Opinion
What an adorable photo on the cover of this book! The slender, handsome boy is all of ten years old; I have socks older than that. Yet he also looks confident and serious. How would someone so young know about a vanishing country? I quickly found the answer in this delightful read by a gifted writer.
I left the Geffen Playhouse feeling exhilarated, not only because I saw my first play in months since the you-know-what returned, but due to the fact that Power of Sail is a very timely one-act play with a stellar cast that dramatizes an urgent issue America is grappling with. The play asks: Does hate speech have the right to free speech? Here’s playwright Paul Grellong’s story in a nutshell (and I warn you, Dear Theatergoer, there may be some plot spoilers in this critique):
WASPy Charles Nichols (Tony and Emmy award winner Bryan Cranston, who scored an Oscar nom for depicting that freedom of speech champion Dalton Trumbo in the 2015 biopic Trumbo) is a fifth generation Harvard student and/or professor, an author of arcane, obscure, unread tomes who teaches history and presents a prestigious symposium there annually. The secret list of invitees Nichols has selected for Fall 2019 has been leaked – and one of Prof. Nichols’ choices has triggered heated protests on campus.
This story starts in June 2021 when on a premonition at the Assange event I told Victor Nieto I may be active again politically in Miami, this was while Saab was held in Cape Verde. I had been living a 6 hour drive away in Jacksonville, Florida since May 2020 at the time, where I still reside. Victor was one of my old contacts from when I lived in South Florida. We had lost touch and was happy to see him at the event. I let him know, as the left is very divided, that I wanted to mend fences with people in the movement I had differences within the community, and Victor being a man of influence said he would talk to people. I did not take his number down and did not see him again till yesterday as I engage in activism again in the community, but things have progressed. 4 months after meeting Assange’s family in Miami and seeing Victor and others, Alex Saab is deported to Miami, and in November, I go to his arraignment and shortly after, to Venezuela for the first time. The first day of his hearing was yesterday.
Six months ago on August 3, 2021, Nina Turner walked off the stage of a crowded ballroom in Cleveland taking the hope of a progressive stronghold in Ohio with her. Although her race against Shontel Brown in the 11th Congressional district was heavily publicized, Turner lost the Democratic primary receiving 44.5percent of votes to Brown’s 50.1percent.
Although Turner recently announced she intends to run again in the 11th district, her likelihood of winning appears unlikely. The good news is, she isn’t the only Progressive taking on an incumbent Democrat in Ohio.
In August 2021 Morgan Harper announced her candidacy for the U.S Senate, vying for Rob Portman’s vacant seat alongside Congressman Tim Ryan and tech entrepreneur Traci Johnson.
Gay rights, women’s rights — in reality, these are a nuisance to many U.S. conservatives, but purporting to protect these rights on the other side of the world is a great excuse to play war.
And you don’t need bombs to play. All you need is the will to dominate and the ability to dehumanize “the enemy,” so that their lives can be trashed if (and when) necessary.
I have to confess a stunned speechlessness as I learn about the looming fate of Afghanistan, if President Biden refuses to release $9.4 billion of its assets to the country’s central bank, which it had deposited abroad, primarily at the U.S. Federal Reserve, during the 20-year war. With the Taliban reclaiming power after the U.S. withdrawal last August, the president seized control of these assets, potentially plunging Afghanistan into economic freefall, and . . . oh God . . .
“United Nations officials are warning that millions of Afghans could run out of food before winter, with 1 million children at risk of starvation. . . .
Historians know well that the past is always a battleground. It never stands by itself. History as practiced, studied, and taught is inescapably part of the contest to control the present and promote alternative visions of the future. That needs no argument or documentation. (For a good recent statement, see Jake Silverman, “The 1619 Project and the Long Battle Over U.S. History.”)
Today is different. The uneven and unequal contest between fact and truth on one hand, and fiction, fabrication, and lies, on the other, is uniquely exacerbated and challenging to our historical moment.
Competing projects
Much of today’s nondebate is encapsulated in the false competition over the “origins” of the American experience—as if there were a single point of origin—supposedly between the Pulitzer Prize-winning, ground-breaking 1619 Project led by the New York Times’ (and now Howard University’s) Nicole Hannah-Jones and colleagues, and the alternative contentions of the 1620, 1776, and Texas’ own 1836 Patriotic Education projects.
We’re joined by the great BILL LUEDERS, editor of the Progressive Magazine.
Bill shares the riveting, deeply disturbing tale of the eviction of this 90-something mother from her home of many years.
The shocking greed and hard-heartedness is reflected in the Trump/Bannon assault on our elections, as told by JOEL SEGAL.
We hear from HAL GINSBURG of Our Revolution about their work banning traitors from elected office.
Folks in Philadelphia and Ohio update us about the Gerrymandering debacles ruining our government.
TATANKA BRICCA also illuminates the fight in California, where progress has been made on both democracy & renewable energy.
All-in-all, it’s yet another powerful conversation among truly great activists. Don’t miss it!!
Both the United States and Canada experience unusually widespread struggles over their pasts. Today, the North American neighbors reveal both similarities and differences in their national debates over the continuing relevance and conflicting meanings of their histories. Racial policies and relationships—past and present—are central to these discussions and sometimes acrimonious debates. Comparing Canadian and U.S. attitudes, responses, and proposed policies tells us much about the challenges of democracy as well as the active role of the past in the present. Historians have a special opportunity, indeed a responsibility to contribute.
John Cranley is the best candidate for governor. It is time for Democrats, Progressives, Independents and fed-up-with-Trump Republicans to get behind the former Cincinnati Mayor.
His running mate, State Sen. Teresa Fedor, is the best candidate for lieutenant governor, too.
The Cranley-Fedor ticket has the best chance of turning around moribund, but beautiful, Ohio that has been in the grip of the GOP corporate establishment and socially unconscious right-wingers for the better part of three decades."The public be damned" is their motto (with apologies to railroad magnate William Henry Vanderbilt who uttered the phrase in the 19th century).
No wonder folks of all stripes did flips over the announcement of the proposed Intel plants in Licking County. We are used to factories leaving Ohio, not coming here.