refugees. . . 

. . . To cement Palestinian dispossession and displacement in East Jerusalem, Israel enacted the Legal and Administrative Matters Law in 1970, which exclusively allows Israeli Jews to pursue claims to land and property ownership allegedly owned by Jews in East Jerusalem before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. In accordance with the 1970 Law, “assets of Jews” in East Jerusalem, which were managed by the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property until 1967, were transferred to the Israeli Custodian General within the Ministry of Justice. The Custodian General has the authority to release the properties to Israeli Jews who claim ownership, or claim that they inherited properties from before the establishment of the State of Israel, upon their request. Utilising the discriminatory aforementioned law, Jewish Trusts and Jewish entities with unclear legal status have secured land ownership in Batn Al-Hawa neighbourhood in Silwan and Karm AlJa’ouni area in Sheikh Jarrah by the Custodian General. Later, these Jewish Trusts and entities sold their ownership rights or transferred their management to settler organisations, which do not
have ties to the original alleged Jewish owners. In turn, the settler organisations, which envision further settlement expansion in occupied and illegally-annexed East Jerusalem, have been filing eviction lawsuits against Palestinians in Israeli courts. 

You can read the entire document now before the United Nations here.

Thinking About (Christian) Nationalism

Following my invitation to participate in the upcoming NEME webinar, Two Chosen Peoples? Two Promised Lands?, focusing on the intersection of Christian and Jewish Nationalism in the United States and Israel, I have been expanding my horizons in the ocean of literature exploring the history and contours of modern nationalism.

You know, I always appreciate another reason to read a few more good books!

Some of you may recall that I touched on the subject of American nationalism, and the related issue of civil religion, in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America (Eerdmans 2018).

The more I learn about the history and developments of this mind-set called “nationalism,” the more convinced I become that it is hostile to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and inevitably corrosive to faithful citizenship in the kingdom of God.

Fortunately, more and more Christian leaders are speaking out to warn God’s people against the dangers of what I consider the worst form of nationalism, that is “Christian Nationalism.”

For example, check out the resources provided by the group Christians Against Christian Nationalism.

Christian nationalism insists that The Nation is bound together by a corporate commitment to the Christian religion, born of a Christian history and Christian culture. Being Christian people (however that is defined) becomes the centerpiece of national identity.

Christian nationalism goes hand in hand with a belief in the nation’s “chosenness.” The Christian nation is God’s unique, elect people with a special, divine calling to perform His will in this world.

Historically, such national callings have generally been implemented, at least in part, through warfare, colonialism, bloodshed, discrimination, and even ethnic cleansing.

Christian Nationalism creates a secularized ecclesiology [ecclesiology is the doctrine of the Church], offering a worldly, bogus doctrine of a “national church” for seriously misguided people.

It even creates alternative, secular liturgies, symbols, rituals, and vocabulary for national “devotion.” Nationalism becomes a religious exercise memorializing the nation’s holy history.

But disciples of Jesus Christ are called to find their personal identity in union with the peaceable, crucified Savior. Clinging to the idolatrous badge of identity provided by a warmongering nation-state is a betrayal of genuine Christian values.

“Christian Nations” (so called) can never embody anything other than the secularized fellowship of false identities carved out by the egotism of those who are distorted by their own peculiar ethic, regional, cultural, linguistic superiority complexes.

There ain’t nothin’ Christian about any of that.

Here is a short excerpt from a good book on nationalism entitled, National Identity (Penguin 1991) by Anthony D. Smith. (All emphases are mine):

The nation is called upon to provide a social bond between individuals and classes by providing repertoires of shared values, symbols and traditions. By the use of symbols – flags, coinage, anthems, uniforms, monuments and ceremonies – members are reminded of their common heritage and cultural kindship . . . The nation becomes a faith achievement group . . . Finally, a sense of national identity provides a powerful means of defining and locating individual selves in the world, through the prism of the collective personality and its distinctive culture. It is through a shared, unique culture that we are enabled to know ‘who we are’ in the contemporary world. By rediscovering that culture we ‘rediscover’ ourselves, the ‘authentic self’, or so it has appeared to many divided and disoriented individuals who have had to contend with the vast changes and uncertainties of the modern world. This process of self-definition and location is in many ways the key to national identity. . .

 Nationalism, the doctrine that makes the nation the object of every political endeavour and national identity the measure of every human value, has since the French Revolution challenged the whole idea of a single humanity, of a world community and its moral unity. Instead, nationalism offers a narrow, conflict-laden legitimation for political community, which inevitably pits culture-communities against each other and . . . can only drag humanity into a political Charybdis. [Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. Greek mythology turned it into a sea monster.]

True followers of Jesus Christ find their eternal community in union with the Lord Jesus and, thus, other members of the Body of Christ. That Body is an international, multi-ethnic, trans-territorial community of the faithful.

The disciple’s personal identity is developed through obedience to the Lord Jesus, becoming more and more like him as we share in the fellowship of his suffering. Self-denial, humility, mercy, including service to those who are most unlike us, form the core bundle of Christ-like character traits marking those who follow Jesus.

There is no room for the perversions of Nationalism, much less “Christian Nationalism,” among God’s people on this earth.

Join the Webinar: “Two Chosen People? Two Promised Lands? Christian Nationalism and Christian Zionism Under Trump and Biden”

Not long ago I was invited to participate in an online webinar happening May 18th, 12:00 pm (Eastern Time) sponsored by the Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East (NEME).

The discussion will focus on the different ways Americans and Israelis view themselves as “exceptional nations,” both fulfilling a unique, divinely ordained mission to world history.

The presidency of Donald Trump gave voice to evangelicalism’s (i.e., conservative Christianity’s) bellicose commitment to both Christian Nationalism (the belief that America is a Christian nation) and Christian Zionism (the belief that Christians must support the state of Israel).

Israel puts itself at the center of Jewish Nationalism.

How do these political beliefs relate to each other?

What does the Bible say about such things?

How should the Christian church relate to Israel and its continuing conflict with the Palestinian people?

I will share this conversation with Lisa Sharon Harper (founder and president of Freedom Road) and L. Daniel Hawk (Ashland Theological Seminary).

I hope you will join us for what, I am convinced, will be a fascinating conversation. For those who can’t make it, the webinar will be recorded and made available at the NEME website.

You can register online here.

There is More Than One Way to Pack a Court

President Biden recently formed a commission that will look into the mechanics of restructuring the US Supreme Court by increasing the number of justices from 9 to 13.

The Republican media campaign is now in overdrive warning about the apocalyptic terrors that will be unleashed if Democrats are allowed “to pack” the Supreme Court. (Watch the Religious Right lament here.)

The hypocrisy is so thick you can cut it with a knife.

Republican legislators have their own troubled history with court-packing at the state level. Neither should we forget the manipulative powerplays undertaken by Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley in seating their own conservative choices.

Their Republican skull-duggery included denying Merrick Garland, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, from receiving the Senate confirmation hearing that dominees deserve.

At the time, McConnell insisted that it was improper to appoint a new justice “so close to a presidential election” (recall, the Trump/Clinton election was weeks away).

However, McConnell’s appeal to principle proved to be nothing more than cynical, partisan gamesmanship as he then rushed to confirm Justice Amy Coney Barrett only weeks before the election of president Biden.

And this is only the tip of a very tawdry, partisan, judicial iceberg. (There is a laundry list of similar shenanigans in the appointments of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, as well. But those sad stories are for another post.)

More to the point for the purposes of this post is the important warning

October 13, 2020, Washington, District of Columbia, USA: United States Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat of Rhode Island) makes a presentation during his questioning of President Donald Trump‚Äôs Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett during the second day of her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing Tuesday, October 13, 2020 (Credit Image: © Greg Nash – Pool Via Cnp/CNP via ZUMA Wire)

repeatedly raised by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse over the anti-democratic flood of “dark money” now shaping the Supreme Court.

“Dark money” consists of untraceable, and therefore anonymous, financial contributions typically made to a political action committee and “front groups.” The promise of anonymity allows wealthy, big-money donors to move the court in the directions they want without the public realizing what is happening.

Although conservatives contribute the lion’s share of this money, it’s a bipartisan affair. Dark money pours in from both Republican and Democratic donors, lobbyists, billionaires, CEOs, and corporations.

Of course, big money, corporate money, generally gets what it wants.  And what dark money wants are Supreme Court justices and case decisions that promote their interests, leaving the little guy to hold the bag.

I urge you to take a few  minutes to watch Senator Whitehouse’s presentations where he explains the findings of own his investigations into the overwhelming influence of dark money on the Supreme Court.

Folks, the Supreme Court has already been packed. In fact, its been stacked — stacked against us, the people. Yet, you will never hear conservative politicians, Republicans, Pat Robertson or others of his ilk condemn this undermining of American democracy.

The current conservative outcry against Biden and his commission is just one more example of how easy it is for the wealthiest 1% and corporate power in this country to manipulate the public — especially conservatives.

Below is Senator Whitehouse’s explanation about the influence of dark money on the Supreme Court. His most pertinent remarks begin at the 8:40 mark:

 

More Evidence that the Republican Party Hates Democracy

The extraordinary phenomena of last year’s protests over George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, combined with two Democratic victories in Georgia for the state’s seats in the US Senate has infuriated the Republican party.

Republicans have responded as Republicans do: undermine the power of the people.

First, they have introduced dozens of new voter suppression laws in local legislatures across the country. Naturally, Republicans object to this characterization, but Stacey Abram’s recent testimony before a Senate committee regarding Georgia’s new voter laws puts the lie to that Republican defense (watch here and here).

Second, Republicans have submitted numerous bills that would outlaw public protests and demonstrations.  They would also immunize drivers who run into protesters with their cars. (All the videos I have seen show drivers who deliberately target peaceful demonstrators.)

Today’s edition of the New York Times has an article about this second problem. It’s entitled, “G.O.P. Bills Target Protesters (and Absolve Drivers Who Hit Them).”

Below is a lengthy excerpt of that article. (It is behind a pay wall). Or you can read the entire piece by clicking on the title above:

Republican legislators in Oklahoma and Iowa have passed bills granting immunity to drivers whose vehicles strike and injure protesters in public streets.

A Republican proposal in Indiana would bar anyone convicted of unlawful assembly from holding state employment, including elected office. A Minnesota bill would prohibit those convicted of unlawful protesting from receiving student loans, unemployment benefits or housing assistance.

And in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed sweeping legislation this week that

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has used the term anti-riot bills for legislation that limits the right to protest. Credit…Phil SearsAssociated Press

toughened existing laws governing public disorder and created a harsh new level of infractions — a bill he’s called “the strongest anti-looting, anti-rioting, pro-law-enforcement piece of legislation in the country.”

The measures are part of a wave of new anti-protest legislation, sponsored and supported by Republicans, in the 11 months since Black Lives Matter protests swept the country following the death of George Floyd. The Minneapolis police officer who killed Mr. Floyd, Derek Chauvin, was convicted on Tuesday on murder and manslaughter charges, a cathartic end to weeks of tension.

But while Democrats seized on Mr. Floyd’s death last May to highlight racism in policing and other forms of social injustice, Republicans responded to a summer of protests by proposing a raft of punitive new measures governing the right to lawfully assemble. G.O.P. lawmakers in 34 states have introduced 81 anti-protest bills during the 2021 legislative session — more than twice as many proposals as in any other year, according to Elly Page, a senior legal adviser at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, which tracks legislation limiting the right to protest.

Some, like Mr. DeSantis, are labeling them “anti-riot” bills, conflating the right to peaceful protest with the rioting and looting that sometimes resulted from such protests.

The laws carry forward the hyperbolic message Republicans have been pushing in the 11 months since Black Lives Matter protests against racial injustice swept the country: that Democrats are tolerant of violent and criminal actions from those who protest against racial injustice. And the legislation underscores the extent to which support for law enforcement personnel and opposition to protests have become part of the bedrock of G.O.P. orthodoxy and a likely pillar of the platform the party will take into next year’s midterms.

“This is consistent with the general trend of legislators’ responding to powerful and persuasive protests by seeking to silence them rather than engaging with the message of the protests,” said Vera Eidelman, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union. “If anything, the lesson from the last year, and decades, is not that we need to give more tools to police and prosecutors, it’s that they abuse the tools they already have.”

Laws already exist to punish rioting, and civil rights advocates worry that the new bills violate rights of lawful assembly and free speech protected under the First Amendment. The overwhelming majority of last summer’s nationwide Black Lives Matter protests were peaceful — more than 96 percent involved no property damage or police injuries, according to The Washington Post, which also found that police officers or counterprotesters often instigated violence.

Police officers making an arrest during protests in Miami last year over the death of George Floyd Credit…Cristobal HerreraEPA, via Shutterstock

Most of the protests held across Florida last summer were also peaceful, though a few in Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville produced some episodes of violence, including the burning of a police car and a sporting goods store. Still, as they embraced the bill that Mr. DeSantis signed into law, Republican leaders expressed scorn for cities that trim police budgets and tolerate protesters who disrupt business and traffic.

“We weren’t going to allow Florida to become Seattle,” said Chris Sprowls, a Republican who is the speaker of the Florida House, mentioning cities where protests lasted for months last year and demonstrators frequently clashed with the police. “We were not going to allow Florida to become Portland.”. . . 

. . . State Senator Shevrin D. Jones, a Democrat from Broward County and a vocal critic of the law, noted that Mr. DeSantis had been quick to emphasize how necessary the bill was the day after the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol but had made no mention of that event during Monday’s bill signing, focusing solely on the summer protests.

That was evidence, he said, that bills aimed at punishing protesters were disproportionately targeting people of color. “This bill is racist at its core,” Mr. Jones said.

So far, three bills aimed at limiting protests have been signed into law — Florida’s and new laws in Arkansas and Kansas that target protesters who seek to disrupt oil pipelines. Others are likely to come soon.

In Oklahoma, Republican lawmakers last week sent legislation to Gov. Kevin Stitt that would criminalize the unlawful blocking of a public street and grant immunity to drivers who strike and injure protesters during a riot. Last June, a pickup truck carrying a horse trailer drove through a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters on a Tulsa freeway, injuring several people and leaving one paralyzed. The driver, who said he had sped up because he feared for the safety of his family, was not charged.

The bill’s author, State Senator Rob Standridge, said the Tulsa incident had prompted him to seek immunity for drivers who strike protesters. He said Tuesday he wasn’t aware of any drivers who had been charged after striking protesters in Oklahoma. “My hope is that this law never is utilized,” he said in an interview. Carly Atchison, a spokeswoman for Mr. Stitt, declined to say whether he would sign the bill, which passed with veto-proof majorities.

Tiffany Crutcher, whose twin brother, Terence Crutcher, was shot and killed in 2016 by a Tulsa police officer who was later acquitted on a manslaughter charge, said the Oklahoma proposal represents Republican efforts to extend the Trump administration’s hostility toward people of color.

Reflections on the Derek Chauvin Verdict and George Floyd’s Murder

The good news is that Derek Chauvin has been convicted for the murder of George Floyd. In this instance, the justice system has worked. A white police

Derek Chauvin

officer is being held accountable for his excessive use of force against an unarmed black man.  Something that very rarely happens.

But this is also the bad news.

At this point in America’s history, Derek Chauvin’s conviction is a “black swan event.” Recall Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s bestselling book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Random House, 2010), reminding us that incredibly improbable events (like a black swan) may have considerable influence while remaining very rare.

Notice the two provisos: first, the transformative event is very rare; and two, it MAY have significant consequences. In other words, the possible results are far from assured, and the event itself may never be repeated.

Krystal Ball

Krystal Ball (yes, that’s her real name) reminded her viewers on “Rising” this morning of the extraordinary efforts that created the context for Chauvin’s successful conviction.

First, is Darnella Frasier, the teenage girl who had the presence of mind and the courage to pull out her cell phone and film the 9 minute video of officer  Chauvin kneeling of Mr. Floyd’s neck.

Second, is the largest, most sustained protest movement in US history, which spread around the world.

Were it not for these two momentous actions, George Floyd would have been just another anonymous victim of police brutality. And Derek Chauvin would have gotten away with murder.

Hardly encouraging news.

Think about that. Let it sink in. It hardly indicates that this is the beginning of a new day in prosecuting police misconduct, let alone altering police behavior nationwide.

[Krystal’s remarks begin at about the 30 second mark.

Now is the time to keep the celebrations brief.

Because now is the time to insist that our legislators pass H.R. 1280, The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021. Though this piece of legislation is inadequate on its own, it may serve as a piece of the larger police reform puzzle.

Now is also the time to continue campaigning for local Defund the Police programs across the country. Numerous cities are testing these ideas now and the preliminary reports are very encouraging in places like Denver and Colorado Springs (see here, here, here, and here).

Now is also the time for Christian leaders to continue speaking out about  justice and equality for all people, regardless of race, color, ethnicity, or class.

Do not swallow the Fox News cool-aid insisting that this trial was only about one bad apple who did one bad thing, and that his conviction proves the reliability of our glorious criminal justice system.

That predictably conservative framing of the issues is a recipe for going back to sleep and maintaining the status quo. A status quo that ignores the larger context of US policing and police training which allows police brutality to continue unabated.

No. Now is the time to keep the pressure on, to continue protesting, to insist that the culture of American policing is in dire need of regeneration.

Now is also the time for the evangelical church to break ranks with the Republican party, Fox News, and the politics of fear.

It will mean wanting to become more like Jesus, releasing our vice-like grip on worries over personal security and caring more for those who suffer than we care for ourselves.

The Black-White Wage Gap Is as Big as It Was in 1950. Why?

Last summer David Leonhardt, a writer at the New York Times, published the

David Leonhardt

results of several recent studies examining the historic rates of wage increases (or decreases) among white and black workers in America.

He states that “recent research indicates little progress since the Truman administration.”

Since the Truman administration!!!

The results of these studies point to two culprits.

One, the long-term effects of institutional racism.

And two, the growing income gap between the upper- and lower-classes of our society.

Here is Mr. Leonhardt’s article. (All emphases are mine). The original contains a number of important charts and graphs that will not copy to this post. (Probably because I am technologically impaired.)

If you can read the NYT online, I highly recommend checking it out.  The charts make the raw data jump off the page.

Government statistics suggest that the earnings gap between black and white men is substantially smaller than it was 75 years ago. It shrunk in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s and has remained largely stable since then.

But these statistics are misleading. A more comprehensive look at the data, based on recent academic research, shows that the black-white wage gap is roughly as large today as it was in 1950.

That’s remarkable. Despite decades of political change — the end of enforced segregation across the South, the legalization of interracial marriage, the passage of multiple civil rights laws and more — the wages of black men trail those of white men by as much as when Harry Truman was president. That gap indicates that there have also been powerful forces pushing against racial equality.

Before getting into the causes, though, I want to explain the difference between the best-known wage statistics and the more accurate version. The traditional numbers are incomplete in a way that many people do not realize: They cover only workers. People who don’t work are ignored. This group includes students, full-time parents, people who have given up on finding work and people who are incarcerated.

Excluding them wouldn’t present a problem if the percentage of nonworkers had remained fairly stable over time. But it has not. “There’s been a tremendous run-up in non-work among prime-age men,” says Kerwin Kofi Charles, an economist and the dean of the Yale School of Management.

One reason is that many middle-aged men — of all races, although disproportionately black — have dropped out of the labor force, and are neither working nor looking for work. The shrinking number of decent-paying blue-collar jobs has left many people who didn’t attend college without good job opportunities, and they have responded by no longer actively looking for work.

A second reason that more men aren’t working is that vastly more of them are incarcerated. Incarceration rates are especially high for black men — about twice as high as those of Hispanic men, six times higher than those of white men and at least 25 times higher than those of black women, Hispanic women or white women.

Becky Pettit, a sociologist at the University of Texas, refers to these incarcerated men as invisible. She has written a book titled, “Invisible Men: Mass incarceration and the myth of black progress.”

People considered “unemployed” represent a small — and declining — share of those out of work.

The traditional statistics on the black-white wage gap ignore these trends, because they examine only people with earnings. As social scientists put it, the traditional numbers ignore the “zero values.”
This means that the statistics on the wage gap are looking at a shrinking share of the population over time. They overlook the roughly 30 percent of black men and 15 percent of white men between the ages of 25 and 54 who had not been working in a given week during recent years. (Those shares are even higher now, given the economic downturn.)

“It’s a weird hole,” Mr. Charles says.

He and another economist — Patrick Bayer of Duke — undertook a research project to fill that hole. They collected census data dating back to 1940 and constructed wage statistics that included men who were not working. They are also conducting a follow-up project about women, Mr. Bayer said. The gap between black and white women may have narrowed, but only modestly.

The research by Mr. Charles and Mr. Bayer shows that once all men — working and not working — are included, the picture changes.

The black-white wage gap shrunk substantially from 1950 to 1980, and especially during the 1960s. Civil-rights laws and a decline in legally sanctioned racism most likely played some role. But the main reasons, Mr. Charles said, appear to have been trends that benefited all blue-collar workers, like strong unions and a rising minimum wage. Because black workers were disproportionately in blue-collar jobs, the general rise of incomes for the poor and middle class shrank the racial wage gap.

One law was especially important: the 1966 amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act. When Congress passed the original law, during the New Deal, it deliberately exempted service and other industries with many black workers from the minimum wage. “Just expanding the minimum wage to those industries,” Ellora Derenoncourt, a University of California, Berkeley, economist, said, “boosted the relative wages of black workers substantially.”

Since 1980, however, the wage gap has increased again, and is now back roughly to where it was in 1950. The same economic forces are at work, only in the opposite direction: The minimum wage has stagnated in some states, unions have shrunk, tax rates on the wealthy have fallen more than they have for anyone else and incomes for the bottom 90 percent — and especially the bottom half — have trailed economic growth. Black workers, again, are disproportionately in these lower-income groups.

One nuance is that the racial wage gap has shrunk somewhat among higher-income men. That’s a sign that more African-Americans have broken into the upper middle class than was the case in prior decades.

This history also points to some of the likely solutions for closing the racial wage gap. An end to mass incarceration would help. So would policies that attempt to reverse decades of government-encouraged racism — especially in housing. But it’s possible that nothing would have a bigger impact than policies that lifted the pay of all working-class families, across races.

“Black people are concentrated in low-paying jobs if they have jobs,” Ms. Derenoncourt said. “This has been one of the most egregious forms of inequality over the last 40 years: There has been almost no wage growth for the bottom half of the wage distribution.”

Alas. The US War in Afghanistan Will Not End on 9/11/21

I will keep my fingers crossed and hope that  president Biden follows through on his promise to withdraw all US ground forces from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021.

But even if he does resist the pressure of DC warmongers now mounted against him, the senseless 20 year war in Afghanistan is bound to continue.

Investigative journalist, Norman Solomon

Journalist Norman Solomon’s article at SheerPost reminds us that we always have to read the fine print in any presidential statement.

There we will see that the air war will continue. US drones will not stop murdering anonymous Afghan civilians, including women and children.

The CIA and various special ops units will continue their clandestine operations.

The insanity of American foreign policy, which appears intent upon dominating the entire globe, has not changed. President Biden remains a neo-liberal, American imperialist.

The publication of the Afghanistan Papers by the Washington Post — this generation’s equivalent of Daniel Ellsberg’s release of the Pentagon Papers, revealing the truth about the horrid, unwinnable war in Vietnam — has been ignored by the public and Congress, meaning that there is little public pressure to TRULY bring this war to an end.

Solomon’s piece is entitled, “The Fine Print on Biden’s Afghanistan Announcement.”

Here it is:

Contrary to what Joe Biden has said and corporate media has parroted, U.S. warfare in Afghanistan is set to continue well beyond September 11, 2021.

When I met a seven-year-old girl named Guljumma at a refugee camp in Kabul a dozen years ago, she told me that bombs fell early one morning while she slept

Guljumma, 7, and her father, Wakil Tawos Khan, at the Helmand Refugee Camp District 5 in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 31, 2009. [Photo by Reese Erlich]
at home in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Valley. With a soft, matter-of-fact voice, Guljumma described what happened. Some people in her family died. She lost an arm.

Troops on the ground didn’t kill Guljumma’s relatives and leave her to live with only one arm. The U.S. air war did.

There’s no good reason to assume the air war in Afghanistan will be over when — according to President Biden’s announcement on Wednesday — all U.S. forces will be withdrawn from that country.

What Biden didn’t say was as significant as what he did say. He declared that “U.S. troops, as well as forces deployed by our NATO allies and operational partners, will be out of Afghanistan” before Sept. 11. And “we will not stay involved in Afghanistan militarily.”

But President Biden did not say that the United States will stop bombing Afghanistan. What’s more, he pledged that “we will keep providing assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces,” a declaration that actually indicates a tacit intention to “stay involved in Afghanistan militarily.”

And, while the big-type headlines and prominent themes of media coverage are filled with flat-out statements that the U.S. war in Afghanistan will end come September, the fine print of coverage says otherwise.

The banner headline across the top of the New York Times homepage during much of Wednesday proclaimed: “Withdrawal of U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Will End Longest American War.” But, buried in the thirty-second paragraph of a story headed “Biden to Withdraw All Combat Troops From Afghanistan by Sept. 11,” the Times reported: “Instead of declared troops in Afghanistan, the United States will most likely rely on a shadowy combination of clandestine Special Operations forces, Pentagon contractors and covert intelligence operatives to find and attack the most dangerous Qaeda or Islamic State threats, current and former American officials said.”

Matthew Hoh, a Marine combat veteran who in 2009 became the highest-ranking U.S. official to resign from the State Department in protest of the Afghanistan war, told my colleagues at the Institute for Public Accuracy on Wednesday: “Regardless of whether the 3,500 acknowledged U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, the U.S. military will still be present in the form of thousands of special operations and CIA personnel in and around Afghanistan, through dozens of squadrons of manned attack aircraft and drones stationed on land bases and on aircraft carriers in the region, and by hundreds of cruise missiles on ships and submarines.”

We scarcely hear about it, but the U.S. air war on Afghanistan has been a major part of Pentagon operations there. And for more than a year, the U.S. government hasn’t even gone through the motions of disclosing how much of that bombing has occurred.

“We don’t know, because our government doesn’t want us to,” diligent researchers Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies wrote last month. “From January 2004 until February 2020, the U.S. military kept track of how many bombs and missiles it dropped on Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and published those figures in regular, monthly Airpower Summaries, which were readily available to journalists and the public. But in March 2020, the Trump administration abruptly stopped publishing U.S. Airpower Summaries, and the Biden administration has so far not published any either.”

The U.S. war in Afghanistan won’t end just because President Biden and U.S. news media tell us so. As Guljumma and countless other Afghan people have experienced, troops on the ground aren’t the only measure of horrific warfare.

No matter what the White House and the headlines say, U.S. taxpayers won’t stop subsidizing the killing in Afghanistan until there is an end to the bombing and “special operations” that remain shrouded in secrecy.