Navajo Nation Urges Congress to Extend Radiation Exposure Compensation Act


“Our people have borne the cost of America’s nuclear program in their health and well-being,” said one Navajo leader.

By Shondiin Silversmith ,

ARIZONAMIRROR

May 19, 2024

A message about uranium mine cancer deaths is seen painted on an abandoned tank on Navajo land, near Cameron, Arizona, on September 12, 2022

.DAVID MCNEW / GETTY IMAGES

This story was originally published by Arizona Mirror.

Kathleen Tsosie remembers seeing her dad come home every evening with his clothes covered in dirt. As a little girl, she never questioned why, and she was often more excited to see if he had any leftover food in his lunchbox.

“We used to go through his lunch and eat whatever he didn’t eat,” Tsosie said, recalling when she was around 4 years old. “And he always had cold water that came back from the mountain.”

Tsosie’s father, grandfather, and uncles all worked as uranium miners on the Navajo Nation near Cove, Arizona, from the 1940s to the 1960s. The dirt Tsosie’s father was caked in when he arrived home came from the mines, and the cold water he brought back was from the nearby springs.

Tsosie grew up in Cove, a remote community located at the foothills of the Chuska mountain range in northeastern Arizona. There are 56 abandoned mines located in the Cove area, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

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In the late 1960s, Tsosie said her grandfather started getting sick. She remembers herding sheep with him and how he would often rest under a tree, asking her to push on his chest because it hurt.

Tsosie said she was about 7 years old when her uncles took her grandfather to the hospital. At the time, she didn’t know why he was sick, but later on, she learned he had cancer. Her grandfather died in October 1967.

Over a decade later, Tsosie’s father also started getting sick. She remembers when he came to visit her in Wyoming; she was rubbing his shoulders when she felt a lump. She told him to get it checked out because he complained about how painful it was.

Her father was diagnosed with cancer in 1984 and went through treatments, but died in April 1985.

“When my dad passed away, everybody knew it was from the mine,” Tsosie said. He was just the latest on a long list of Navajo men from her community who worked in the uranium mines and ended up getting sick and passing away.

She recalls how her father used to tell her that, one day, it may happen to him, but she did not want to believe him. Her dad worked in the uranium mines for over 20 years.

The sickness did not stop there. In February of 2007, Tsosie was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she would spend years in treatment and eventually go into remission in December 2007.

But, this year, Tsosie got the news in February that her cancer has returned, and she is now taking the steps toward getting treatment.

Tsosie’s family history with uranium mining and growing up in an area downwind from nuclear testing sites is similar to many Navajo families in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Her family is among the thousands potentially impacted by radiation from nuclear weapon testing, according to National Cancer Institute research.

Because of that history, Tsosie became an advocate for issues related to downwinders and uranium mine workers from the Navajo Nation, including the continuation of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, provides a program that compensates individuals who become ill because of exposure to radiation from the United States’ development and testing of nuclear weapons.

RECA was initially set to expire in 2022, but President Joe Biden signed a measure extending the program for two more years. Now, it’s set to expire in less than a month.

Tsosie first heard of the program in the 1990s after her mother applied for it because her father was a uranium mine worker. She remembers the day her mother got a compensation check for $100,000 and handed it to her.

“She gave it to me, and she said, ‘This is from your dad,’” Tsosie said, adding that her mother didn’t go into many details at the time, only saying that families with loved ones who died of cancer were getting checks.

Tsosie said she was upset about the check because her father had died, and $100,000 was nothing in comparison.

“I was really mad, and that’s just how the federal government thinks of us as Navajo people,” she explained.

The second time she worked with RECA was for her own case. After her cancer treatments concluded in December 2007, she took some time to heal before determining in March 2008 whether she qualified for RECA. She did qualify and received compensation.

Since RECA was passed in 1990, more than 55,000 claims have been filed. Of those, more than 41,000 claims, or about 75%, have been approved — and roughly $2.6 billion had been paid out as of the end of 2022.

Claims for “downwinders” yield $50,000. For uranium mines and mill workers providing ore to construct nuclear weapons, claimants typically receive $100,000.

Proving that exposure to nuclear waste and radiation causes cancers and other diseases is difficult. However, the federal program doesn’t require claimants to prove causation: They only have to show that they or a relative had a qualifying disease after working or living in certain locations during specific time frames.

In July 2023, the U.S. Senate voted to expand and extend the RECA program, and it was attached as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which funds the Department of Defense.

It could have extended health care coverage and compensation to more uranium industry workers and “downwinders” exposed to radiation in several new regions — Colorado, Missouri, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, and Guam — and expanded coverage to new parts of Arizona, Nevada and Utah.

The defense spending bill for 2024 was signed into law on Dec. 22 by Biden, but the RECA expansion was cut from the final bill before it landed on his desk.

When she heard that the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act amendments failed to pass, Tsosie said it really impacted her, and she cried because so many people deserve that funding.

“I know what it feels like. I know what it feels like to suffer,” she said.

Without an extension, RECA is set to expire in June, and the deadline for claims to be postmarked is June 10, 2024, according to the DOJ.
Navajo leaders advocate for RECA

The sunset of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act is approaching fast, and leaders from the Navajo Nation are urging Congress to act on the expansion bill that has been waiting for the U.S. House of Representatives to take it up for more than two months.

“Time is running out,” Justin Ahasteen, the executive director of the Navajo Nation Washington Office, said in a press release.

“Every day without these amendments means another day without justice for our people,” he added. “We urge Congress to stand on the right side of history and pass these crucial amendments.”

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley from Missouri introduced S. 3853 – The Radiation Exposure Compensation Reauthorization Act, which funds RECA past its June sunset date for another six years.

The bill passed through the U.S. Senate with a bipartisan 69-30 vote on March 7. But since being sent to the House on March 11, the bill hasn’t moved.

The RECA expansion bill would include more communities downwind of nuclear test sites in the United States and Guam. It would extend eligibility for uranium workers to include those who worked after 1971. Communities harmed by radioactive waste from the tests could apply for the program, and expansion would also boost compensation payments to account for inflation.

“The Navajo Nation calls for immediate passage of S. 3853,” Ahasteen said in a press release. “This is to ensure that justice is no longer delayed for the Navajo people and other affected communities.”

Ahasteen told the Arizona Mirror in an interview that congressional leaders holding the bill back due to the program’s expense is not a good enough reason not to pass it.

“They keep referencing the cost and saying it’s too expensive,” he said. But, he explained, the RECA expansion is only a sliver of U.S. spending on foreign aid or nuclear development.

And it shouldn’t even be a matter of cost, Ahasteen said, because people have given their lives and their health in the interest of national security.

“The bill has been paid with the lives and the health of the American workers who were exposed unjustly to radiation because the federal government kept it from them and they lied about the dangers,” he said.

From 1945 to 1992, the U.S. conducted a total of 1,030 nuclear tests, according to the Arms Control Association.

Many were conducted at the Nevada Test Site, with 928 nuclear tests conducted at the site between 1951 and 1992, according to the Nevada National Security Site. About 100 of those were atmospheric tests, and the rest were underground detonations.

According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, atmospheric tests involved unrestrained releases of radioactive materials directly into the environment, causing the largest collective dose of radiation thus far from man-made radiation sources.

Between the 1940s and 1990s, thousands of uranium mines operated in the United States, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Most operated in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona, typically on federal and tribal lands.

The number of mining locations associated with uranium is around 15,000, according to the EPA, and of those, more than 4,000 have documented uranium production.

Navajo Nation leaders advocated and worked with officials in Washington, D.C., for decades to get the amendments added to the RECA that would benefit more Navajo people who have been impacted by uranium mining, as well as radiation exposure.

Their efforts continue with the current expansion bill: Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren, Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley and the Navajo Nation Washington Office team have been working on an advocacy push this week with congressional leaders.

“Our people have borne the cost of America’s nuclear program in their health and well-being,” Nygren said in a written statement. “The amendments we advocate for today are not merely legislative changes; they are affirmations of justice and a commitment to heal the wounds of the past.”

On May 14, Nygren and Curley met with former Navajo uranium miners and members of Congress to urge passage of the amendments before RECA expires in a few weeks.

“As the Navajo Nation, we feel that that’s the best fit for us, especially for our miners,” Curley told the Mirror about her support of the expansion bill.

Curley said she’s spent her time in Washington educating congressional leaders about the Navajo Nation and the impact uranium mining has had on their people.

“A lot of our Navajo fathers, grandparents, and uncles went into these mines without any protection,” she said. “And now, many decades later, we’re dealing with the health effects.”

The legacy of uranium mining has impacted the Navajo Nation for decades, from abandoned mines to contaminated waste disposal.

From 1944 to 1986, nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from Navajo lands, according to the EPA, and hundreds of Navajo people worked in the mines, often living and raising families in close proximity to the mines and mills.

Ahasteen said those numbers show exactly how large the uranium operations were on the Navajo Nation and the impact it would have on the Navajo people.

“There are photos on record to show Navajo people being exploited, not given any proper protective equipment, but (the federal government) knew about the dangers of radiation since the ’40s,” Ahasteen said. “They were given a shovel and a hard hat, and they were told: Go to work. You’ll earn lots of money. You’ll have a nice life, and we did that, but it didn’t work so well for us.”

Although the mines are no longer operational across the Navajo Nation, contamination continues, including 523 abandoned uranium mines in addition to homes and water sources with heightened levels of radiation.

The health risks associated with this contamination include the possibility of lung cancer from inhaling radioactive particles, as well as bone cancer and impaired kidney function resulting from exposure to radionuclides in drinking water.

“We want to remind all of the members of Congress that it was because of the Navajo Nation that we are where we are today,” Ahasteen said. “It is because of the uranium workers (that) the United States is the nuclear power that it is today.”

Ahasteen said the Navajo people have demonstrated their patriotism for the U.S. time and time again, but the country continues not to recognize that.

“That’s really what’s appalling,” he added.

As of December 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice stated that 7,704 claims from tribal citizens representing 24 tribal nations had been filed with the RECA program, 5,310 had been granted and more than $362.5 million had been awarded.

Navajo people make up 86% of the claimants, according to the DOJ, and they have received awards totaling more than $297 million.

RECA’s downwind affected area covers land within multiple federally recognized tribal nations, including the Navajo, Hopi and White Mountain Apache.

Ahasteen provided RECA claim numbers for Arizona as of April 2023. A total of 15,603 RECA claims had been submitted in Arizona, 3,052 of which came from the Navajo Nation.

“That accounts for about 20% of all claims in Arizona,” he said.

In New Mexico, he said that there were a total of 7,300 claims, and 2,900 were Navajo.

“That means 40% of all of New Mexico claims are Navajo,” Ahasteen said. “Combined between Arizona and New Mexico, Navajo makes up about a fourth of all RECA claims.”

Ahasteen said it is disappointing that the program is approaching expiration and that the expansion bill still hasn’t moved in the House.

“We are hopeful that when it is brought to the House floor for a vote, Congress will speak, and they will move forward with the amendments because it’s the right thing to do,” he added.

SHONDIIN SILVERSMITH is an award-winning Native journalist based on the Navajo Nation. Silversmith has covered Indigenous communities for more than 10 years, and covers Arizona’s 22 federally recognized sovereign tribal nations, as well as national and international Indigenous issues.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroo

OPINION

Once again, the ‘military-industrial complex’ is calling the shots in the US

By Azubuike Ishiekwene
19 May 2024 
Azubuike Ishiekwene is the editor-in-chief at Leadership Media Group.

Although it accounted for only about 3% of the US GDP two years ago, the military-industrial complex has been linked with nearly every bad thing – from the overthrow and murder of radical Chilean president Salvador Allende Gossens to the Vietnam War, and from the Iran-Contra Affair to Gulf Wars 1 and 2.

I was chatting with a friend last week, who, mid-speech, redirected our conversation to the situation in the Middle East. She wanted to know what the mood in the US was. More than 9,000 kilometres away in Nigeria, from where she was calling, she didn’t quite trust the media accounts. Since I was visiting the US, she thought I might have a better reading of the pulse.

Her call coincided with the decision by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch a ground offensive in Rafah, in spite of warnings about compounding the current humanitarian disaster in Gaza where more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, not counting bodies still under the rubble.

No one is sure how many more dead would be counted before Netanyahu finds the last Hamas, but is there still a chance – just one chance – that the dog in this deadly hunt will hear the hunter’s restraining whistle? Is the US unable or unwilling or both unable and unwilling to call on Netanyahu to stop?
Calling America

I told the caller that the honest answer was, I don’t know. The mood on US campuses is clear. Students from Columbia to Yale and from Harvard to New York and the University of Texas in Austin, pitched tents outside for days in running battles with the police to demand an end to the war. They wanted the Biden administration to call Netanyahu to order.

There were counter-protests, all right, but the overwhelming majority of students across US college campuses made their voices loud and clear: Israel had gone too far in avenging October 7.

That was the mood on the campuses.

It wasn’t very different on the streets, either. You could say that is to be expected. Two of three cab drivers I used were persons with Arab roots who wore their grief on their sleeves.

They were not all Hamas sympathisers, just ordinary folks who might still have remained in Palestine under better leadership, but in whose eyes the worst Palestine leaders now look like saints, thanks to Israel’s ruthless war in Gaza. But you don’t have to be an Arab or Jew or Greek to ask, who can stop Netanyahu? You just have to be human to see that if two wrongs don’t make a right, a third only compounds it.

So, who does the US listen to and why does it matter in the war in Gaza? In politico-speak, those who move the hand that moves the most powerful country in the world are called the “military-industrial complex”.
What is the complex?

This is how Meta AI defines it: “The military-industrial complex (MIC) refers to the interconnected network of relationships between the military, defence contractors and the federal government. It involves the collaboration and cooperation between these entities to produce and profit from military weapons, equipment and services.

“The term was first used by President Dwight D Eisenhower in his farewell address in 1961, where he warned of the potential dangers of an unchecked alliance between the military, defence contractors and politicians.”

If there’s anyone who ought to know that a threesome involving the military, defence contractors and politicians can hardly end in any good, it was Eisenhower. He was on two of the three sides; and Dick Cheney who became vice-president decades later, was on the last two – defence contractor and politician.

Eisenhower led two of the most consequential military campaigns in World War 2, before he later became president.

This complex is not large. In number terms, it would be a tiny fraction of the number of college students who besieged dozens of campuses last week, calling for an end to the war in Gaza. Statistics in 2009 suggested that it includes around 1,100 lobbyists who represent about 400 clients from the defence sector, mostly companies that make losses from peace.
Size matters not

But you would be mistaken to judge its influence by its size. Although it accounted for about 3% of the US GDP two years ago, these folks, famous mostly for their notorious exploits, have been linked with nearly every bad thing from the overthrow and murder of radical Chilean president Salvador Allende Gossens to the Vietnam War and from the Iran-Contra Affair to Gulf Wars 1 and 2.

As bad things go, the last one was the baddest. This complex instigated the US invasion of Iraq in spite of all evidence to the contrary. It made up its own convenient evidence, bomb after bomb, as hundreds of lives were destroyed and centuries of civilisation in Mesopotamia were pillaged and ruined.

After the war, one of the last surviving White House peaceniks, Barack Obama, said in a declassified document: “Isis [Islamic State], is a direct outgrowth of al-Qaeda in Iraq that grew out of our invasion, which is an example of unintended consequences – which is why we should generally aim before we shoot.”

Unfortunately, even Obama the Dove shot before aiming in Libya.

In the Middle East, the complex has President Biden by the balls. That was what I told the caller from Nigeria. It doesn’t matter what the students are saying on college campuses or what the cab drivers think – the complex has Biden by the balls. And what a hold they have on him and on anyone in the White House in an election year! The complex has got Israel’s back. Biden is damned if he calls out Netanyahu. Damned if he doesn’t.
Owners of America

That’s what I told the caller. The Igbo of southeastern Nigeria have a profound way of saying it that is lacking in the English language: “Ana enwe obodo enwe! [A town is owned and the owners call the shots!]”

It’s a hard thing to say, even harder, perhaps, to accept. Because the logic of accepting that the complex owns America and has its ear is to deny the agency of actors within the system who may hold different, even stridently opposing views.

But think of it this way: Why would America, a beacon of the rule of law, conveniently hide under its non-signatory status to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to allow Israel to continue bombarding Gaza in spite of warnings by the court and the UN of an impending humanitarian catastrophe?

Why would Biden, who regretted voting for the war in Iraq, and who as president, has prioritised diplomacy, become so impotent over Gaza? It’s the complex, folks! They’ve got him by the balls in an election year!

And Netanyahu knows this, as do large sections of the Western media largely controlled by vested interests in the Middle East conflict. Netanyahu knows that Israel’s invincibility is an American yarn. The students said as much in their placards and graffiti last week, but who’s listening?

Certainly not Biden, who along with his British ally, Rishi Sunak, scrambled military assets to defend Israel on 15 April when Iran launched what might otherwise have been a devastating retaliatory attack on Israel. The yarn of Israel’s invincibility, largely overplayed in the Western media, continues to feed the war. For how long? How many more lives before enough is enough?
What price peace?

On the whole, the world is in a far more peaceful place today than it was in the 20th century when millions of people died from senseless, bloody conflicts over ego and territory. Yet, it has taken bloody hard work to bring us here, where prosperity is not only measured by the complex’s profit from wars, but also by how many ordinary folks around the world have bread on their table and milk for their babies.

Now, it seems like from South Sudan to Yemen and from the meat grinder in Ukraine to Gaza, the world is adrift again, one war at a time, as America defies the voices of its own children.

Someone must stop, listen and act. If not Biden, then who? 

DM

GLOBALIZATION 2.0 

OUTSOURCING OUTSOURCED

As US hikes China tariffs, imports soar from Vietnam

• US imports from Vietnam largely match Vietnam imports from China • Vietnam has huge trade surplus with US, relies on China input • Vietnam is most sanctioned country in US over Xinjiang ban

BY FRANCESCO GUARASCIO HANOI

PUBLISHED ON MAY 20, 2024 |

THE SURGE: At over $114bn last year, US imports of goods from Vietnam were more than twice as big as in 2018 when the Sino-American trade war began, which boosted the Southeast Asian nation’s appeal among manufacturers and traders who sought to reduce risks linked to China-US tensions.
As the United States intensifies efforts to reduce trade with China by hiking tariffs, it has greatly boosted imports from Vietnam, which relies on Chinese input for much of its exports, data show.
The surge in the China-Vietnam-US trade has vastly widened trade imbalances, with the Southeast Asian country last year posting a surplus with Washington close to $105bn — 2.5 times bigger than in 2018 when the Trump administration first put heavy tariffs on Chinese goods.
Vietnam now has the fourth-highest trade surplus with the United States, lower only than China, Mexico and the European Union.
The increasingly symbiotic relationship emerges from trade, customs and investment data reviewed by Reuters from the United Nations, the US, Vietnam and China, and is confirmed by preliminary estimates from the World Bank and half a dozen economists and supply chains experts.
It shows that Vietnam’s export boom has been fuelled by imports from neighbouring China, with inflows from China almost exactly matching the value and swings of exports to the United States in recent years.
In preliminary estimates shared with Reuters, the World Bank reckons a 96% correlation between the two flows, up from 84% before Donald Trump’s presidency.
“The surge in Chinese imports in Vietnam coinciding with the increase in Vietnamese exports to the US may be seen by the US as Chinese firms using Vietnam to skirt the additional tariffs imposed on their goods,” said Darren Tay, lead economist at research firm BMI, noting that could lead to tariffs against Vietnam after US elections.
The growing trade imbalance comes as Vietnam seeks to obtain market economy status in Washington after President Joe Biden pushed to elevate diplomatic ties with its former foe.
At over $114bn last year, US imports of goods from Vietnam were more than twice as big as in 2018 when the Sino-American trade war began, which boosted the Southeast Asian nation’s appeal among manufacturers and traders who sought to reduce risks linked to China-US tensions.
That surge accounted for more than half the $110bn drop since 2018 in imports from Beijing, US trade data show.
In key industries such as textiles and electric equipment, “Vietnam captured more than 60% of China’s loss,” said Nguyen Hung, a specialist in supply chains at RMIT University Vietnam.
But Chinese input remains crucial, as much of what Vietnam exports to Washington is made of parts and components produced in China, data show.
Imported components accounted in 2022 for about 80% of the value of Vietnam’s export of electronics — the US’s main import from Hanoi — according to data from the Asian Development Bank.
One-third of Vietnam’s imports come from China, mostly electronics and components, according to Vietnam data which did not provide further detail.
Around 90% of intermediate goods imported by Vietnam’s electronics and textile industries in 2020 were subsequently “embodied in exports”, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a report, noting that was higher than a decade earlier and far above the average in industrialised countries.
The symbiotic relationship is reflected in latest data: In the first quarter of this year, US imports from Vietnam amounted to $29bn, while Vietnam’s imports from China totalled $30.5bn, mirroring similarly corresponding flows in past quarters and years.
As inflation remains high, the White House has remained quiet on Vietnam’s large trade surplus, but that may change after the November vote, analysts say.
“A possible scenario is that after elections, whoever wins may change the policy towards Vietnam,” said Nguyen Ba Hung, principal economist at ADB’s Vietnam mission, noting that would however raise US import costs.
The US embassy in Hanoi declined to comment on trade imbalances.
Vietnam’s foreign and trade ministries did not reply to requests for comment.
China’s commerce ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cotton and panels

The surge in the China-Vietnam-US trade reflects the rise in investments in the Southeast Asian manufacturing hub, as companies relocate some activities from China.
Many of those manufacturers are Chinese firms that add value in their new factories in Northern Vietnam but still rely heavily on supply chains from their homeland.
But in some cases the trade involves finished products labelled as “Made in Vietnam” despite no value being added in the country, as the US Department of Commerce concluded in an investigation over solar panels last year. A separate probe on aluminium cables and second on allegedly unfairly subsidised solar panels are underway.
Another reason Vietnam is drawing US scrutiny is its exposure to Xinjiang, the Chinese region from where the US bans imports over accusations of human rights violations against minority Uyghurs.
Xinjiang is China’s main source of cotton and polysilicon used in solar panels. Both are key for Vietnam’s industry, whose exports of cotton apparel and solar panels accounted for about 9% of exports to the US last year.
Vietnam is the country with the highest volume of shipments by value denied entry into the US over Uyghur forced labour risks, according to US customs data.
Vietnam’s import of raw cotton from China fell by 11% last year to 214,000 tonnes, but it was roughly twice as big as in 2018.
China also exported to Vietnam at least $1.5bn-worth of cotton apparel, up from nearly $1.3bn in 2022. Meanwhile, US imports of cotton clothes from Vietnam fell by 25% to $5.3bn last year, according to the data, which may not include all cotton items.
The fall in US imports came as Vietnam last year surpassed China as the main exporter of products covered by the Xinjiang ban, said Hung Nguyen of RMIT. — Reuters

  FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE U$A
Canceled Steward contract leads to lawsuit from military healthcare provider

Lawyers for Brighton Marine say Steward Health Care is blocking transfer of ‘thousands’ of military patients

Brighton Marine Inc., a provider of military and veterans healthcare, has sued Steward Health Care, alleging its patients should be allowed to shift away from Steward hospitals, like Saint Elizabeth Medical Center seen here, to another hospital system. Steward has threatened Brighton Marine with legal action if they try, lawyers for the Boston-based company say. (Matt Stone/Boston Herald)

By MATTHEW MEDSGER | mmedsger@bostonherald.com | Boston Herald
May 19, 2024 a

A new lawsuit targeting Steward Healthcare has been filed by a Massachusetts military and veterans healthcare company that wants to seek a new service provider after it says it was stonewalled by the bankrupt hospital operator.

In addition to their recent bankruptcy filing, Steward Health Care System is facing several lawsuits from vendors and their employees seeking relief from the apparently financially troubled Texas-based company.

According to court filings, Boston-based Brighton Marine Inc. joined the list of plaintiffs lined up against Steward late last week, when they alleged that the hospital system is refusing to hold up its end of an agreement over the care provided to “thousands” of local military members, veterans, and their families.

Lawyers for BMI allege that Steward’s much-reported financial difficulties have forced them to terminate — effective May 31 — an “Amended and Restated Management and Services Agreement” contract under which Steward is to provide care for some of the 15,000 Department of Defense beneficiary patients currently using Brighton Marine’s health care services.

Under the terms of that agreement, Brighton Marine is allowed to terminate the contract with Steward and shift those patients to other providers, its lawyers told the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, if it has reason to believe Steward is unable to adequately care for military healthcare beneficiaries.

The agreement allows “BMI to proactively diagnose and address any deterioration in Steward’s financial condition that might jeopardize Steward’s ability to provide healthcare to the military personnel, veterans, and their families enrolled in the BMI Plan.”                                                

Steward’s financial woes, including at least $50 million in back rent owed to its landlords, became apparent to BMI in January, its lawyers told the court.

Over the next several months, representatives of BMI tried to get Steward to share their financial information so that the hospital operator could demonstrate they were providing contractually required levels of care to military patients. Steward failed to share that information, according to court filings.

Not only that, Steward apparently refused to acknowledge the voided contract, and threatened to sue Brighton Marine and prospective healthcare vendors if they attempted to look elsewhere for patient care.

“Steward is actively interfering with BMI’s ability to comply with its contractual obligations to DoD,” BMI’s lawyers wrote. “Because Steward disputes the termination and has declined to cooperate in the ordinary transition of responsibility for administering the BMI Plan to another provider, BMI has been injured and faces the prospect of further imminent harm absent declaratory relief.

Brighton Marine is asking the court to declare the termination of their contract with Steward valid under the terms of that agreement, to force Steward to facilitate the transition of thousands of patients to another provider, and for the healthcare system to cover BMI’s legal fees.

Steward did not respond immediately to inquiries seeking comment on the Brighton complaint.

According to Steward’s bankruptcy attorneys, the company has about $9 billion in debt obligations.

Steward got its start in 2010 by buying six “struggling” Massachusetts hospitals in a $895 million deal approved by then Attorney General Martha Coakley. Caritas Christi Health Care CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre, now the CEO of Steward, told the Herald in 2010 that the sale would benefit “our patients, employees and pensioners and tremendously benefits the communities.”

Gov. Maura Healey has activated an “emergency operations plan” to deal with the potential for bankruptcy-related service disruptions at Steward’s eight operational facilities in Massachusetts.

Steward operates St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Carney Hospital in Dorchester, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Holyoke Hospitals in Haverhill and Methuen, Morton Hospital in Taunton, Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, and Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River. Norwood Hospital closed in 2020 due to flooding, and the company recently closed New England Sinai Hospital permanently on April 2.

Quakes Do Not Kill People, Bad Buildings Do

Infrastructure surge in the geologically fragile Himalayas

May 19, 2024 by Sci Dev Net Leave a Comment

 

By Ranjit Devraj

Early on Tuesday (April 23), Taiwan was hit by a series of earthquakes with the highest magnitude at 6.3. The latest tremor came less than three weeks after a magnitude 7.4 quake hit the island, damaging over 100 buildings and trapping dozens of people in collapsed tunnels

If an equally strong earthquake were to hit the tectonically unstable Himalayas, an even bigger catastrophe awaits with some 700 million people living along this gigantic fault line, an arc stretching from Afghanistan to Burma and taking in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India and Tibet.

The Himalayas, which separate Asian giants India and China, were created about 45 to 50 million years ago when the Indian Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate to push up the world’s highest mountain range featuring Everest and K2.

“Earthquakes in the Himalayas pose a grave danger to thickly populated settlements in the alluvial plains of North India,” says C.P. Rajendran, adjunct professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, in Bangalore, India.

“Considering the current level of infrastructure and human activities in the region, the threat of earthquakes is of serious social and economic concern.”

Rajendran, an author of ‘The Rumbling Earth’, a newly released book on earthquakes on the sub-continent, warns that tunneling and road-building in the fragile Himalayas should be limited. It takes lessons from the 2015 Nepal quake which resulted in massive loss of infrastructure, as well as claiming 9,000 lives.

In November 2023, the Silkyara Bend-Barkot road tunnel being built in Uttarkashi, an important Hindu religious pilgrimage destination, collapsed. Rajendran said the tunnel was too close to the main tectonic fault line where the Indian plate had collided with the Eurasian plate.

The Nepal quake and the even more severe one that hit Pakistan’s Kashmir region in 2005 that killed more than 80,000 people indicate the need for preparedness. Rajendran says that while short-term predictions of quakes are not yet possible, their effects can be predicted and pragmatic measures such as seismically-sound building codes must be enforced.

The Rumbling Earth emphasises the need to enforce building codes in the densely-populated Indo-Gangetic Plains, a large bowl of alluvial sediment dotted with cities and towns powered by hydroelectric dams as well as thermal and nuclear power plants.

What drives the frenetic road and infrastructure building in the Himalayas?

Apart from popular measures to make it easier for Hindu pilgrimages to reach the so-called “abode of the gods” in the high mountains, there are strategic considerations along the disputed borders that India shares with China.

India and China are “locked in a frenzied infrastructure-building competition,” according to Aleksandra Gadzala Tirziu, founder and CEO of the geopolitical and strategic cosmmunications firm, Magpie Advisory.

“The buildup suggests both sides have strategically decided to leverage peacetime to bolster their logistical capabilities for a potential war,” she writes in an article for the independent Liechtenstein-based Geopolitical Intelligence Services.

However, the issue of frenzied building activity in quake-prone zones is not exclusive to the Himalayas.

Safety non-compliance

Across the Asia Pacific region infrastructure and homes are rising up in seismically sensitive areas with governments seemingly reluctant to enforce safety codes for fear of slowing down development activity.

For example, a recent study conducted by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology and the Tokyo Institute of Technology on 100 high-rise buildings in Metro Manila and Cebu found several of them failed to conform to the national building code.

The Philippines falls in the ‘Ring of Fire’ around the Pacific Ocean rim which is marked by volcanic activity and seismic events as a result of overlapping tectonic plates. It includes Indonesia, Japan, the western seaboard of North America and Chile.

Studies of the Lombok and Plau quakes that hit Indonesia in 2018 showed that much of the damage caused to buildings and infrastructure was due to noncompliance with concrete reinforcement specifications.

A highly active faultline is the Great Sumatran Fault which, in 2004, generated a 9.3 magnitude earthquake and the Indian Ocean tsunami resulting in over 226,000 deaths and incalculable damage to infrastructure in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India, catching large populations and their governments unprepared.

In contrast, the September 2015 earthquake and tsunami that struck the central coast of Chile only caused 13 deaths. Chile and Japan are countries on the Ring of Fire where there are strict building codes and tall structures must be made to sway with seismic waves, rather than remain rigid.

If there is one lesson to be learned from past experiences of seismic events it is that, far more than quakes, it is poorly constructed buildings that kill people. Governments in the region must develop and enforce the necessary building regulations to prevent possible massive loss of life.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Asia & Pacific desk.

 

Luxury Stores Are Bucking the Commercial Property Downturn

High interest rates across the US and Europe have hurt commercial property values, but not when luxury retail is involved.FacebookTwitter

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Photo by Christian Wiediger via Unsplash

What are the three most important words in commercial real estate today? Luxury, luxury, luxury. 

While high interest rates across the US and Europe have hurt commercial property values, real estate attached to luxury brands has skirted the trend. It turns out that supply and demand can still trump the onerousness of rates at nearly 17-year highs.

Exclusive, Expensive Club

High interest rates can be a real burden for consumers, which is the idea: The goal is to slow an economy whose growth is stoking inflation. That includes making it less attractive to bid up commercial real estate prices. And that’s exactly what’s happening: US commercial property prices are down about 21% from their March 2022 peak when the Federal Reserve started hiking interest rates, according to Green Street. In Europe, they’re down 24%.

However, it’s a different story when you’re talking about New York’s Fifth Avenue or Milan’s Via Montenapoleone, homes to the likes of Gucci, Prada, Hermès, and more:

• According to the Wall Street Journal, Cartier’s Swiss parent company recently bought a property on London’s Bond Street at a 2.2% rent yield (the cash generated as a proportion of purchase price.) Normally, the Bank of England’s rate of 5.25% would make debt financing unattractive.
• But the luxury-store landscape is still as exclusive as a pair of Louis Vuitton trainers, which will set you back about $1,200. Bond Street, Fifth Avenue, and Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive have only so many buildings fancy enough for luxury brands to want to set up shop. As a result, luxury retailers have spent more than $9 billion buying boutiques since the start of 2023, the WSJ said.

These Stores Sell Themselves: The highly competitive market has led to some solid wins for real estate owners and private equity firms. Blackstone, the world’s largest asset manager, doesn’t often deal in retail property. However, after buying a portfolio of 14 locations on Via Montenapoleone in 2021 for $1.2 billion, it managed to sell just one of the properties to Kering last month for $1.4 billion. Meanwhile, office building owners are green with envy.

The ‘NYTimes’ finally publishes a comprehensive indictment of ‘Jewish terrorism’ against Palestinians

The New York Times has astonished its readers by publishing a long indictment of a subject it has purposely ignored for years: “Jewish terrorism” against Palestinians.

BY JAMES NORTH 

MAY 19, 2024 

MONSOWEISS
ISRAELI SETTLER ATTACKS PALESTINIAN WOMAN IN JERUSALEM’S OLD CITY DURING THE ‘JERUSALEM DAY’ FLAG MARCH, MAY 29, 2022. THE FLAG MARCH IS AN ANNUAL DISPLAY OF RIGHT-WING ISRAELI NATIONALISM AND ANTI-PALESTINIAN RACISM INTENDED TO CELEBRATE ZIONIST FORCES’ SEIZURE OF EAST JERUSALEM IN 1967. (PHOTO: OHAD ZWEIGENBERG/SOCIAL MEDIA)


The New York Times is astonishing its readers, especially those of us who monitor its tradition of biased and dishonest reporting about Israel/Palestine. The paper just published a long indictment of what it actually called “Jewish terrorism” against Palestinians. The report, which is the cover story of the widely-circulated Sunday magazine, is titled: “The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel.” Here is the opening paragraph of the “takeaway” synopsis that ran along with the actual article:


“For decades, most Israelis have considered Palestinian terrorism the country’s biggest security concern. But there is another threat that may be even more destabilizing for Israel’s future as a democracy: Jewish terrorism and violence, and the failure to enforce the law against it.”

The massive article, by Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti, prints out to 52 pages. It covers decades of history, and includes more than 100 interviews. Bergman has long had ties to Israel’s intelligence services, and he includes inside sources. “This story is told in three parts. . .,” the reporters say. “Taken together they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power.”

Howard French, the distinguished former New York Times reporter turned author, asked the obvious question on Twitter:


“Where was the daily coverage of the Times throughout all of this?”

French’s view was echoed in the paper’s comment section. “Jack” was one of the 2500 Times readers who have already overwhelmingly endorsed the article. He wrote: “. . . I am struck by this piece being the only one I can recall to make consistent use of the term ‘terrorism’ to describe the actions of Jewish Israelis. It is far more common to hear settlers who commit violence against unarmed civilians referred to as ‘extremists’ rather than ‘terrorists.’”

This site has long argued that the Times, (like other mainstream TV and print outlets), covers up Jewish extremism as a central strategy in its ongoing whitewash of Israel. Time after time, we’ve shown how the paper ignores violent Jewish Israeli figures, and disguises vicious unprovoked attacks by Jewish “settlers” in the occupied West Bank as “clashes,” which somehow seem to just erupt spontaneously. But this report — finally — is starting to tell some truths. Let’s hope that the succession of Times Jerusalem bureau chiefs who committed malpractice over the years are now feeling a sense of shame.

There are signs that “The Unpunished” is already starting to get traction elsewhere in the mainstream. Nicolle Wallace, who rarely reports on Israel/Palestine, gave 15 minutes of air time to the article in her May 10 program on MSNBC, including on-camera interviews with the two reporters.

So far, Hasbara Central, Israel’s huge propaganda apparatus, has apparently been stunned into silence. But the midnight oil is surely burning in both Tel Aviv and at AIPAC headquarters in Washington, D.C., because this might be the biggest single mainstream journalist challenge ever to the standard dishonest Israeli narrative.

The Bergman/Mazzetti report is far from perfect. It is long, but it doesn’t include the word “apartheid” a single time. The reporters aren’t required to agree with the assessment, but they should have corrected their paper’s previous whitewash and at least explained that major human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli organization B’Tselem, have all found that the Israeli system constitutes “apartheid” under international law.

Nor does the report challenge the prevailing euphemism, which is that the more than 700,000 Jewish Israelis who have violated international law by moving into the occupied West Bank are “settlers”; they are in fact more accurately described as “colonists.”

So why did the Times print this long report, which does actually start to correct decades of its biased coverage? In time, leaks from people on the paper’s staff may provide part of the answer. But surely the pro-Palestine solidarity movement, along with alternative media, can claim some of the credit. In the Internet age, it is much harder to cover up the truth. First hand accounts from Gaza, the occupied Palestinian West Bank, and from Israel itself, are now widely available, and the student protesters and others have spread the word. Add to that internal dissension at the Times itself, and so top management there may have decided the paper had to act if its reputation wasn’t going to be completely tarnished.

A related question: Ronen Bergman has long had well-placed sources inside Israel’s intelligence elite. Very little of what is in this long Times article is new; much of the reporting is about events that happened decades ago. So why did Bergman decide — now — to report on what is basically old news? And why did his sources, who include former Israeli prime ministers, decide — now — to talk to the New York Times?

A valuable post on this site in March 2023 by the eloquent Razi Nabulse offers a clue. Nabulse probed behind the headlines to explain why Israeli Jews last year joined the massive uprising against the effort by Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right wing allies to stage a “coup” against the country’s legal system. The protesters represented the old Israeli elite, who are losing political power to the religious far right and the increasingly powerful settler/colonists. It is this old elite that Bergman quoted at length in this long report. The Times may be trying to protect this older “good” Israel from Netanyahu and his “bad” allies, who are the greatest threat to the country’s international standing in many decades.

It is too early to celebrate the Times‘s possible change in direction. First we will have to see if the paper, or other mainstream U.S. media, do any follow up. The adage used to be that “yesterday’s newspaper wraps today’s fish,” and the online attention span can also be short. It is possible that this story will die down in a few days, and the Times will go back to its old distortion methods. We shall see.

Biden panders to pro-Israel Jews, who are as reactionary on Israel as evangelicals

A Pew poll shows that when it comes to Israel, American Jews are much closer to white evangelicals than they are to Democratic Party numbers. Democrats want to cut off military aid. By and large, Jews don’t.

BY PHILIP WEISS 

  MAY 10, 2024 

MONDOWEISS

BIDEN GIVES SPEECH ON HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY, AT US CAPITOL, MAY 7, 2024. HERE HE IS GREETED BY STU EIZENSTAT, TO HIS IMMEDIATE RIGHT, A STATE DEPARTMENT SPECIAL ADVISER ON HOLOCAUST ISSUES. (PHOTO: JOE BIDEN X ACCOUNT)


Joe Biden took contradictory actions this week. He called campus protesters of Israeli genocide antisemites one day. Then a day later he said he wouldn’t give Israel more bombs to kill Palestinian civilians.

Biden is trying to reconcile two irreconcilable parts of the Democratic coalition– the progressive base and a special interest, the Israel lobby.

Biden’s speech on Holocaust memorial day was an extended attack on the progressives. He said campus protests represent the latest “surge” of the “ancient hatred of Jews,” the same hatred that fueled Nazism


The smear got sympathetic coverage on broadcast media. “This is ultimately a continuation of why he ran in 2020, when he saw neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville chanting — quote — ‘Jews will not replace us,’” Laura Barron-Lopez said on the PBS News Hour. CNN reporter Jamie Gangel echoed the Charlottesville claim. While CNN anchor Dana Bash said that the protests “hearken back” to Nazi Germany.

Biden’s attack on the demonstrators carries great political risk. The Democratic base is overwhelmingly critical of Israel. By 56 to 22 Democrats say that Israel is committing a “genocide” in Gaza, according to a new poll.

Pew’s survey in March was just as emphatic. Democratic Party voters oppose military aid to Israel by 44 to 25 percent, think that Israel’s methods are unacceptable by 52 to 22 percent, sympathize with Palestinians over Israelis by 27 to 15, think Biden is favoring Israel too much as opposed to striking the right balance by 34 to 29 percent, and have an unfavorable view of Israel’s government by 71 to 24.

Biden has tried to throw some crumbs to that base, as in his decision to hold back some 2000-pound bombs.

But such gestures are too little too late for many progressives– after 34,000 killings and the destruction of Gaza’s cities, all with American weaponry. Bernie Sanders has said that Gaza could prove to be Biden’s Vietnam because of the anger of the base. James Carville has said Biden’s stance could cost him the election.

Pro-Biden apologists in broadcast media have countered by saying that Biden is showing statesmanship by risking his base. And the New York Times has explained Biden’s risktaking by saying he’s a committed Zionist.

What these analyses miss is that Biden knows just what he is doing.

By smearing the protesters, Biden is catering to a key bloc in the Democratic coalition: pro-Israel Jews, who according to Pew are among the most reactionary groups in America on the Israeli violence. Jews historically vote for Democrats by about 3-to 1. But today Jews are completely out of step with the Dem base.

When it comes to Israel, Jews are much closer to white evangelicals and Republicans than they are to the Democratic Party, according to Pew’s poll, conducted in February.

PEW POLL IN MARCH SHOWS THAT JEWISH SYMPATHY FOR ISRAELIS OVER PALESTINIANS IS OVERWHELMING, AT 69 TO 7 PERCENT, AND GREATER THAN WHITE EVANGELICAL PROTESTANTS’ SYMPATHY FOR ISRAEL, AND STARKLY AT ODDS WITH DEMOCRATIC PARTY VOTERS, WHO SYMPATHIZE WITH PALESTINIANS OVER ISRAELIS BY 27 TO 15.

By 62 to 33 percent, Jews find Israel’s methods acceptable; sympathize with Israelis by 69 to 7 (sympathy for Palestinians); support military aid by 74 to 15; think Biden is striking the right balance as opposed to being too favorable to Israel, by 45 to 13; and have a favorable view of Israel’s government by 54 to 44.

Nearly one in five Jews say that Biden is too favorable to Palestinians. Only 3 percent of Democrats say that

.

PEW POLL IN MARCH SHOWS THAT DEMOCRATIC PARTY VOTERS OPPOSE MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL BY 44 TO 25 PERCENT, WHILE JEWS SUPPORT AID TO ISRAEL BY 74 TO 15 AGAINST.

These ardently pro-Israel views can be seen in the many ways that American Jews have risen to support Israel since the war began October 7. For instance, the five leading Jewish organizations (ADL, AIPAC, AJC, Conference of Presidents, and Federations) formed a new publicity campaign, led by a p.r. firm with links to the Biden administration, saying much what Biden said in his Holocaust speech: October 7 was an unleashing of Jewish hatred that hasn’t stopped since. Donor activism by Jewish pro-Israel alumni at Harvard and Penn led to the historic resignations of the Harvard and Penn presidents, days after they did not sufficiently denounce pro-Palestine demonstrators in congressional testimony –a demonstration of Zionist muscle if ever there was one.

Such efforts continue with Harvard megadonor Bill Ackman and Jessica Seinfeld, the wife of Jerry Seinfeld, funding pro-Israel demonstrations, and former Facebook exec Sheryl Sandberg putting out a documentary about sexual violence on October 7.

In fact, the leading Jewish organizations have been cheerleaders for an onslaught that many international law experts say is a genocide. Just the other day Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL issued a battle cry for Netanyahu’s war on the starving refugees of Rafah.

“We are not the Jews of trembling knees. We will not flee, we will fight, we will press on and we will win, because we have no other choice,” Greenblatt said.

Biden’s pandering to these reactionary forces is in a tradition of Democratic politicians currying the favor of Zionist donors. The proportion of large Jewish donors in the Democratic Party is “gigantic” and “shocking,” according to J Street experts in 2016, the “elephant in the room” according to the Pulitzer Prize winner Nathan Thrall, writing in the Times in 2019. And former insiders Ben Rhodes of the Obama administration and Stu Eizenstat of the Carter administration (who introduced Biden’s Holocaust remembrance speech) have both written that Jewish donors were critical to their presidents’ reelection success/failure.

Of course, calling out these Jewish influencers can foster antisemitism: it bolsters the view that all Jews are powerful and working behind the scenes to get politicians to overlook the crimes of the Jewish state.

That makes it more important than ever to stress that a third of the Jewish community does not buy into the pro-Israel propaganda. A third of the community is very similar to the Democratic base and to younger voters generally. A strong but growing minority of the Jewish community is non- or anti-Zionist, and already causing a crisis among liberal Zionists, and a boycott of some Passover seders, and uncomfortable silence at others.

These Jews are shut out of the establishment but unapologetically critical of Israel’s conduct. The youth group IfNotNow has denounced Israeli genocide and apartheid, and been ostracized from the mainstream Jewish community for doing so.

When Biden withheld bombs from the Israeli military machine, Jewish Voice for Peace declared, “This is huge, and now is the time to tip the scales.”

For all of Jonathan Greenblatt’s and Alan Dershowitz’s warmongering, media need to focus on such Jewish leaders as Norman Finkelstein. The 70-year-old son of Holocaust survivors, Finkelstein has for 40 years created a body of work of harsh criticism of the Jewish state that he continues to this day. He will one day be lauded as a Jewish hero. As will Rebecca Vilkomerson of Jewish Voice for Peace, Simone Zimmerman of IfNotNow, and Marc Ellis, the author and liberation theologian.

The Jewish establishment has long shunned such speakers as self-haters as it exerts its influence for Israel. Those organizations still have traction in the White House, but not among young Jews who question Zionism. The youthful numbers are only growing. The media have an obligation to give these Jews a voice. Then our politicians will also salute their work.

The mainstream media distorted our anti-Vietnam War protests 50 years ago. They’re following the same strategy today

Fifty years ago, I joined in protests against the Vietnam war. Today the mainstream media is smearing pro-Palestine student protests in ways that are even worse than how we were slandered back then.

BY JAMES NORTH 

MAY 5, 2024 

MONSOWEISS

SCREENSHOT FROM A MAY 1, 2024 REPORT FROM CNN’S DANA BASH ON THE GAZA PROTESTS ON CAMPUSES AROUND THE U.S.


Fifty years ago, I was one of the many thousands of students and others who joined in regular nationwide protests against the Vietnam War. I was arrested twice; the second time, in August 1972, we disrupted Richard Nixon’s renomination at the Republican Convention in Miami, and I was one of the more than a thousand demonstrators who spent several days afterwards locked up in the Dade County Stockade.

What is striking is that today’s mainstream media efforts to smear the pro-Palestine student protests are so eerily similar to how we were slandered back then. Here is the current strategy, evident on TV news and in more highbrow outlets like the New York Times and the Atlantic magazine.Top priority: Ignore the actual events that are prompting the demonstrations. Today, say little or nothing about Israel’s murderous and ongoing attack on Gaza.
Ignore the substance of the student demands. Don’t mention “divestment.” (Never cite the call for nonviolent Boycott Divestment Sanctions.)
Distort protester behavior; portray them as violent, in word and deed. The new twist now is to also smear them as antisemitic.
And spend most of your time maligning the students’ character. Today, as back then, call them “privileged” or “naive,” or worse. Blame “outside agitators.”

Dana Bash’s now notorious mid-day report on CNN last week was only the most extreme example of bias. She actually compared the campus protests to the rise of Hitler’s Germany: “[The protests are] . . . hearkening back to the 1930s in Europe. And I do not say that lightly. The fear among Jews in this country is palpable right now.”

But other mainstream news reports were only slightly less obviously distorted. Take, for instance the night of April 30 at the UCLA campus. Eyewitnesses, including faculty members, testified that a band of violent pro-Israel counter-demonstrators attacked the peaceful protesters’ encampment for several hours, while campus police and California law enforcement just stood idly by; there was film and photos of injuries. But much of the print press and the TV news reported the events as “clashes,” without blaming the pro-Israel mob. (You can get an accurate report at UCLA’s college paper, the Daily Bruin.)

I was also personally present for some of the police violence at the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968. Much of the press back then followed the same playbook, exaggerating violence by the antiwar demonstrators and exonerating the police. Get ready for the same treatment this summer, when the Democrats convene in Chicago once again.

Arguably even worse this time around is the media’s refusal to report the student protesters’ demands.

But arguably even worse this time around is the media’s refusal to report the student protesters’ demands. You have to search carefully to see that the students have two connected requests: 1) Colleges should disclose their holdings in companies that provide Israel with weapons of war and other support, and 2) Colleges should then publicly divest from those holdings.

Anyone who followed Israel/Palestine before October 7 will recognize that the broad-based nonviolent movement for Boycott Divestment Sanctions has been calling for the same steps for several decades. By now, the mainstream should have profiled this movement, including pointing out how various state and local governments have passed legislation that handcuffs even calls for BDS. So far, nothing. (One interesting exception. In 2019, the estimable Nathan Thrall somehow smuggled a fair-minded report on BDS into the New York Times magazine. He’s on the scene back in the occupied West Bank. Why not ask him to update his report?)

At least during the anti-Vietnam War protests our demands were clear: Stop the Bombing. Stop the War. Bring Our Troops Home.

What’s more, the mainstream is downplaying and ignoring the news from Gaza itself.

What’s more, the mainstream is downplaying and ignoring the news from Gaza itself.

In the Atlantic, George Packer published an entire attack on the students without writing the word “Gaza” one single time. Michael Powell, also in the Atlantic, visited the Columbia campus to distort and condescend. He did meet Layla Saliba, a Palestinian-American graduate student, who told him she had lost family members in Gaza. He wrote that she talked to him “at length and with nuance,” but he didn’t bother to quote her directly, other than when she said: “We are not anti-Jewish, not at all.” (Layla Saliba does have plenty to say. She’s on X, formerly Twitter, @itslaylas)

Instead of reporting on the demands and Israel’s ongoing mass killing in Gaza, the mainstream media focused almost exclusively on narrow details. At CNN, Anderson Cooper made a fool of himself when the police finally cracked down on the Columbia campus on April 30; he demanded that his reporters on the scene document every move by the police, as if we were watching a complicated football play or a choreographed dance movement — but he failed to note that the police had moved all of the press out of camera range so they would have few witnesses when they went into the occupied building.

(The press’s narrow obsession with police-protester maneuvering brought back one of my memories from the 1972 antiwar demonstrations in Miami. When I was arrested, I happened to be in an area where there were many reporters. I was handcuffed with zip-ties, and as I was being loaded with dozens of others into a police van, the reporters all asked: “How are the police treating you?” To my credit, I answered, “The police are not our enemies. Nixon and the war criminals are our enemies.” This quote actually went viral, appeared in many press accounts, and was later read on the air by at least one famous TV anchorman.)

Another nearly perfect parallel between 50 years ago and now is the mainstream obsession to find fault with the character of the student protesters.

Finally, another nearly perfect parallel between 50 years ago and now is the mainstream obsession to find fault with the character of the student protesters. Like today’s students, we were called privileged, spoiled and naive. One nearly forgotten analysis actually blamed us on the child-rearing practices promoted by Dr. Benjamin Spock, a pediatrician whose Baby and Child Care (1946) was a huge selling guidebook for young parents back in the 1950s and 60s. Spock was indicted for promoting permissive parenting techniques, which supposedly explained our immaturity. (Spock himself, an outstanding and humane man, actually came out against the war in Vietnam and joined in many protests.)

The anti-student slanders actually lost impact, however, as the war in Vietnam continued and others who were not students joined in the antiwar movement. By those 1972 Miami demonstrations, the protest’s leaders were actually the members of an extraordinary organization called Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). At the front line of those Miami marches were several vets who were in wheelchairs because they had been wounded in combat, including two moral giants named Bobby Muller and Ron Kovic. Behind them marched more vets, including others with canes and missing limbs, most of them wearing their old military fatigues. The rest of us, a thousand strong, followed them.

The successors to Bobby Muller and Ron Kovic are emerging today. The American college students, who are being arrested and risking their futures because their consciences won’t let them stay quiet.