Bridgeport passes Gaza ceasefire resolution

        

       BRIDGEPORT REPORT 

         By Reginald Johnson

   

 

    BRIDGEPORT, CT --- In a historic vote, the City Council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the brutal Israel-Hamas War, which has taken the lives of 29,000 people, a majority of them civilians.

   Rejecting the views of a few council members who said that city legislators had no business taking up an international issue, others on the council said it was not right to sit by and say nothing as a slaughter of innocent men, women and children goes on in Gaza.

  “You know I watch the news, I watch the news a lot. And what I have seen on Oct. 7^th was one of the most horrible acts, of violence perpetrated against the Israelis,” said Council Member Jorge Cruz. “I saw what happened afterwards, how the Israeli military acted. That was also harsh. I see the news everyday. And when I see the massive amount of children in Gaza being slaughtered, being killed, being dug out from under collapsed buildings, it breaks my heart, absolutely. I’m human. This resolution is simply calling out, ‘stop the damn violence, stop the killing.’ ”

   Council Member Mary McBride-Lee was another supporter. “I’m not taking sides tonight. I will be voting yes on this, because I don’t want anyone suffering --- Jewish people, African-Americans or anyone else,” she said. “This is what I want to see. No more war!” she said, as a packed City Council chambers erupted in cheers.

  The ceasefire resolution passed 13-2.

  The statement calls on members of Congress and President Biden to work to facilitate a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and make sure that humanitarian aid is promptly delivered to the area.

  Bridgeport is the first city in Connecticut to pass a ceasefire resolution. New Haven is now considering one.

  Other cities around the country that have passed resolutions are Atlanta, Ga., Detroit, Mich, and Oakland, California.

   The vote to approve the resolution came after some last-minute negotiations between leaders of the Jewish and Muslim communities and some councilmembers. Wording of the original resolution was apparently softened at the request of Jewish leaders who objected to phrases  relating to such things as the number of civilian deaths in Palestine, to Palestinians living in "apartheid," and even to the term “Occupied West Bank.”

 According to Aziz Seyal, a board member of the Bridgeport Islamic Community Center, the backers of the resolution agreed to the changes because the key point about requesting a ceasefire was retained.

                                 

Supporters of the Gaza ceasefire resolution in Bridgeport (Reginald Johnson photo) 

  Maria Pereira, one of the council members who has opposed the resolution all along, said she objected to the manner in which the last-minute changes were made. “This was a secret meeting not open to the public. None of the people there were elected representatives,” she said. “That’s our job. We are the legislative branch. We are elected by the people of Bridgeport.”

  Pereira reiterated her position that the City Council had “zero authority” to pass an official resolution on behalf of the city which took a position on international affairs.

  Council Member Jazmarie Melendez, who originally authored the resolution,  countered Pereira by saying that the meeting to revise the resolution was not a secret meeting and both she and another council leader were present for the discussions.

Bombing kids not acceptable. (Reginald Johnson photo)

  And Councilman Ernie Newton said that it is appropriate for the Bridgeport City Council to weigh in on such a critical issue as the war in the Middle East. He said things come up from time to time that do not directly tie in with Bridgeport affairs but are nonetheless important enough to take a stand on.

 “We have the right to voice our opinion,” he said

   Many of those who attended the Tuesday council meeting were Muslims and Arab-Americans. But members of the Jewish community also attended to show their support for the resolution.

 One of those was Stephanie Carrow of Fairfield.

 Carrow decried what was going on in Palestine and called it a “genocide.”

 She said that Jews have experienced considerable prejudice in their history and she was raised to believe that as a result of that prejudice “we stand up for all people and we would never oppress anybody and we always speak out against oppression. That’s the Jewish ethic that I was raised with and that’s what I believe in.”

 She also said,  “I’m also very upset, in addition to the horrors of what’s happening there, that it is being done in my name as a Jew.”

                              

Members of Jewish Voice for Peace back the Bridgeport ceasefire resolution
(Reginald Johnson photo)

 Others, from the group Jewish Voice for Peace came down from New Haven  to the Bridgeport Council meeting to show their support and held a banner in the back of the room which read, "Another Jew for a Free Palestine."

 Hanan Abdulwahid, one of the organizers behind the ceasefire resolution and someone whose 16-year old nephew was killed by an IDF soldier in the West Bank, said after the resolution passed that she was “very, very happy and pleased with the City of Bridgeport for doing this. We really thank them for this. They gave us so much hope.”

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  Prior to the council session, there was a public forum where a number speakers made powerful statements about the terrible situation in Gaza and the need for council action.

 Mohammed Shaham began his talk by saying, “The silence speaks for itself.”

After a long pause, he said, “28,000 slaughtered, yet you remain silent.”

After another period of silence he said, “More than 10,000 innocent children, yet you’re silent.”

He continued making statements, interspersed with long pauses.

“Bombs are dropping yet you’re silent.”

“New Year. Same genocide.”

“Day 88, yet you’re silent.”

Then he said, “We the people will not be silent until you take action.”

 Another speaker was Seyal, of the Bridgeport Islamic Community Center. He said that he was a journalist, lawyer and human rights activist in Pakistan before moving to the United States in 1984.  Seyal said he was very happy coming to America because America was in his words the “champion of human rights” in the whole world.

   “I never thought that one day the political leadership of this great nation will go against basic human values and will help a foreign nation with our tax dollars to kill innocent children of Palestine,” he said. “Today the whole world is crying for peace but only our country America is using its veto power in the UN and has become the main hurdle in stopping the genocide. The champion of human rights has become the main financier and supporter of a nation that has crossed all limits of humanity,” he said.

  Seyal described atrocities he says Israeli forces have carried out in Gaza such as bombing refugee camps, killing innocent children and shooting pregnant women on their way to the hospital. He further maintained that “more than 7000 bodies are still under rubble.”

   He said, “Palestinians cannot bury their loved ones. The dead bodies have become pieces, scattered. Have you heard of these types of atrocities in human history?”

   Seyal continued, “This is definitely not a war between two armies. This is a genocide of the oppressed. Israeli former head of Security Council Giora Eiland wrote in an Israeli paper last week that we must kill every Palestinian to win the war yet Netanyahu is already working on this barbaric plan. We’re all watching this with their own eyes in the 21^st century yet are being threatened to stay quiet?”

    Seyal then said, “I know with your resolution this genocide will not stop. But it will bring us closer, and you will be able to tell your children and grandchildren that you did your part and tried to save children of God.”

 

Council committee in Bridgeport approves Gaza ceasefire resolution

 

      BRIDGEPORT REPORT

     By Reginald Johnson 

 

    BRIDGEPORT --- A City Council committee has voted to approve a resolution calling on congressional representatives to pressure the Biden administration to facilitate a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

  The Miscellaneous Matters committee voted overwhelmingly with only one dissenting vote to approve the statement which will now be sent to the full council for a vote on January 2.

 If approved, Bridgeport will join a number of other cities around the country to pass such resolutions aimed at building support for ending the conflict in Gaza which has left 21,000 people dead and nearly 2 million people displaced.

  The proposed resolution states that the City Council of Bridgeport calls upon congressional representatives in both the House and Senate “to join us in urging the Biden administration to immediately call for and facilitate immediate de-escalation and a permanent cease-fire to urgently end the current violence in Gaza, Israel, and the Occupied West Bank” and facilitate the provision of humanitarian assistance to Gaza and the Occupied West Bank.

  The resolution makes note of the long and bloody history of the Israel/Palestinian conflict and then says, “Hundreds of thousands of lives are at imminent risk if a permanent cease-fire is not achieved and humanitarian aid is not delivered without delay.”

  It further states that “All members of the Bridgeport City Council have a duty and a responsibility to speak up in times of injustice and to also center the voices, experiences and realities of the most directly impacted in a given situation, including Bridgeport residents.”

  In arguing for the resolution, Council Member Jazmarie Melendez said “I think we’re setting a precedent in the City of Bridgeport for moving this forward and taking a stand…We have a responsibility. We do.”

  Normally, a City Council committee meeting would draw only a few observers but on this night there were 35 to 40 people in attendance who appeared to be supporters of the measure. When Melendez first proposed the resolution in early December at a City Council meeting the council chambers were packed with Palestinian-Americans and others who backed the proposal and a number of them spoke passionately in favor of the resolution.

  There was pushback, however, at the committee meeting to the proposal --- most notably from Council Member Maria Pereira, who ironically is from the same East End district as Melendez.

 Pereira said that the issue of policy related to the conflict in Gaza is a federal matter and it’s not something that is in the purview of the Bridgeport City Council.

  “This is not in our wheelhouse,” she said. “This is not what we’re elected for in a municipal government.”

 Pereira also said that “I’ve knocked on 2,000 doors in my district, and not one constituent raised the issue of Israel and Gaza.”

 She said that her constituents care about issues like public safety, road paving and schools.

 Pereira also maintained that the conflict in Palestine and Israel is a “complex issue” and city council members do not have the expertise to weigh in on it.

  Melendez responded that “when you’re saying that the people of Bridgeport don’t care about this, you’re completely ignoring the room full of people that are behind you” as well as the scores of people that attended the December 4 council meeting when the resolution was first proposed and what she said were the “countless signatures” of people in the city who signed an on-line petition calling for a cease-fire resolution.

 Melendez also commented that “You said this is a complex situation. It is not. This is not a legally binding document. We are speaking up and saying we are watching people die and that is not OK. ”

 

One of the persons attending the City Council committee meeting discussing the proposed ceasefire resolution for Gaza. More than 21,000 people have been killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict, mostly civilians. (Reginald Johnson photo)

The resolution proposal got support from Council Member Tyler Mack of the West Side who said that even though the Israel-Hamas war is an international issue local governmental bodies around the country “have been taking stands like this” and Bridgeport can do the same.

 The co-chair of the committee, AmyMarie Vizzo-Paniccia, sounded reluctant to go forward with the resolution and suggested to Melendez that as an alternative she put a letter together outlining her concerns and then gather signatures from other council members send it out to the appropriate congressional and federal officials to consider.

 But Melendez wouldn’t budge and said she wanted to proceed with the City Council resolution.

 Committee member Aidee Nieves, who is also president of the City Council, then indicated that she supported the resolution in general but had a problem with some of the language. She specifically suggested that the wording about the “targeting of civilians” and the violations of international humanitarian law was too harsh and should be taken out.

 A motion was passed to amend that wording as well as to make other small changes in the resolution.

 A motion was then made to pass the resolution proposal with amendments and send it on to the council. The motion passed with only Pereira voting no.

   Aziz Seyal, a board member of the Bridgeport Islamic Community Center, which has backed the resolution, said after the meeting that there’s no reason to object to the statement.

   “The resolution is so clear that it’s not favoring anybody. It’s in favor of bringing the peace back,” he said. “It’s part of humanity to stop the killing of innocent people.”

    Detroit, Atlanta and Oakland, California have approved ceasefire resolutions and New Haven is considering one.

  The City Council will take up the ceasefire resolution at its meeting on Tuesday, January 2, at 7 pm in the City Council chambers, City Hall, 45 Lyon Terrace. A public forum will precede the meeting at 6:30.

 

City panel to take up Gaza ceasefire resolution

 

   By Reginald Johnson

    BRIDGEPORT --- As the brutal Israel-Hamas War drags on --- with more than 18,000 people dead and 1.8 million people displaced --- more cities around the country are passing resolutions demanding the Biden administration support a ceasefire.

 Already, cities such as Oakland, California and Detroit, Michigan have passed resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Leaders in New Haven are considering one.

Now activists in Bridgeport are pushing the City Council to approve a resolution calling for an “Immediate de-escalation and permanent ceasefire in Israel, Gaza and the occupied West Bank.”  A number of pro-Palestinian supporters spoke at public forums prior to the last two city council meetings to urge passage of the statement.

 The council referred the proposed resolution, offered by Council Member Jazmarie Melendez, to the Miscellaneous Matters committee for review.

 The committee will take up the proposal at its meeting Tuesday, Dec. 26^th, at 6 p.m. in the Wheeler Room, City Hall, 45 Lyon Terrace.

  If the panel votes in favor of the resolution, it will go back to the full council for a vote.

  Melendez told fellow council members, “We cannot conduct business as usual here, because of what we are bearing witness to in Palestine….If we as a legislative body choose to remain silent, then we are complicit.”

  Peace activists in Bridgeport and elsewhere hope that passage of these resolutions will add to the pressure on both the Biden administration and members of Congress to take a stand and support a ceasefire.

 While officials in the Biden administration have recently been raising concerns about the level of civilian casualties in Gaza caused by the Israeli military, the administration is still pledging support for Israel and its continued military campaign against Hamas. Likewise, the vast majority of the members of Congress, both in the House and Senate, are backing Israel fully and have not signed on to the idea of a ceasefire.

  No one in Connecticut’s congressional delegation --- including five House members and two Senators --- is supporting a ceasefire.

The "antisemitism" cudgel

              (Joe Lombardo, the coordinator for the United National Anti-war Coalition, recently posted an excellent piece on Facebook in which he described how the charge of “anti-Semitism” is being used as a weapon to discredit the movement to bring about a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas War. He also says that while pro-Palestinian demonstrators are falsely attacked for advocating a genocide against Jews, it is the Palestinians who are suffering from an actual genocide at the hands of Israel. Joe’s full article is reprinted here.)  

   By Joe Lombardo

   The weaponization of antisemitism is simply an attempt to shut us up and allow the genocide to continue.

 The corporate media and western governments have been calling the massive Palestinian solidarity demonstrations “antisemitic,” if they report them at all. In the words of Malcolm X, they “Make the criminal look like the victim and make the victim look like the criminal.”

 On November 25, three Palestinian students were shot in Burlington, VT, while in Chicago a six-year-old Palestinian boy was stabbed 26 times and killed while his mother was also attacked and hospitalized. In California a car tried to run down several Muslim families and Muslim and Palestinian groups have reported a sharp upturn in incidences of attacks on Muslims and Palestinians. Yet there is no outcry from the corporate media or the government about these anti-Palestinian and racist attacks. But “antisemitism” is today a constant theme in the corporate media.

 Last week the president of the University of Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Magill, was forced out of her position because of her support for the right of freedom of speech on her campus. She was asked by right-wing congresswoman, Elise Stefanik if calls for genocide of Jews would be termed harassment under the schools’ codes of conduct.

 Magill had to speak carefully to let Stefanik know that she does not support calls for genocide but does support free speech. Similar questions were asked of the presidents of Harvard and MIT. This type of questioning is reminiscent of the McCarthy hearing in the 1950’s.

 It is the Palestinians in Gaza who are facing genocide, not Jews in Israel or the US. Why don’t they ask politicians and others if they support that genocide? If they did, they might get a response such as “I give full support to Israel” and they likely would vote for more money and weapons to Israel to kill more Palestinians. Or they might get an answer like that from Florida State representative Michelle Salzman when asked how many Palestinians should be killed, she answered “all of them.” But she has not been forced to step down.

 Today in the US we find that we not only have to fight for the right of Palestinians to live, but we have to fight for the right to even express that or say we are for a cease fire in Gaza.

 The slogan chanted on every Palestinian solidarity action, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” has especially been criticized as antisemitic by the corporate media and politicians. One wonders what part of Palestine they think should not be free. It should be clear from what is happening in Gaza right now that it is the Israelis who are trying to drive the Palestinian people into the sea or the desert, not the other way around.

 In fact, this slogan was first used by Zionists not Palestinians. It is in the founding document of the Likud Party, the party of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and they have used it in their political campaigns in the form of “between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” I don’t remember the corporate media or the politicians ever criticizing this as anti-Palestinian or racist.

 The campaign to characterize those of us who support Palestinian rights as being antisemitic is simply a campaign to shut us up so they can carry out their genocide against the Palestinian people without hinderance.

 When Palestinians and their supporters say “Palestine will be free,“ the politicians and corporate media try to deny that they are not free. But in their own land there is a separate set of laws for Palestinians and Jews. Palestinians can be arrested without charges and held indefinitely. Many children have been arrested in this manner.

 There are some roads that only Jewish people can drive on or walk on. Palestinian homes are often bulldozed so that illegal settlements for Israeli Jews can be built, or just for punishment. Sometime the Palestinians are only given minutes to leave. There are check points for Palestinians where they sometimes must wait for hours, just to move around in their own land. And there is so much more that can be said about the lack of freedom and equality for Palestinians in their own traditional land.

 Of course, it is far worse in Gaza. There, Israel controls who can leave and who cannot. In most cases people are not allowed to leave. Israel determines what gets into Gaza and what doesn’t. Construction material to rebuild the bombed buildings are often denied. They only allowed a certain amount of food into Gaza, limiting the number of calories per person per day. This they mockingly call the Palestinian diet. This is why Gaza is referred to as an open-air prison. But it is much worse than a prison because prisoners don’t routinely get bombed and shot or have their electricity or water turned off.

  This is why Palestinians want to be free in their own land. “From the River to the sea, Palestine will be free!” That is not antisemitic, it expresses a reality that all Palestine must be free for Palestinians to survive. Those who claim it is antisemitic are only showing their racism and anti-Palestinian sentiment and are themselves being complicit with the genocide against the Palestinians.

Israel’s stated goal in Gaza is to wipe out Hamas. This is impossible. To end resistance from the Palestinians, you must end their repression. Instead, the Israelis are increasing the repression. Even if every member of Hamas was killed, each bomb the Israelis drop and each Palestinian they kill just creates more anger towards the Zionist state and will cause more and more resistance until Zionism is ended. The next generation of Palestinian freedom fighters are being born amid the rubble of Gaza.

 

 

City leaders pressed to back Gaza ceasefire

   

BRIDGEPORT REPORT 

  By Reginald Johnson

      BRIDGEPORT ---- The City Council here voted to take under consideration a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the Gaza War and a de-escalation of the conflict, after hearing several speakers at a public forum demand that Israel stop its attack on the Palestinian people and end the carnage.

  The council chambers were packed with pro-Palestinian supporters for its Monday meeting and a number of them spoke passionately about the devastation that the Gaza war has created for residents there and said it was imperative that elected representatives in Bridgeport take a stand and follow the lead of other cities and call for an end to the conflict.

  “We call on the Bridgeport City Council to support a resolution conveyed to Connecticut representatives, Congress, and the administration to advocate for a cease-fire, allowing humanitarian aid to Gaza, and only issue responsible, balanced, and constructive public messages,” said Khaled Elleithy, president of the Bridgeport Islamic Community Center.

 . He added, “We demand that the Biden administration immediately stop Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza. Should the White House once again fail to act to restrain Israel and to provide authentic leadership in the search for peace this tragedy will continue to grow. Palestinian suffering and bitterness will deepen, Israelis will remain insecure, and extremism will be further fueled by anti-American anger.”

   Jazmarie Melendez, a member of the City Council from the East End, proposed the resolution for council consideration.

  “We cannot conduct business as usual here, because of what we are bearing witness to in Palestine --- a death toll of 15,600 civilians, 6,600 of them children,” Melendez told her fellow council members.

 In the face of this mass killing, she said, “If we as a legislative body choose to remain silent, then we are complicit.”

 A young Palestinian-American boy testified at the public forum that he had attended major rallies on behalf of the Palestinians in both Bridgeport and in Washington DC. He said there were people of all faiths at these rallies --- Christians. Jews and Muslims.

 “You don’t have to be a Muslim to know that what is happening in Palestine is wrong, you just have to be human,” he said.

 The boy continued, “There is a genocide of the Palestinian people going on in both Gaza and the West Bank.”

               

Hanan Abdulwahid holds up a photo of her cousin, who she said was shot and killed in the West Bank without provocation by an Israeli soldier. (Photo by Reginald Johnson) 

  Lou Biafore, a resident of Lafayette Street in Bridgeport said she was not only deeply concerned about stopping the catastrophe in Palestine but also redirecting the nation’s priorities away from war spending and towards domestic needs.

 “Since the beginning of the year, I’ve paid $4,781 in federal taxes. Roughly 20% of that has gone into the defense budget and millions of that have gone to fund the Israeli military in this conflict and $966 of my taxes have gone towards that funding,” she said.

 “That money could have paid for one month’s rent or for a loan forgiveness, or used for  healthcare or for the municipal education budget. But it isn’t.”

  Prior to the forum, Hanan Abdulwahid stood and held a sign aloft which showed the picture of a boy in Palestine, Emad, who was killed by Israeli forces.

  Above the photos, the poster said, “For what sin was he killed?”

 Hanan said Emad, who was her cousin, was 16 and a sophomore in high school. “A regular teen-ager,” she said.

 On October 8, a day after Hamas attacked an Israeli town in southern Israel and killed 1300 people, the boy went outside for a walk with a friend in a town in the West Bank. Suddenly, she said, he was shot by an IDF soldier. Hanan said Emad was not engaging in any kind of protest at the time.

 “What was the purpose of this? There is no Hamas in the West Bank. I don’t know what the reason was,” she said.

 “He was shot in cold blood for no reason.”

 The cease-fire resolution was referred to the council’s miscellaneous matters committee which will review the proposal in the near future and if approved, will send it on to the full council for a vote.

  If approved, Bridgeport will be the latest city to pass a cease-fire resolution on the Gaza War. The resolutions are aimed at putting pressure on local congressional delegations and the Biden administration to work towards a cease-fire and stop funding for Israel’s war machine. Detroit, Michigan, Oakland, California and Atlanta Georgia have adopted these resolutions while New Haven is considering one.

 

 

 

                                                                

 

Nov. 22, 1963: A Turning Point for America

    

 (Today marks the 60th anniversary of  one of the nation's darkest days, the day President John F. Kennedy was murdered by government actors in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was a young president who was growing in the job and who aimed to end the Cold War with Russia and create a more peaceful world. But he was cut down before being allowed to finish his program. To this day the government still refuses to follow the law and release all the CIA files that would shed light on who was responsible for this notorious crime. Why is that? The following is the piece I wrote 10 years ago on the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination).

By Reginald Johnson

                For a long time, I  believed 9-11 was worst thing that ever happened to the United States. It was awful. Nearly 3,000 people killed in those terror attacks and so many families left grief-stricken.

      And 9-11 set the stage for the brutal (and in one case misguided) wars that followed, in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

          But in the last few weeks, I’ve changed my mind.  When I saw the 50^th anniversary shows on John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and saw the old footage, it all came back. As bad as Sept. 11 was, I don’t think anything shook this country as much as the death of President Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t seem like this country has ever been the same since that day.

     I’ve heard phrases thrown around recently to describe the meaning of that day: “The day we lost our innocence,”  and another, (the title of a blog by Ira Chernus) “The day truth died.”  These are both right. It was such a shattering event.

    Maybe it’s because I was a naive 16-year-old private school student when this happened. Very idealistic, and, like a lot of  people my age at the time, a great fan of JFK. Here was this dashing young president who was both bright and witty and inspiring. He seemed to say and do all the right things: urging young people to get involved,  helping their country and the world with efforts like the Peace Corps; working to help the movement for integration; backing legislation that would eventually become Medicare; signing the nuclear test ban treaty; promoting the space program and sending men into space.

   In those days, we were in a Cold War with Russia, and we were proud when Kennedy stood up to the Soviets over the placement of missiles in Cuba and spoke out for freedom while visiting the Berlin Wall.

   And he came to be president  at a time when the country was booming economically and was the most admired country in the world. Our standard of living was tops and there were plenty of jobs --- particularly manufacturing jobs.

   It seemed like America and our young president could do no wrong.

   It was in that cocoon of innocence that I returned from lunch on Nov. 22, set to go to another class, when I overheard someone say, ‘Kennedy was shot.’   Feeling stunned, I rushed over to this small building where students could socialize and smoke cigarettes. Some of my friends were there listening to the radio. I lit up a cigarette as  the news came over. Minutes later, there was silence. Then a somber voice announced, ‘The president is dead.’ The Star Spangled Banner began playing. I couldn’t believe it.  Just total disbelief.  I was also pissed. I threw down my cigarette, stomped on it and left. I didn’t want to talk with anyone.

   The next several days, I was glum and kept to myself. I missed the 24-7 television coverage, missed alleged perpetrator Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot, missed new President Lyndon Johnson’s announcements and much of Kennedy’s funeral. How could this happen here? The United States?  It took months for me to get over the shock.

 I was able to get over it in part because I was reassured by Johnson’s statements and actions. He pledged to follow the Kennedy program, particularly with civil rights. When the following fall came around, Johnson seemed downright saintly compared to the crackpot Republican candidate for president that year, Barry Goldwater, who had talked about dropping an atomic bomb on Vietnam!  Johnson, meanwhile, said he would not send U.S. troops to Vietnam. Seemed like a good guy.

  But within months, it was clear Johnson was lying. In early ’65,  the U.S. had started bombing North Vietnam. By the spring, the first troops were sent. Within a few years, we had hundreds of thousands of troops there, all in the name of “stopping communism.” Many of our soldiers died. But many, many more Vietnamese died. We pulverized that country with bombing and poisoned it with napalm and Agent Orange. When all was said and done, we had lost 55,000 people; the Vietnamese had lost 3 million.

   And during the Vietnam era, a lot of ugly divisions in our society began to surface, between hawks and doves, liberals and conservatives, hippies and hard hats, religious versus non-religious. A lot of that divisiveness is still out there today.

  After Johnson, we got the corruption of Richard Nixon and Watergate.  A few years later, the downward curve continued with the coming of Ronald Reagan, and his backwards notion that “government is the problem.”  Reagan began the process of chipping away at the safety net and the New Deal, and undermining unions --- more trends we’re still dealing with today.

  More recently we’ve had George W. Bush and his disastrous war on Iraq and two vacillating small ‘d’  democrat presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Their vision of government is almost as limited as the Republicans.

   Maybe I am idealizing the Kennedy years, but things were better then. Since that period there’s been progress only in few areas. Women’s rights are certainly better today than they were in the early ‘60s. Legal and political rights for blacks are better, though the economic struggle for most blacks still goes on.

  But what else? Our middle class has sunk, quality jobs have evaporated, and our nation is constantly at war.

  I think if Jack Kennedy lived, I think the late 1960s would have been better, and that would have provided a good foundation for the future. It is a fact that he signed a memorandum a month before he died that he intended to pull all U.S. advisors out of Vietnam by 1965. Supposing there had been no Vietnam War? And supposing Kennedy had followed up on feelers to bring a rapprochement with the Soviet Union, and end the insane arms race?

   It should be said Kennedy had his failings, and there are certainly a lot of skeptics out there who downplay what he would have done if he had lived. He was a philanderer and dishonest to his wife; though publicly pushing integration he was friendly with southern segregationists for political purposes; and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 was a boneheaded move.

   But I believe if Kennedy had lived, there would have been no Vietnam War, and he would have achieved lot at home, in the end compiling a domestic record that would have rivaled FDR’s.

   I think it’s definitely fair to say if JFK, his brother Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King had lived, America would be a much better place today.

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I’ve always felt there was a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy.  Lee Harvey Oswald may well have been part of it, but he did not act alone. Too many people heard too many shots that day in Dallas, and eyewitnesses saw some shots come from the front of Kennedy’s motorcade, something the Warren Commission denied happening. (The Warren Commission, charged with investigating the assassination, concluded Oswald acted alone, and shot Kennedy from the rear, firing a rifle from a 6^th-floor window).

 While Kennedy was quite popular in general,  he was hated by some, including right-wingers and anti-Castro Cubans. He also had a lot of detractors in the military and the intelligence agencies, who thought Kennedy was ‘too soft on communism.’  I believe people from the intelligence sector and the military, as well as some anti-communist Cubans, were part of the conspiracy. Oswald was on the fringes. Jack Ruby was sent to shut Oswald up. The fact that Ruby, a nobody, could waltz into the Dallas police station while the most important criminal suspect in American history was being transported, then walk up and shoot Oswald dead, tells you all you need to know about this case. It’s been a total cover-up.

On Thanksgiving and the Dispossessed

 

  I have often thought that the plight of the Palestinians and Native-Americans is very similar.­ Both groups have had their land taken away by force and trickery, with settlers claiming they had some special or divine right to the land. In both cases, large numbers of their people have been killed off or pushed into containment areas, refugee camps or reservations. In both cases observers believe that what has happened to the indigenous people of North America and what is happening to the Palestinians qualifies as genocide. In 2012, shortly after Thanksgiving, I wrote about the bitterness that so many Native people have about this day, since they feel they have nothing to be thankful for. I also wrote about the parallel experiences of the Palestinians, who were being attacked then just as they are today.

By Reginald Johnson
Dec. 11, 2012


Like most Americans, I’ve always loved Thanksgiving. It’s a day to share good times with family and friends, have a wonderful meal and yes, be thankful for what we have.

I must say that now, however, I have different perspective, after having attended an event put on by American Indians in Plymouth, Mass. called “The National Day of Mourning” on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 22. I had heard about this event for years, but never got around to going. It was an eye-opener.

Plymouth, of course, is where English Pilgrims arrived aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and began a settlement that many Americans associate with the start of the United States. The first Thanksgiving, at least according to legend, took place a year later and saw the Pilgrims partaking in a meal with Indians, “giving thanks” for a bountiful harvest and for having successfully lived their first year in the “New World.”

Most Americans, I think, see this history in a pretty positive way. The Pilgrims, fleeing religious persecution in England, made a settlement that laid the groundwork for what later would become America, a democratic society where people could practice their religion freely and speak and write as they wished. Many Americans are aware that at the same time, the evolution of our country was not all smooth, that Native people (not to mention Africans, who were held in bondage as slaves) were treated terribly, there was a lot of killing and the English and other Europeans broke agreements and stole Indian land.

But the mythology surrounding the Mayflower, the Pilgrim settlement, the march westward and “the birth of a nation” is so strong that the Indian side of the story, and just how bad the Indians got treated, tends to get lost. Also, in the view of many present-day Natives, there hasn’t been enough teaching in the schools about the Native American history so people will better know what indigenous people have gone through.

“The National Day of Mourning” is an effort to educate people about the Indian narrative of what actually took place in those early years of the country as well as to “honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native people to survive today,” in the words of a statement by the United American Indians of New England, which holds the event.

A plaque put up on Cole’s Hill ---- overlooking the bay where a replica of the Mayflower is docked and above the fabled “Plymouth Rock,” where the Pilgrims allegedly first stepped on shore ---- captures the harsh view that many Indians have about the beginnings of this country. It reads in part: “Many Native Americans do not celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers. To them, Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands, and the relentless assault on their culture.”

Moonanum James, a Wampanoag Indian whose ancestors greeted the Pilgrims when they arrived, talked of the many distortions in history about what occurred in the early days and the Pilgrims themselves.

“When they arrived, they didn’t find an empty land. Every inch of this land was Indian land,” he said in a speech before about 400 people on Cole’s Hill.

James said that by the written account of one of the Pilgrims themselves, in the first year settlers went out and robbed Indian graves, stole crops, kidnapped Natives and sold them into slavery for 220 shillings apiece.

James, co-leader of the UAINE organization, also said that the legend of Thanksgiving beginning with a peaceful dinner in 1621 with the Indians was erroneous. He maintained that the first official Thanksgiving Day took place in 1637, when the head of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Gov. John Winthrop, proclaimed a “Day of Thanksgiving,” celebrating the safe return of 200 volunteers who had gone to Mystic, Connecticut and slaughtered 700 women, children and men of the Pequot tribe.

Some historical accounts hold that in the area of eastern Massachusetts there was relative peace for a number of decades between the colonists and Indians. But by the 1670s, trouble was brewing, with the Indians fed up with mistreatment by the colonists and constant land encroachments. Metacomet, the son of the Wampanoag leader Massasoit, who had greeted the Pilgrims, decided to unite all the Indian tribes and drive the English back.

For two years, Metacomet, also known as King Philip, led Native warriors in battles over much of southern New England. Thousands were killed in the conflict. Eventually, the English forces proved too strong, and King Philip was captured and killed, and the war all but ended.

The victors weren’t satisfied with killing the Indian leader and subduing Native forces. They mutilated Metacomet’s body, decapitated him and put his head on a pole for public observation in a Plymouth square. The skull remained there for 20 years.

Moonanum called Plymouth Rock “a monument to racism and oppression” which he and Indian activists had covered with sand on two occasions.

In their suffering, Moonanum said, Natives had a lot in common with African-Americans, who were kidnapped and brought here from Africa to be slaves on cotton plantations.

He recalled black leader Malcolm X’s quote about Plymouth Rock. “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us.”

James and others said conditions for Native people today --- who represent about 1.5 percent of the country’s population --- are very difficult. A large proportion of Indians live on reservations, and the poverty rampant. Alcoholism and suicide rates are high.

This was the 43rd National Day of Mourning, with the first one being in 1970. James said not much has changed for Indians since then. Just as they did at the first event in 1970, Indians are demanding an end to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a branch of the U.S. Dept. of Interior, which manages the reservations.

James called the BIA “corrupt.” He said Indians should be allowed to manage their reservations on their own.

Others spoke at the rally, including Tiokasin Ghosthorse, a Lakota Sioux who has a radio show called “Indigenous Voices” aired on a number of stations including WBAI in New York and WPKN in Bridgeport, Ct.. Tiokasin spoke of environmental issues and how there had to be more respect for “mother earth.” He said present day American society is “abusing mother earth,” and this will backfire.

Other speakers expressed empathy for the Palestinian people, who in early November had to endure yet another attack by the Israeli military in Gaza. Some 200 people were killed, many of them children.

Speakers said the Palestinians were a “dispossessed people,” much like the Native people here. One UAINE speaker said the Israeli leaders were showing the same callous and racist disregard for human life in Gaza as the U.S. military showed in its wars against the Indians. She said comments by officials to the effect that Gaza should be “flattened” and “bombed back to the Middle Ages” were similar to remarks made by an Indian fighter, Colonel John Chivington.

Chivington led forces which carried out the Sand Creek, Colorado massacre, in which over 200 largely unarmed Indians were killed in 1864.

Two weeks prior to the expedition, Chivington promised a Denver audience that he would kill all Indians he encountered, including children. “Nits make lice,” he said.

A letter of support from imprisoned Indian activist Leonard Peltier was read as well. In a highly-controversial case, Peltier has been locked up in federal prison for over 35 years following a conviction for killing two FBI agents in a gunbattle on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.

However, considerable information has emerged that casts doubt on the validity of the conviction, and there’s been a decades-long campaign to have Peltier released.

The rally was followed by a march through the quiet streets of Plymouth. (Just days before, leaders of the town, which bills itself as “America’s Hometown,” had a Thanksgiving celebration, featuring a “Pilgrim’s Parade”). The marchers chanted as they walked past picturesque colonial-era homes, churches, the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock. There were a few curious onlookers, although most residents were inside having Thanksgiving dinner or watching a football game.

At the front of the march was a banner which read: “We are not vanishing. We are not conquered. We are as strong as ever.”