Saturday, March 16, 2024

The genocide must end


                                                 Commentary

    

            By Reginald Johnson

        

    How long will the world community stand by and do nothing?

   For five months, Israel has been conducting a brutal, some would say barbaric military campaign to punish the people of Palestine for the attacks of October 7, when Hamas extremists assaulted a music festival in Israel, killing over 1,200 people.

  Israel says their military operation in Gaza is only targeting individuals tied to Hamas (which is the governing authority for Palestine) but news reports say otherwise. Israel has carried out a carpet bombing campaign which has leveled apartment buildings, schools, and universities. There have been airstrikes as well on hospitals, churches, mosques, refugee camps, food centers and ambulances. All these attacks are war crimes under international law.

   At this point, more than 31,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed.  The real fatality figure is probably a lot higher because not everyone has been accounted for, including people whose bodies are under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

 Another 1.5 million people have been displaced from their homes.

 Israeli authorities have also blocked aid trucks from getting into Gaza, resulting in acute food shortages. UN officials say that more and more people are going hungry and cases of starvation have already been verified.

  A group of UN experts declared recently that “Israel has been intentionally starving” Gaza, and that “widespread famine” in the besieged enclave is “imminent,” according to a report in Mondoweiss.

  “We’ve never seen a civilian population made to go hungry so completely and so quickly,” said Michael Fahkri, UN Special Rapporteur. “Never in modern history.”

   Medical care in Gaza is also collapsing, as hospitals and health facilities have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombing. This has led to people dying from inadequate medical care and disease.

 The death toll in Gaza could jump exponentially with the onset of famine and the spread of disease. Prof. Devi Sridhar, chair of the global public health division at the University of Edinburgh, predicts that a quarter of Gaza’s 2 million population --- close to half of 1 million human beings --- could die within a year.

 Almost on a daily basis, atrocities are being carried out against Palestinians, particularly in Gaza but also in the West Bank and East Jerusalem --- territories illegally occupied by Israel for the past 57 years.

 On Thursday, at least 21 Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces opened fire on thousands of people waiting for aid in Gaza City in the same area that was targeted hours earlier, according to the Al Jazeera news service. In the earlier incident, the same food distribution point at the Kuwait roundabout, Israel forces shot dead at least six Palestinians, according to the report. Israeli officials claimed that it was actually Palestinians who were shooting at their own people.

 On Wednesday, Israeli forces attacked a food distribution center in Gaza killing one worker and injuring 22, according to the BBC.

 Also on Wednesday, in  East Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 12-year-old boy who was playing with fireworks. Eyewitnesses said the boy posed no threat to the soldiers and was using small fireworks.

 On February 29, UN officials reported that 112 people were killed when Israeli forces opened fire on a group that gathered around a food supply truck in the early morning hours. In what is being called the "Flour Massacre,” a number of people were killed by gunshots while others died after being trampled by the crowd that went into frenzy after the gunfire erupted. Others died when they were run over by the truck that began driving away to escape the chaos.

 On February 15, dozens of doctors were detained and tortured after a raid by Israeli forces on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to the BBC. The doctors were forced to strip, were blindfolded, forced to remain in a kneeling position, and then were beaten, One doctor was set upon by muzzled dogs, the report said.

 Israeli spokesmen said the IDF raided the hospital because they had evidence Hamas fighters were hiding there.

  Also in February, two little Palestinian girls, sisters, who were putting water into a bucket in the courtyard of their home, were shot dead by an IOF tank. When their father came out and lay down next to them, he was shot dead, too.

The atrocities, the indiscriminate killings, the vast numbers of people being killed and the apparent attempt to engineer a famine, all point towards one conclusion: Israel is conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinians.

 The International Court of Justice reached a similar conclusion when it determined that there was a “plausible case” to be made that Israel was carrying out a "genocide" in Gaza.

 It's clear a great moral crime against humanity is taking place in Gaza.

What is happening in Palestine rivals the ethnic cleansing/genocidal campaigns that took place in the 1990s in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. 

The question is, what is the world going to do about this, if anything?

Certainly some in the UN are oriented to taking action. Fahkri and some of his other colleagues on March 5 called for an arms embargo against Israel until Israel ceases its military campaign.

 A majority of countries on the Security Council of the UN have also agreed to a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.


                    

Backers of a ceasefire in Gaza lobby for support from the City Council in Bridgeport, CT  The council approved a ceasefire resolution. (Reginald Johnson photo)

 But every time a ceasefire resolution has been presented to the Security Council, the United States has used its veto to kill it, making clear that the United States is the major stumbling block for the world taking collective action against Israel to stop the genocide.

 President Biden has talked recently, as have other Democratic Party leaders about the need for Israel to control its military forces and avoid civilian casualties. However, talk is cheap. The fact is Biden has not gotten tough with Israel to really back up his words. He could threaten the cutoff of aid to Israel to force that nation to stop the carnage, but he hasn’t done that. He could also ask the US ambassador at the UN to vote with the other nations on the Security Council in passing a resolution ordering Israel to stop its military operations. But he hasn’t done that either.

So until the United States changes its position on what Israel is doing that nation is going to continue with its grossly immoral and totally illegal ethnic cleansing campaign in Palestine.

The United States is the key. The policy here must change. This is why it’s so important that people on the local level continue to speak out and press their members of Congress as well as the White House to get on board behind a cease-fire and insist that Israel stop its barbaric operations. It should be noted that Congress has been as bad as Biden has been on the issue of Israel --- most members in Congress still oppose a cease-fire in Gaza, and that includes both Republicans and Democrats.

 It is somewhat of an indictment of our democracy that while a strong majority of the American people want a cease-fire in Gaza a strong majority in Congress are against it. This is almost entirely because of the huge contributions that are given by pro- Israel lobbies to members of Congress in both parties. The members of our national legislature are in Israel’s pocket.

People and voters have to make it clear to these members of Congress that they need to change their positions and get behind a cease-fire and in turn put pressure on the Biden administration to insist that Israel also agree to a cease-fire, or they will be voted out.

 The genocide in Gaza must be stopped.

 

 

 

 

 

   

Monday, March 4, 2024

Fight over Gaza ceasefire resolution continues

    

      BRIDGEPORT REPORT

 

     By Reginald Johnson 

 

 BRIDGEPORT --- There’s no ceasefire in the battle over the ceasefire resolution.

 After hearing emotional testimony by Palestinian-Americans about the terrible human toll resulting from the Israel-Gaza conflict, the City Council voted overwhelmingly on January 2 to  pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the fighting and asking members of Congress to press the Biden administration into facilitating a peace.

 The final resolution that was agreed to was a stripped-down version from the original one which had put Israel in a negative light, referencing the forced removal of Palestinians from their ancestral homeland in 1948 to create Israel and the “apartheid” system Israel had set up in the Occupied Territories.

  The latest version is more neutral in tone, with the historical references about Israel’s founding removed, the line about “apartheid” taken out and the term “Occupied West Bank” changed to simply “West Bank.”

 The statement calls for an “immediate de-escalation and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza, Israel and the West bank; calls for the release of both Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners; and the provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

 And the resolution adds,  “The community in Bridgeport across all faith groups and backgrounds supports an end to the continued violence in hopes for a solution where Palestinians and Israelis can live side-by-side with a two state solution in enduring peace, safety, justice and dignity. Every human being deserves a dignified, peaceful life regardless of religion race or color.”

 Some Jewish leaders were present at the January 2 meeting and they reportedly supported the statement, after the language changes were made.

  After the vote was taken to pass the resolution it appeared the issue was settled. Bridgeport became the first city in Connecticut to pass a Gaza cease-fire resolution and it seemed that calm would finally return to City Hall, after a number of stormy meetings.

  Not so fast.

Within 10 days after the resolution passed, other Jewish leaders came out and denounced the statement saying it was unfair to Israel and criticized the process in which the resolution was passed. That same group, reportedly a coalition of Jewish groups, has called for the rescinding of the cease-fire document.

  As a result of the backlash, City Council meetings have continued to be as packed as they were before the resolution was passed, with both supporters and critics of a ceasefire vying to speak at the public forum prior to the regular council meetings. Supporters come in waving Palestinian flags and showing pictures of people who’ve  been killed in Gaza, while critics show up with Israeli flags and pictures of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7th.


                           

Bridgeport City Council meetings are packed as the debate over a Gaza ceasefire resolution continues. (Reginald Johnson photo) 

  

Carin Sevel, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Fairfield County, has been leading the charge to get the resolution withdrawn.

 Sevel claimed that the resolution spreads anti-Semitism and in essence calls for “the destruction of Israel.” Sevel said she’s very troubled by the fact that the resolution does not mention the fact that the miltant group Hamas, which is the governing authority for Palestine, conducted the brutal October 7th attacks against Israel which resulted in the killing of 1200 people.

“Hamas has said repeatedly that their goal is to kill Jews and get rid of Israel,” she said.

Sevel told News 12 after a recent meeting that she considered the Bridgeport resolution a “hate bill.” Asked later to explain that, Sevel said that while there is no mention of what Hamas did on October 7, “it mentions Israel fighting. So that in my opinion is blaming the victim.”

 Sevel, as well as other Jewish leaders in Bridgeport, have also charged that the Bridgeport bill was rushed through without getting enough input from the wider Jewish community.

 She disputed the reports that Jewish leaders who were present on January 2, when there was a large crowd in the council chambers, had agreed to support the bill after the language changes were made. Actually, Savel maintained, the rabbis that were on hand the night the bill was passed were frightened into supporting the bill.

  “They were coerced,” Sevel said.

 She claimed that one of the rabbis that was there was  “terrified.” and “left out of there afraid for his life because it was a mob mentality.”

 Commenting on the situation going forward, the federation leader said, “They thought when they passed this resolution that the Jewish community would say ‘well okay, no big deal.’ But it is a big deal. And we are not going away and we will not stop fighting no matter what happens with this. We will not stop. It’s anti-Semitism.”

 Several attempts were made to get comment on Sevel’s remarks from City Council officials who were key players at the January 2 meeting. Both Aidee Nieves, president of the City Council and Councilwoman Jazmarie Melendez, who authored the cease-fire resolution, were called and emailed but could not be reached.

 However, a top official of the Bridgeport Islamic Community Center, which promoted the resolution, pushed back strongly against Sevel’s comments.

 “They’re lying. They’re trying to scare people,” said Aziz Seyal, a member of the center’s Board of Directors.

  About Sevel’s comment that the resolution amounted to a call “for the destruction of Israel” and was a “hate bill,” Seyal said “There is nothing in the resolution which talks about destroying Israel or taking any action against Israel.”

 He added, “They’re just wasting time. They don’t believe in peace. They just want to see the destruction of Palestine and the Palestinian people.”


                 

A billboard on I-95 in Bridgeport calling for a halt to the bombing of Gaza. (Reginald Johnson photo)

Seyal also said that the Jewish federation official was wrong in claiming that Jewish leaders did not have enough input in the resolution’s development. He said that the entire day before the meeting a group of three people representing the Muslim faith the Jewish faith and the Christian faith were working on the resolution to develop something that they could all agree on.

“There was a consensus, he said.

 Further, he said, in the evening more input was sought from other Jewish leaders and they too, agreed to the changes and support the resolution.

 Sevel and other resolution critics also attacked the group Jewish Voice for Peace which supported the Bridgeport resolution.

Deborah Boles, president of the Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Bridgeport, said that Jewish Voice for Peace was an organization that didn’t represent the “mainstream” of the Jewish community. Boles claimed that the group “misled” the people crafting the Bridgeport bill.

Sevel went even further and labeled Jewish Voice for Peace a harmful organization bent on the “destruction of Israel.”

 Jewish Voice for Peace nationally is one of the organizations that is working hard to get a truce in the Israel-Gaza conflict and has sponsored a number of demonstrations.

 Leaders of Jewish for Peace in Connecticut issued a statement responding to the comments by Boles and Sevel. It said in part: “The Jewish Federation is not an accurate representative of Connecticut’s diverse Jewish community. Although groups like the federation often attempt to speak for all Jews, no single organization can do that,”

 It added, “Far too many Jewish people have had the painful experience of being dehumanized or having their Jewishness called into question by those who seek to conflate Jewishness with unconditional support for the state of Israel. We know that the attempt to silence or discredit anti-Zionist or non-Zionist Jewish speech only serves to distract from the Israeli government’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people.”

  “The political beliefs and policies of states such as Israel and the United States must be subject to critical debate. Our Jewish values give us the imperative to speak up against the unconscionable violence and human rights violations perpetrated by the state of Israel,” the statement said.

  A proposed resolution which would rescind the current Bridgeport cease-fire resolution has been offered by Councilman Scott Burns of Black Rock.  It will be the subject of a review and possible vote by the council’s Miscellaneous Matters Committee on Thursday, March 14 at 6 PM in City Hall, 45 Lyon Terrace.

 Meanwhile, the war in Palestine continues unabated, despite some occasional talk by President Biden of forging a ceasefire agreement. Since October 7, when the war began when Israel responded to the Hamas attacks, some 30,000 people have been killed. A majority of them are women and children. Another 2 million people in Gaza have been displaced. UN officials say that food shortages are acute and many people may starve.

  The International Court of Justice recently found that there was a “plausible case” for concluding that Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza.

 

 

Sunday, February 25, 2024

John Gomes takes on the machine

                                             Opinion


  By Reginald Johnson


   BRIDGEPORT --- John Gomes, who hopes to unseat incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim in the city's special mayoral election on Tuesday, has written a powerful letter to the editor of the Connecticut Examiner, and everyone in Bridgeport should read it. https://ctexaminer.com/2024/02/24/more-coerced-endorsements-courtesy-of-party-boss-mario-testa/

 Gomes references the pressure that Bridgeport Democratic party boss Mario Testa placed on Connecticut's top elected officials, including Governor Ned Lamont, to secure their endorsement of Ganim. It’s alarming and depressing at the same time.

                   

Billboard for John Gomes, running for mayor of Bridgeport in Tuesday's special election. (Reginald Johnson photo.)

 The Ganim-Testa machine has been running things in Bridgeport for far too long. The results haven’t been good. It’s time for a change.

  Vote for Gomes on Tuesday. It will help not only Bridgeport, but Connecticut as well.

(For a more detailed look at why Gomes should be mayor, read my post "Bridgeport election: Time for a change" on January 21 in this blog).


Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Jewish leaders ask City Council to rescind Gaza ceasefire resolution

     

       BRIDGEPORT REPORT

 

     By Reginald Johnson

 

   BRIDGEPORT --- Reversing a previous stand, leaders of Bridgeport’s Jewish community have come out against the City Council’s recently passed Gaza cease-fire resolution and are demanding that the resolution be rescinded.

 On January 2 when the resolution calling on Congress to work for a cease-fire in Palestine was passed by the council, Jewish leaders present at that time indicated that they were satisfied with the statement, after language criticizing Israel was removed.

 However, a coalition of Jewish groups and synagogues that came together after that have now issued a statement saying that the City Council had no place taking up an international issue and have asked Mayor Joseph Ganim and the City Council to withdraw the resolution.

 Some leaders are claiming that the resolution is fueling anti-Semitism.

“The resolution you passed has divided our community and promoted anti-Semitic vitriol,” said Carin Sevel, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Fairfield County, speaking at the City Council’s public forum Monday night, “Hate crimes against Jews are up 400% since October 7… There is too much hate and division in our community and I think you can do better,” she said.

  Deborah Boles president of the Congregation Rodeph Sholom on Park Avenue, said “We learned about the resolution 2023 (ceasefire resolution) the day it was reported on the front page of the Connecticut Post and read that there was Jewish input. We knew nothing about it.”

  Boles maintained that the council appears to been “misled” by the group Jewish Voice for Peace. She said that her research showed that Jewish Voice for Peace is “anti-Israel” and “don’t represent the mainstream Jewish community.”


Pro-Israel supporters attended the City Council meeting to oppose the ceasefire resolution. (Reginald Johnson photo)


  A number of opponents of the resolution showed up at the City Council on Monday to voice their disapproval and wave pro-Israel placards and signs.

  However, a much larger crowd of resolution supporters were on hand, many of them wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh and waving Palestinian flags. A number of speakers from this group stepped forward to thank the city’s legislative body for passing the resolution and urge that the council hold firm in keeping the ceasefire statement in place.

 The Rev. Anthony Bennett, pastor of the Mount Aery Baptist Church in Bridgeport, was one of those.

  “I’m encouraging you to stand your ground in keeping this resolution which calls for an immediate cease-fire, humanitarian aid, and a return of all hostages in exchange for the previously negotiated release of Palestinian political prisoners,” he said.

   The president of the Bridgeport Islamic Community Center, Dr. Khaled Elleithy, said he was proud of the City Council for adopting the cease-fire resolution, making Bridgeport the first city in Connecticut to do so.

  “With the understanding that the City Council has no power to enforce such a resolution or investigate any claims of wrongdoing,  it remains a historic statement by the City Council. It is a call for peace. Just a call for peace. Nevertheless, some cannot digest a call for peace,” he said.

                                      

Palestinian supporters tell the City Council to stand firm against attacks on the Gaza ceasefire resolution. (Reginald Johnson photo) 

  There was no indication Monday that there is any serious move afoot on the council to rescind the resolution. The original vote on the statement was a decisive 13 to 2 in favor. Council Members who voted for the resolution said that while it is true that the city does not typically take up international matters, occasionally there are issues that are so important on a moral level that a statement by the council is in order.

Council Member Maria Pereira, a vociferous critic of the resolution, maintained the body had “zero authority” to take up the matter.

Pereira, who is known as an outspoken elected official who is often blunt in her criticisms of other people, was punished by the council Monday night for reportedly using derogatory language to describe Palestinians and the city police chief.  She was also criticized for gesturing with her middle finger toward a member of the audience at the January 2 meeting.

  The council voted 13 to 1 to hold Pereira in contempt and strip her of her committee assignments. She will still be able to attend council meetings and take part in votes, according to the Connecticut Post.

 Members of the Palestinian community have been outraged by Pereira’s comments and were calling for her resignation or expulsion from the council.

   The cities of New Haven and Windsor in Connecticut are also considering passing cease-fire resolutions. Several other cities around the country have passed the resolutions including Detroit, Michigan, Atlanta, Georgia and Oakland, California. The resolutions are aimed at pressuring Congress and the Biden administration into taking steps to bring about an end to the brutal Israel-Hamas war, which has now taken 30,000 lives and left 2 million people displaced.

  The International Court of Justice recently found that there was evidence that Israel was a committing genocide in Gaza.

 

 

 

   

Sunday, January 21, 2024

Bridgeport election: Time for a change

 

                                                Opinion 


     By Reginald Johnson


       BRIDGEPORT --- The special primary election between incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim and challenger John Gomes will take place this Tuesday, January 23.

 The election is a do-over at the order of the court after a judge found numerous irregularities relating to absentee ballot usage in connection with the original primary in September.

 Given the overwhelming Democratic Party enrollment advantage in Bridgeport the winner of this primary will likely become the mayor for the next four years.

 It is the opinion here that John Gomes would be the better person to run the city for the next four years over Joe Ganim.

  I can’t say that I’ve followed every in an out of Bridgeport governmental actions and budgetary matters in recent years, nor do I know every detail about Gomes vs Ganim in terms of what they’ve done and what they stand for. But I do know a lot and, as B.B. King would say, I’ve been around, so I can talk credibly about some broad themes that I think are important.

 First, just in terms of the number of years Ganim has been leading the city, it's time for a change. Between the years in his first go-round, before his legal problems landed him in prison, and his last eight years that he’s been serving since his comeback, Ganim has been mayor for about 20 years. That’s a long time. It really shouldn’t be that long for anybody.  You need a fresh face from time to time with new ideas and new energies.

 New York City has a two-term limit on how long a mayor can serve and I think that’s a good idea. Presidents can serve no more than two terms. Elective positions in government are not supposed to be life-time jobs.

 But aside from that general principle of the need to have turnover after a certain period of time, there’s other reasons for saying it’s time for a change.

  While Ganim can point to some accomplishments in the city, and there have been some that he was responsible for, there’s a lot of areas during his long tenure where his performance has not met the mark. In fact in some respects, the record has been very poor.

 First, let’s talk about something that’s important to a lot of people in a working-class city like Bridgeport, which is as everyone knows is not a high income town. That's affordable housing.

 During the Ganim years a lot of housing has been torn down, both public housing and single-family housing, to make way for some hoped-for development or possibly new housing. Hundreds and hundreds of housing units have been wiped out. Very little has been built to make up for what has been lost.

 Now part of the problem there, is that vis a vis public housing, the federal government is not putting much money into public housing and the Bridgeport Housing Authority doesn’t have the resources to build a lot of new housing. They are building some but it doesn’t make up for what’s been lost.

 Now people may say that the mayor doesn’t have much to do with that, that’s a federal program. But he can be an advocate for more federal funding and push for more action by the public authority to do more with the resources available, and he really hasn’t done that.

  In the late 1990’s  Ganim, in the interest of building the baseball stadium (now gone to make way for the ampitheatre) and the arena and a possible hockey rink in the South End, had the old Marina Apartments worth of 100 units torn down. A short while after that the Pequonnock Apartments, a state run facility with 250 units, was razed. There was talk at the time that something would go in at the place of Pequonnock, possibly new housing or a mixed-use development.

 But here it is 20 years later and there is nothing on the Pequonnock site and nothing on the Marina site. In fact, the Pequonnock site, which I think is still state owned is being used as a parking lot for concerts at the ampitheatre. So here you have publicly-owned land where there was once affordable housing now being used as a parking lot for a concert venue and a private person is making money off of this arrangement.  That’s an outrage. Similarly, the Marina site stands empty.

 I have not heard any advocacy by Joe Ganim about building new low-income or affordable housing at those sites and not much anywhere else to make up for what was lost which is about 350 units there and hundreds more elsewhere.

 Some new housing is coming into Bridgeport, but it is almost all market rate. Translation --- it’s not affordable for most people in Bridgeport. New market rate housing usually means you start at $1900 for a one-bedroom unit and you go up to $2000, $2100 and often higher. Let’s say you’re a single person and you want to rent a new $2,000 apartment. Using the old rule of you pay 25% of your monthly income for housing that means you have to be making $8,000 a month. That means you have to be earning about $96,000 a year to afford one of those apartments as a single person.

  How many people in Bridgeport are making $96,000 a year? Not many.

 The average median income for a single person in Bridgeport is about $25,000. That’s far short of what’s required to pay for a new market rate one-bedroom unit. It’s also far short of what’s required to pay for even older, cheaper market units in the city.

  Even if you go by household income, most Bridgeport residents are going to find it very hard to buy the new market rate housing coming online. The median household income in Bridgeport is $47,000. With that kind of income you’ll have to pay 50% of your monthly income to buy one of the new units and that’s a one-bedroom.

So we have a shortage of affordable housing in the city and the question is what’s being done about it. Not much.

A mayor of this city should be raising hell with both the state and the federal government to provide the monies needed to put up this new housing that’s required. Ganim hasn’t done that and I think that Gomes will make an effort in that direction.

A second point about Ganim’s record. This has to do with the city’s heritage and its history. Over the years from what I’ve seen Ganim has not shown a lot of interest in preserving the city’s heritage. Many historic buildings have been torn down and there’s been little effort to restore remaining historic buildings including some that could be real gems for the city. 

 For instance, the old Majestic and Poli theaters in downtown have been sitting there languishing for years, decades really, and there’s been almost no effort that I can see from the Ganim administration to grab the bull by the horns and have these buildings restored and turned into something valuable. Years ago, I was lucky enough to take a tour of the inside of these theatres and they are really so impressive with gorgeous staircases, chandelier lights etc. These theatres could be a showcase for Bridgeport in the downtown. But there’s been very little movement to do anything about them and this is truly a waste.

  I’ve been told that there’s not much state money available to work with but it seems to me that if the mayor and the state delegation pounded the drums hard enough they could get some money. I don’t think there’s any been any effort either, to bring in possible private money to do this work.

 Meanwhile, the city of Waterbury renovated their old theaters, similar to what Bridgeport has, and they have become a mecca for people coming into that city to see various forms of entertainment.

Other historical buildings have been needlessly torn down during the Ganim years. One case that I found particularly irksome and that shows how bad the planning has been during the Ganim years, was the decision to allow an auto parts dealer to come in and buy up the old Sanborn library, a beautiful architectural building in the West End, tear it down and build an auto parts store.

The zoning commission allowed this and of course Ganim said nothing about it. It was heartbreaking to see such a lovely building with beautiful columns in the front and a brick façade just leveled to make way for an auto parts operation. It was particularly stupid given the fact that there’s already an auto parts store several blocks down on State Street. The Sanborn building, with a little creativity and a little drive could’ve been turned into something useful to house either some small commercial offices or maybe make space for some nonprofit. A beautiful piece of architecture could have been saved.

                        

The city allowed the old Sanborn library to be torn down to make way for a new auto parts store, even though another auto parts store is a few blocks away. (Reginald Johnson photo)

  And what has happened to the Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses in the South End? These historic buildings which were part of the early Native American and African-American community called Little Liberia are on the National Register of Historic Places. They were supposed to be restored but nothing is happening. The structures sit there getting more dilapidated by the year.

 Again, if this restoration took place it could be a real draw for tourists coming to the city and would add to Bridgeport’s attractions. But under the present administration there doesn’t seem to be much interest in getting this project done.

So the record on preserving Bridgeport’s history by Mr. Ganim has been very poor.

Onto a third area --- lack of transparency in government.

 As long as I have known him, Ganim likes to operate in secret and behind closed doors. He doesn’t seem to like to work collaboratively with people. I could be wrong on this but I just haven’t seen it. He doesn’t seem to want to get input from the community on anything. He doesn’t go to community meetings. I was following the school board for several years up until the Covid crisis hit and I never saw him attend any of the board sessions. I did see former Mayor Bill Finch attend at least one.

  I did try to reach the mayor on a few occasions about some fairly serious issues that I was writing about on my blog and I could never get through.

 Ironically enough, I did get a call from him the other night asking for my vote on Tuesday. That is the first time that I’ve talked with him in years. I don’t think he remembered who I was and I think he was just going down a list of registered Democratic voters and he decided to give my name a call. Not wanting to get into a long debate with him I told him that I was undecided how I planned to vote. He said “Oh” and that was the end of the conversation.

  I’ve heard other people complain as well that Ganim does not get out to the public enough. He doesn’t seem to want to have a spotlight put on what his administration is doing and that really isn’t good.

 Then there’s the issue of integrity in government and integrity in elections. This has been a problem with Ganim and his administration even though the mayor has not been involved in any criminal illegal activity that we know of, as he was back in the ‘90s. Obviously the prime example of the at least moral corruption of this administration is the way they have apparently been trying to fix elections through absentee ballot fraud.

Absentee ballot chicanery has been going on in Bridgeport for a long time and I believe Ganim and others in the Democratic Party have used the absentee ballot process improperly to win a number of elections.

  Hopefully the state investigations that are underway now will put an end to these improprieties. But it certainly would be very helpful if John Gomes was the mayor because I think a lot of these types of problems would go away. I know there are critics of Gomes who said that he and his camp have played similar games but I don’t think that any of that possible misconduct has risen to the level of what the Ganim people have been doing.

  One other thing and this is a particular beef for me. What is this business of dumping millions of taxpayer dollars into the amphitheater and then not putting "Bridgeport" on the name of the facility? Our city is investing millions of dollars so that this new concert site can be successful and yet and still the name of the venue is called “Hartford Healthcare” amphitheater. Memo to Joe Ganim: we are in Bridgeport not Hartford!

 It is galling to me that so much public subsidy from the hard-pressed taxpayers of this city is going into that facility and the city’s name cannot be at the top of the building. I know the city is making money on these so-called naming rights but I still find it to be an outrage that the administration and the City Council allowed the name of Hartford and not Bridgeport to be at the top of this amphitheater.

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 So I think there’s a need for a fresh start in Bridgeport. Gomes is by no means perfect. Some people have raised legitimate concerns about his record but I think overall, he is a good candidate. I like what I see on his website with the various ideas that he’s pushing, including bolstering education funding and having more transparency in government. I get the feeling as well that he’ll try to be much more in touch with the community than Ganim has been.

  I’m also impressed by a lot of the people who are working with him and trying to get him elected because I know they do care about the welfare of the Bridgeport community. They include people like Maria Pereira, Bob Halstead, Pete Spain and the group Bridgeport Generation Now. That support group speaks well for Gomes.

  So Gomes is my pick for Tuesday and hopefully Bridgeport can turn the turn the page on the Ganim years and move forward.

     

 












  

 

 

 

 

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Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Martin Luther King, Jr.: Turn away from war


By Reginald Johnson 

 

 

    NEW HAVEN --- Most people remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr as a great civil rights leader who helped end segregation in the South and bring about a greater level of racial equality in our society. 

 What is not as well known is that King was a peace advocate who spoke out strongly against the Vietnam War and militarism in general the last two years of his life.

  He expressed that opposition eloquently in a speech at the Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. The address was entitled “Beyond Vietnam --- A Time to Break Silence.”

It was in that speech that King outlined why he decided to expand his focus from civil rights work --- for which he had won wide acclaim --- and take the risky step of  protesting a war which was backed by the media, the foreign policy establishment and most of the American people.

  “There comes a time when silence is betrayal,” he told the more than 3,000 people gathered at the church. “And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.”

 In the speech King condemned the violence of the war in Southeast Asia which he said was harming both the peasants of Vietnam but also destroying the lives of young Americans, particularly black and brown youth. He also deplored the fact that so much money was being spent on war which could have been spent on rebuilding cities in the United States and improving the lives of the poor.

He called for a “revolution of values” ---  turning away from violence and military interventions.

 “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death,” he said.

 As they have done for many years, New Haven-area residents took part in a community reading of  the “Beyond Vietnam” speech at New Haven City Hall on Friday, Jan. 12, two days prior to the official observance of  Dr. King’s birthday.

  About 30 people attended the event, with 20 reading portions of the speech.


The community reading of "Beyond Vietnam" in New Haven.


 The reading took on extra significance this year because another violent war, also backed by the United States, is going on in Palestine. The nation of Israel, using billions of dollars in American aid, has been conducting a brutal attack against the people of Gaza, with an estimated 30,000 people now dead and residential buildings and schools lying in ruin.

 Nearly 2 million people have been displaced and hundreds of thousands are in danger of starvation, according to the UN.

 A number of human rights experts maintain that Israel is now conducting a genocide against the people of Palestine and that the United States is a party to this crime.

The nation of South Africa is now lodging charges of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

  “Martin Luther King said war is the enemy of the poor. He saw us engaged in endless wars and he talked about how if we don’t stop Vietnam we would continue fighting endless wars and protesting more wars” said Henry Lowendorf,  of the Greater New Haven peace Council, which helped sponsor the community reading.

  Lowendorf  added,  “There’s just so many aspects of this speech that resonate with what’s going on today and particularly because as we see this slaughter of Palestinians --- a real genocide that Israeli leaders are promoting, they talk about it, an ethnic cleansing … They are doing everything they can to drive them out of their homeland, continually, repeatedly. And we have a government (here) that is supporting them. We have a government that is making it possible.”

 Lowendorf continued, “Martin Luther King talked about the starvation of the poor. The poor in Vietnam, but also the poor in the United States. There are just too many ways you can map what Martin Luther King was talking about on today’s situation…You can take the speech transform a few words and it would be so appropriate.”


     

Twenty people took part in reading Dr. King's speech from 1967 in which he condemned the Vietnam War and US militarism

   Some notable excerpts of the “Beyond Vietnam” speech read in New Haven:

 “Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak of the the poor of America for paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: the great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.”

  Speaking about interventions by the US in various parts of the globe to maintain stability for economic investments, King said, “It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said  ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.’ Increasingly by choice or by accident this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin to shift from a thing-oriented society to a person- oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme nationalism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

“A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say “this is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “this is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.”

  At the beginning of the speech, King told his audience that when he began to speak out against the Vietnam War, he was questioned by many about the wisdom of his path.

  “At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: “Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?” “Why are you joining the voices of dissent?” “Peace and civil rights don’t mix,” they say. “Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people?” they ask.

  Despite the critics, King would not be deterred and kept up his opposition to the war, which by 1967 had killed hundreds of thousands of people, both Americans and Vietnamese. It had laid waste to the Vietnamese countryside from constant bombing and the use of the deadly herbicide, “Agent Orange.”

  The Vietnam War, he felt, stood against everything that he had devoted his life to as a Christian pastor, to create a more loving and just society.

 In the spring of 1967 he was invited by “Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam” a group that was similarly opposed to the war, to speak at the Riverside Church.

  The “Beyond Vietnam” speech was not well received by major media at the time.

  According to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, “Both the Washington Post and the New York Times published editorials criticizing the speech, with the Post noting that King’s speech had ‘diminished the usefulness of his cause, to his country, and to his people.’ through a simplistic and flawed view of the situation.”

  But over time the address given at the Riverside Church has come to be viewed as perhaps King’s greatest speech, surpassing in importance the “I Have a Dream” speech given during the March on Washington in 1963.

 This year’s community reading of “Beyond Vietnam” honored Al Marder, a long-time peace and justice advocate from New Haven who passed away recently. Lowendorf  said Marder had been “one of the initiators of this tradition and many others.”