The international movement for Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions on Israel (BDS) is causing quite a stir in its tenth year. Using tactics learned from the struggle against South African apartheid, BDS demands 1) an end to the Occupation, 2) the right of return of Palestinians outside of Israel, and 3) full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Conservative Americans and Israelis are trying to silence BDS. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has launched a war against it. The Israeli Justice Ministry is preparing to launch international lawsuits against those who support it. American billionaire Sheldon Adelson has convened a secret summit against it. The US Congress is working on a bill to criminalize it.

Liberals are also joining the battle against BDS. The editors of the liberal Jewish US newspaper, The Forward, suggest that the left should join together to defeat BDS. The “pro-Israel, pro-peace” political action committee, J-Street, says it merely ”opposes the Israeli occupation of Palestine, but it “strongly opposes” BDS. The editors of Israel’s liberal newspaper, Haaretz, often express opposition to BDS (1, 2, 3). Even the outspoken critic of Israel, Norman Finkelstein, has criticized BDS as a cult.

In Israel and the US, the huge Jewish right-wing is made up of racist white Jewish-supremacists who are proud colonizers. On the far left, there is a much smaller group that seeks equal rights for Palestinians and supports movements like BDS. Between these extremes is a substantial “liberal Zionist” constituency that supposedly wants peace and an end to Occupation, but doesn’t really want to rock the boat.

Zionists of all stripes want Israel to be Jewish-controlled, but liberal Zionists want that control to be somehow benevolent. Right-wing Zionists don’t care about benevolence, and don’t pretend, like liberals do, that they are willing to give up much of anything for peace or justice. Liberal Zionists, like liberal Americans, don’t want their country bombing or occupying anyone, but they really have no interest in giving up any privileges to achieve that.

In recent years, Netanyahu’s brutal attacks and racist campaign rhetoric have eroded support for this middle ground. Amidst a backdrop of images of Israel’s ugly campaign of ethnic cleansing, their dream of a peaceful, democratic, yet still racially-defined state, is becoming increasingly difficult for anyone to visualize.

Liberals Zionists supposedly agree on one of the BDS demands: an end to Occupation. BDS’s other two demands — full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel and especially Palestinian right of return — make the liberals nervous. Those who aren’t ok with having the Palestinians who were kicked out of their homes (and their descendants) move home, are not willing to make the fundamental changes needed to achieve justice.

Liberal Zionists must understand that the question of Israeli ‘democracy’ hinges on these other two demands, but they also fear an Israel in which white-looking Jews don’t have extra special rights and access. The dream of a third option appeals to those who want to end the Occupation without giving up any of their privileges. However, for BDS supporters, an end to the Occupation that still includes legal inequality means little more than a nicer-looking apartheid.

To bring pressure on Israel, BDS organizes non-violent economic, academic, government, and cultural campaigns. If liberals agree with BDS about a need to end the Occupation through non-violent tactics, yet they reject BDS tactics, what tactics are left — just voting? Liberals characterize boycotts and confrontational tactics as too ‘alienating,’ and resent their radical counterparts for not adopting more polite and obedient tactics (as if those ever work). So, liberals find themselves confronting BDS on behalf of the racist status quo. They are reminiscent of liberals and churches in the 60s that claimed to oppose racial injustice, but had nothing but criticism for MLK’s movement.

J-Street lobbies politicians but, so far, has had little effect. US and Israeli politicians almost unanimously support Occupation. There are differences between conservative and centrist politicians in the US and Israel on the issue of new settlements, but when it comes to dismantling the existing settlements and ending the Occupation, no mainstream politicians are even talking about that.

The main pillar of the Zionist left has long been the ‘two-state solution.’ Progressive folks get yelled at if they criticize or question the two-state solution, despite the fact that nothing is being done by either side to work towards such a solution. At some point, and for some people, perhaps, the ‘two-state solution’ meant two states equal and free of each other’s control. If so, the term was later co-opted. Now it signifies an illegally nuclear-armed Israel on the one side, and on the other, a bunch of non-contiguous enclaves (read “bantustans”) called Palestine, with massive Israeli military checkpoints between them. Israel would control the airspace and borders of this Palestine, which would be demilitarized, and apparently, would have to affirm that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state. Those who push for this type of two-state solution are akin to various groups throughout the twentieth century who supported apartheid, separate and unequal segregation, or the transfer of indigenous onto reservations.

The Zionist left and right are united in their deep dislike of BDS. For them, BDS is even more exasperating than Hamas rockets, because it’s harder to play the victim when all you’re up against is a nonviolent human rights movement. Liberal Zionists seem more concerned with defeating BDS than defeating the Occupation itself.

Clinton tried the same old Democratic rhetoric. She referenced the common people she has met, hoping that the public might believe she is empathetic. Folks know that she is in the top 1% of the top 1%, but still, she went for it:

I hear this everywhere I go. The single mom who talked to me about juggling a job and classes at community college while raising three kids. She doesn’t expect anything to come easy, but if she got a raise, everything wouldn’t be quite so hard. The grandmother who works around the clock providing childcare to other people’s kids. She’s proud of her work but the pay is barely enough to live on, especially with the soaring price of her prescription drugs. The young entrepreneur whose dream of buying the bowling alley where he worked as a teenager was nearly derailed by his student debt. If he can grow his business, he’ll be able to pay off his debt and pay his employees, including himself, more, too.

Elizabeth Warren talks in specifics, about re-introducing Glass-Steagall, and breaking up big banks:

When those banks are broken up and forced to bear the consequences of the risks they take on … regulatory oversight can be lighter and clearer as well.

Bernie Sanders talks about raising the minimum wage:

…the federal minimum wage of seven dollars and a quarter (an hour) is a starvation wage that must be raised. The minimum wage must become a living wage, which means 15 bucks an hour over the next few years.

While Clinton spoke in the vaguest language possible:

I’ll also push for broader business tax reform to spur investment in America, closing those loopholes that reward companies for sending jobs and profits overseas… We must raise incomes for hard-working Americans so they can afford a middle-class life. We must drive strong and steady income growth that lifts up families and lifts up our country.

While Sanders calls for medicare for all, Hillary’s plan for health care is maintaining the status quo:

To make paychecks stretch, we need to take on the major strains on family budgets. I’ll protect the Affordable Care Act – and build on it to lower out-of-pocket health care costs and to make prescription drugs more affordable.

Some of Clinton’s vague promises seem to be directly lifted from past Obama speeches:

Our economy obviously runs on energy, and the time has come to make America the clean-energy superpower. I advocate that because these investments will create millions of jobs, save us money in the long run and help us meet the threats of climate change. And let’s fund the scientific and medical research that spawns innovative companies and creates entire new industries..

Here’s what Obama said in 2024 on the same topic:

…we will put Americans to work in new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced – jobs building solar panels and wind turbines; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs, more savings, and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain.

Clinton flirts vaguely with redistribution of wealth, without the guts to actually use those words. While she pretends to get it, saying things like, “Inequality is a drag on our entire economy,” even her biggest fans don’t really buy it. After the speech, her popularity among Democrats dropped. More importantly, Wall Street doesn’t buy it for a second — Clinton is a top recipient of corporate dollars, while Bernie Sanders is leading the pack of candidates in small individual donations.
Go see Bernie Sanders in Houston this Sunday July 19!

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best… They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people…

Sadly, the American dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again.

Trump’s back-from-the-dead American dream features himself as the white-businessman reality-tv-star hero, and Mexicans as the rapist bad guys. Of course, Trump’s racist quotes go back decades, and include, “Laziness is a trait in blacks,” and “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” The Justice Department even brought a suit against Trump for housing discrimination.

After years of accusing Obama of not being a natural-born citizen, Trump said:

How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard? I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records… We don’t know a thing about this guy… There are a lot of questions that are unanswered about our president.

And in response to his critics, Trump once responded that he has a “great relationship with the blacks.”

Right-wing, anti-immigrant fear mongering is quite familiar around the world, from parties like France’s National Front, The U.K. Independence Party, Greece’s Golden Dawn, Italy’s Northern League, and Germany’s National Democratic Party. These European parties are associated with neo-nazism and other forms of fascism, whereas Donald Trump is perceived by many Americans as a blow-hard who says some wacky things. However, his beliefs are neither benign nor even marginal. The fact that Trump’s speech bumped him up to front-runner status indicates that his racism is popular.

While the news and social media gave plenty of coverage to the backlash against Trump’s comments, the historical precedents are being ignored. These two myths are familiar from fascist propaganda:

• a dead national dream can be revived by a heroic white male leader
• darker-skinned outsiders are coming to rape the women

“Defend Her! She could be your mother, your wife, your sister, your daughter.”
Fascist Italian poster from WWII

Trump’s comments address a nation that is currently criminalizing immigrants, Muslims, and communities of color. There is a long history of the US partnering with repressive, racist governments in the name of fighting ‘communism,’ drugs, or ‘terror.’ These patterns have to be accurately named before they can be challenged and defeated.

Before 9/11, the anti-immigrant groups existed, but were not at the center of the GOP. Republicans must be reminded that Reagan granted amnesty to undocumented immigrants. Even George W. Bush has come out in favor of immigration reform. The recent changes in messaging from Republican candidates and party leaders indicate a shift from institutional to overt racism.

Trump and the ‘Ayn Rand fan’ candidates (Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Herman Cain, John Culberson, Ted Poe, etc.) share an American dream that is a nightmare for most. In it, we have nothing to learn from other countries or science. Only powerful business leaders have important knowledge. If politicians have foreign-sounding names, consider themselves part of the rest of the world, or if they compare the wisdom of US policies to the wisdom of policies in other countries, then they are anti-American.

Xenophobia, racism, and fascism can be laughable, but while we are laughing, political-corporate partnerships are demonizing the very immigrant laborers they employ. Immigrants work harder, are taxed more heavily, and receive far fewer benefits than the richest Americans, like Trump. Since slavery, white supremacists have blamed immigrants, the poor, and non-whites for society’s problems.

To Marx, the ownership-class exploits workers. The Ayn Rand fans and Trump have crafted their sophisticated response: It is the workers who are exploiting the poor owners! They wrap up their immigrant bashing in US flags and ‘freedom,’ and many voters seem to be buying it.

The other times in history when the masses craved anti-immigrant candidates were when ‘freedom’ had lost all meaning.

 
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed multi-national secret treaty between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam. It was dealt a serious blow on May 12, when a provision called “fast track” Trade Promotion Authority failed to pass in the US Senate. Fast track authority would have meant that whenever the final deal is submitted, Congress would be limited to voting up or down, without the right to amend or filibuster. This defeat to TPP fast track should be considered a victory for human rights and the environment. However, like all such trade agreements, TPP will keep coming back in many forms. This small victory should be used to build momentum against the TPP, and all so-called ‘free-trade’ agreements.

Elizabeth Warren made headlines for calling out Obama’s just-trust-me nonsense about the TPP. Whenever Obama claimed that Warren was dead-wrong about the TPP, she simply responded that publishing the details of the secret deal would help settle the matter. Obama did not respond to that challenge. The fact that the deal is secret should be sufficient to have earned unanimously rejection in Congress, however, the corporate and government interests that push these sorts of treaties are tenacious.

It is up to the people to demand transparency, so that we can check potential effects on workers, the environment, children, human rights, pharmaceutical prices for poorer nations, toxins, fair trials, etc. However, even when these deals are public, they’re so long and complicated that all any analyst can do is guess about potential results. The idea of endorsing a treaty you can’t read also should have struck journalists as absurd, but that didn’t stop Forbes, Politico, The National Review, The Economist, Time, The Washington Post, and countless other publications from doing just that. Their argument went basically like this:

Though China is not one of the initial signatories, it may want to join one day, to participate in the massive trade opportunities. By then, better protections against currency manipulation, and for human rights, workers, children, and the environment will have spread throughout the signatory nations. These standards will serve to balance out China’s negative influence and transform the region.

This is nonsense. Free-trade agreements have consistently lowered protections for humans and the environment, not raised them. Furthermore, if the deal is bad for China, China won’t sign. That’s what happened to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) — Brazil didn’t sign it because it would have given the US more power and Brazil less. So, it’s not the government of China that might get screwed,  it will be individuals, animals, and the environment in all the signatory nations getting screwed. Unlike China, we can’t opt out.

Ever since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), we have been seeing these same types of deals, and so we have had decades to learn about them. There is no reason to assume that the familiar anti-democratic provisions aren’t in the TPP:

• If governments have any environmental laws that reduce profits the “Chapter 11 provisions” of NAFTA and other ‘free-trade’ deals allow corporations to sue governments (i.e. the people) to recoup those profits. These suits do not take place in regular courts subject to constitutional protections, but in special tribunals.
• ‘Investor protections’ trump labor and environmental laws.
• Family farmers lose their land and livelihood to industrial agriculture.
• Workers are displaced.

The corporate media supported Obama, and tried to convince us that the TPP would give the US a leg up on China, helping people and the environment, as if the record of all the other such agreements didn’t exist. It is clear from NAFTA that environmental and worker protections do not carry over borders, especially into poor countries, Instead, richer nations export pollution and jobs to places where there are no protections. ‘Free-trade’ agreements and treaties are intentionally written so as to circumvent the spreading of higher standards. The basis for the TPP is to free capital while limiting the freedom, safety, and democracy of the people.

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Learn more about the defeated Free Trade Area of the Americas here.

Learn more about the Trans-Pacific Partnership here.

Read about how the failure to pass the TPP also helped nonviolent solidarity with Palestinians here.

Problems in the Houston governance model:

Policing Issues:

HPD Crime Lab Scandal:

Victims of Mischaracterizations?

Take It Easy On Me!

Not To Toot My Own Horn Or Anything….

Things Just Kinda Happen Sometimes!

Let Me Clarify…

Today it was announced by the FCC that Rice University Radio will be back on the FM dial. The details include: the frequency will be 96.1FM, the broadcast power will be quite low — 41 Watts, and the height of the antenna will be 47 meters near Rice Stadium.

Starting up as a hard-wired radio station in 1967, KTRU started FM broadcast at 91.7 MHz in May 1971, and by 1981 ran at 650 Watts. In 1991, the transmitter moved north of Houston, and increased in power to 50,000 watts. This created a golden age of non-commercial music in Houston that lasted until 2024, when U of H purchased the KTRU frequency and antenna for $9.5 million. Since then, the frequency has been used for automated classical 91.7 KUHA. Though KTRU disappeared from the regular FM dial, it lived on as 90.1FM HD2 for folks with HD radios, and continued to stream on the internet.

Compared to KTRU’s 1991 – 2024 era, the new transmitter will have less than 1% of the effective broadcast area. However, since the transmitter is in a densely populated part of town, hundreds of thousands will potentially be able to tune in.

The permit, which came through the FCC’s Low Power FM (LPFM) program, was viewed by some as a long awaited return to the regular FM dial since the valiant Save KTRU struggle failed to stop the sale of Houston’s most independent music station.

Ian Wells, from The Local Show, said, “It’s been a multi-year effort. The application was submitted a year ago. Will Robedee and engineers and attorneys engaged by Rice have really been carrying the torch for a long time.” Station Manager Sal Tijerina said, “It’s just a great thing for Houston for KTRU to return to the airwaves. KTRU and Houston have gone hand in hand. From here on out we can again enjoy music together. Hopefully we can expand from here.”

Others think of it as a weak substitute for a station that used to be able to loudly reach young people far into the suburbs and change their lives for the better with non-commercial music. There is still much resentment from some KTRU alums towards the administration over the secretive 2024 deal.

William Watson, KTRU chief engineer, 1980-1983 wrote, “The call sign KTRU is currently licensed to a religious broadcaster serving La Harpe, Kansas with a 750 Watt station.” So, Rice may or may not be able to negotiate to somehow get “KTRU” back.