Dozens detained after protesters defy ban in Amsterdam

4 hours ago
Aleks Phillips
BBC News

EPA

Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been detained by police in Amsterdam after defying a ban on public protests in the Dutch capital.

Hundreds gathered in Dam Square on Sunday, calling for an end to the conflict in Gaza and expressing dissent towards the ban.

Demonstrations were temporarily banned by the mayor after Israeli football fans were targeted in what she called "hit-and-run" attacks on Thursday night after a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam.

The Israeli government has advised its citizens to "categorically avoid" Israeli sports and cultural events while abroad - specifically the football match between France and Israel in Paris on Thursday.


Authorities say Thursday's attacks - which caused five people to be hospitalised - were motivated by antisemitism as the fans were sought out across the city.

The violence - which led to at least 62 arrests - was condemned by leaders in Europe, the US and in Israel.

The outcry was exacerbated by the attacks occurring on the eve of commemorations of Kristallnacht - Nazi pogroms against German Jews that took place in 1938.

Three-quarters of Jewish people in the Netherlands were murdered during the Holocaust in World War Two.

Amsterdam police said there had also been trouble the night before the match. Police chief Peter Holla said there had been incidents "on both sides", including Israeli supporters removing a Palestinian flag from a wall and setting it alight, and attacking a taxi.

The city's Mayor Femke Halsema announced a ban on public assembly on Friday lasting at least until the end of the weekend, deeming the city a "high-risk security area".

But protesters on Sunday argued they should be free to voice their disapproval of Israel's actions in Gaza and the actions of the Maccabi supporters.

Getty Images

"This protest has nothing to do with antisemitism," Alexander van Stokkum, one of the demonstrators, told the AFP news agency on Sunday. "It is against Israeli hooligans who were destroying our city."

Others told a Reuters journalist: "We refuse to let the charge of antisemitism be weaponised to suppress Palestinian resistance."

The news agency reported that more than 100 people were detained for attending the protest. Police in Amsterdam confirmed there had been arrests, but have yet to say how many.

Following the protest ban, Dutch activist Frank van der Linde applied for an urgent permit so Sunday's demonstration could go ahead.

On X, he said that he wanted to protest what he described as "the genocide in Gaza", adding: "We will not let our right to demonstrate be taken away."

Mr Van der Linde was overruled by Amsterdam's district court, which wrote on Sunday that "the mayor has rightly determined that there is a ban on demonstrating in the city this weekend".

Dutch national newspaper De Telegraaf reports Mr Van der Linde was among those arrested.

The Israeli embassy in the Netherlands earlier warned Israelis in Amsterdam to avoid Dam square, saying the event "may flare up into significant violent incidents".

Israel's National Security Council has told its citizens to avoid public demonstrations "of any kind" and conceal "anything that could identify you as Israeli/Jewish", citing Thursday's attacks.

"Preparations to harm Israelis have been identified in several European cities, including Brussels (Belgium), major cities in the UK, Amsterdam (Netherlands), and Paris," it claimed.

Paris's police chief has pledged that 4,000 officers would be deployed in the stadium and across the French capital for the Nations League match on 14 November.

Mourning a friend

The Amsterdam incident showed how many media outlets fell for the victimhood narrative Israel has successfully sold for decades.

Abbas Nasir 

Published November 10, 2024 

THE legacy media seems to have learnt no lesson from its debacle in the US presidential election, as its coverage based on its preconceived notions about the events in Amsterdam during a UEFA football fixture this week demonstrated.

The bulk of it continued to suggest that the presidential fight was neck and neck with a slight edge for Vice President Kamala Harris when the ground reality must have been very different, given the election result.

When street fighting broke out between Maccabi Tel Aviv-supporting football hooligans in the Netherlands capital for their team’s UEFA fixture against Ajax and those they attacked while there, from New York Times to the Guardian to the BBC many media outlets fell for the victimhood narrative Israel has successfully sold for decades.

Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany perpetrated the Holocaust, in which some five to six million Jews perished in the last century. It was undeniably a grave, unforgiveable crime against humanity. The Jewish people and many around the world vowed ‘Never again’. This was a just resolve


The Amsterdam incident showed how many media outlets fell for the victimhood narrative Israel has successfully sold for decades.

But for the past 75 years, it has also been used to justify the occupation of Palestine, expulsion, murder and imprisonment of Palestinians; anyone with a conscience who objects or protests against this is labelled ‘antisemitic’ and demonised and castigated as being a ‘Jew hater’. Any specific criticism provokes outrage and is dubbed ‘an antisemitic trope’.

This narrative has been built by the subtle and often not-so-subtle control of and manipulation by the Western media and powerful Western governments whose politicians are compromised by receiving generous campaign contributions in exchange for toeing a pro-Israel line. I promise you, this sentence will also be labelled a ‘trope’.

It is important to make a distinction between Jews, of whom so many around the world and in Israel too, have expressed disdain at the apartheid state’s policies towards the Palestinians and Arab Israelis, and genocidal Zionists such as the one in control of Israel as we speak. The latter’s settler colonialism has very little to do with Jewish values.

But the genocidal Zionists’ excesses are often brushed under the carpet or even justified because they enjoy immense financial and political power in the West. Just google to see how they fund mainstream political parties in Western democracies to understand why they get a free pass to brazenly violate international law and norms. Anyone daring to call them out is vilified as antisemitic.

When the Amsterdam violence news started to break, most leading lights of the legacy media and Western leaders from the Dutch king to the prime minister to the EU president to the British foreign secretary started using terms like ‘antisemitic’ attacks and ‘pogrom’ in Amsterdam.

Surprisingly, UK’s Daily Mail was the first to report the violence in its correct context and then slowly but surely a trickle started to appear in the media. First in SkyNews, then a small piece buried in the labyrinth of BBC News. Then the US network NBC aired a video which was geo-verified as being from the site of the clashes showing acts of provocation.

But what the glorious British newspaper Guardian I have read for some 30 years, and that I now find so one-sided, has come to was underlined by its story and headline. Its initial headlines were outrageously pro-Israeli ‘fans’.

Even when the Amsterdam police chief detailed the provocative slogans and actions of the Israeli football hooligans including their tearing down the Palestinian flag from two homes, burning one of them and ‘destroying a taxi’, the statement was buried in the seventh paragraph of the Guardian story!

The slogans included “IDF will f…. Arabs” and “there are no schools in Gaza because all the children are dead”.

The counter-violence started when a crowd alerted by the taxi drivers’ WhatsApp group gathered to challenge the Maccabi ‘fans’. The police chief also told the media that Israelis who’d come to Amsterdam and whose team lost by a near-tennis score to Ajax went round the city the night before the match too raising inflammatory slogans.

I’ll leave it to your judgment if this was antisemitic violence targeting peaceful Israeli, read: Jewish, football fans or trouble provoked by genocidal hooligans. What the violence did achieve was again the overshadowing of the UN statement that 70 per cent of those killed in Gaza were women and children.

Enough of the horrible, brutal and ugly things that seem to dominate our lives these days. Now a few lines my wife Carmen Gonzalez, herself a journalist, wrote two days ago about the loss of someone very dear to us who was like an unshakeable pillar of support during our years in Karachi when we moved to Pakistan in 2006 from London.

RIP Arbab: “Today, our family had to say a sadly premature goodbye to someone very dear, very special, and who made our days in Pakistan so much better and so much easier. His name was Arbab, he drove us around, watched over us like a hawk, taught us the value of loyalty and always, always kept his endearing cute grin, his naughty half smile, and his good spirits. Arbab, the protector, could happily watch Dora the Explorer with Elena, take Alia to school through flooded streets and suffering from high fever (he would never admit to being ill), make sure he got the best parking spot ever, and wash the car (in his shalwar and vest with his starched shirt draped over a chair) while listening to the Three Tenors, his favourite CD, that he requested from me one sunny Monday morning. With his charming cheeky demeanour, Arbab could disarm the toughest of Bajis and get special treatment from the most unbreakable guard. He was a gem; he was part of our Pakistan family and we will never forget him. Rest in peace my friend. Thank you for so much! We will miss you, dearest Arbab.”

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2024

The Amsterdam 'Pogrom' That Wasn't: Corporate Media Fails To Tell the Whole Story

'The Israeli fans instigated the violence after arriving in the city and attacking Palestinian supporters before the match'



Fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv stage a pro-Israel demonstration at the Dam Square, lighting up flares and chanting “Let the IDF win" and "F*** the Arabs!" ahead of the UEFA Europa League match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax in Amsterdam, Netherlands on November 07, 2024. Maccabi fans clashed with Amsterdam citizens and ripped off Palestinian flags hung on the streets. 

Photo by Mouneb Taim/Anadolu via Getty Images

Common Dreams Staff
Nov 09, 2024

Thursday night, Israeli soccer fans clashed with Amsterdam residents before and after a Europa League soccer match between their team Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax in Amsterdam.

Clashes occurred outside the Johan Cruyff Arena and across the city on Thursday night. Police on Friday said five people had been taken to hospital, and 62 arrests had been made.

The violence reportedly started when the far-right Israeli soccer hooligans began chanting racist and violent anti-Arab slogans, attacked Arab and Muslim residents, and vandalized houses and businesses with Palestinian flags.

Al Jazeera reported:

In one video, Israeli supporters were heard singing: “Let the IDF win, and f*** the Arabs!” referring to the Israeli army’s offensive on Gaza. Another video captured a fan screaming: “F*** you terrorists, Sinwar die, everybody die,” in reference to the Hamas leader who was killed last month.

The Israeli fans instigated the violence after arriving in the city and attacking Palestinian supporters before the match, an Amsterdam city council member said.

“They began attacking houses of people in Amsterdam with Palestinian flags, so that’s actually where the violence started,” Councilman Jazie Veldhuyzen told Al Jazeera on Friday.

“As a reaction, Amsterdammers mobilised themselves and countered the attacks that started on Wednesday by the Maccabi hooligans.”

Yet the corporate media - both in the US and abroad - portrayed the events as one-sided "anti-semitic" attacks on helpless soccer fans:

SEE

Israeli fans attack pro-Palestine supporters in Amsterdam

US President Joe Biden, his Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer were quick to echo Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that the events in Amsterdam were unprovoked anti-semitic attacks reminiscent of pogroms or the Kristallnacht.

However many social media posts reported the context of the violence that was missing from corporate media reporting:

 

Some people love to scare themselves in an already scary world — here’s why

Photo by Max Bender on Unsplash
person standing near LED sign

The Conversation

November 08, 2024

Fall for me as a teenager meant football games, homecoming dresses – and haunted houses. My friends organized group trips to the local fairground, where barn sheds were turned into halls of horror, and masked men nipped at our ankles with (chainless) chain saws as we waited in line, anticipating deeper frights to come once we were inside.


I’m not the only one who loves a good scare. Halloween attractions company America Haunts estimates Americans are spending upward of US$500 million annually on haunted house entrance fees simply for the privilege of being frightened. And lots of fright fans don’t limit their horror entertainment to spooky season, gorging horror movies, shows and books all year long.

To some people, this preoccupation with horror can seem tone deaf. School shootings, child abuse, war – the list of real-life horrors is endless. Why seek manufactured fear for entertainment when the world offers real terror in such large quantities?

As a developmental psychologist who writes dark thrillers on the side, I find the intersection of psychology and fear intriguing. To explain what drives this fascination with fear, I point to the theory that emotions evolved as a universal experience in humans because they help us survive. Creating fear in otherwise safe lives can be enjoyable – and is a way for people to practice and prepare for real-life dangers.
Fear can feel good

Controlled fear experiences – where you can click your remote, close the book, or walk out of the haunted house whenever you want – offer the physiological high that fear triggers, without any real risk.

When you perceive yourself under threat, adrenaline surges in your body and the evolutionary fight-or-flight response is activated. Your heart rate increases, you breathe deeper and faster, and your blood pressure goes up. Your body is preparing to defend itself against the danger or get away as fast as possible.

This physical reaction is crucial when facing a real threat. When experiencing controlled fear – like jump scares in a zombie TV show – you get to enjoy this energized sensation, similar to a runner’s high, without any risks. And then, once the threat is dealt with, your body releases the neurotransmitter dopamine, which provides sensations of pleasure and relief.

In one study, researchers found that people who visited a high-intensity haunted house as a controlled fear experience displayed less brain activity in response to stimuli and less anxiety post-exposure. This finding suggests that exposing yourself to horror films, scary stories or suspenseful video games can actually calm you afterward. The effect might also explain why my husband and I choose to relax by watching zombie shows after a busy day at work

.

Going through something frightening together – like a haunted house attraction – can be a bonding experience. AP Photo/John Locher

The ties that bind

An essential motivation for human beings is the sense of belonging to a social group. According to the surgeon general, Americans who miss those connections are caught up in an epidemic of loneliness, which leaves people at risk for mental and physical health issues.

Going through intense fear experiences together strengthens the bonds between individuals. Good examples include veterans who served together in combat, survivors of natural disasters, and the “families” created in groups of first responders.

I’m a volunteer firefighter, and the unique connection created through sharing intense threats, such as entering a burning building together, manifests in deep emotional bonds with my colleagues. After a significant fire call, we often note the improved morale and camaraderie of the firehouse. I feel a flood of positive emotions anytime I think of my firefighting partners, even when the events occurred months or years ago.

Controlled fear experiences artificially create similar opportunities for bonding. Exposure to stress triggers not only the fight-or-flight response, but in many situations it also initiates what psychologists call the “tend-and-befriend” system. A perceived threat prompts humans to tend to offspring and create social-emotional bonds for protection and comfort. This system is largely regulated by the so-called “love hormone” oxytocin.

The tend-and-befriend reaction is particularly likely when you experience stress around others with whom you have already established positive social connections. When you encounter stressors within your social network, your oxytocin levels rise to initiate social coping strategies. As a result, when you navigate a recreational fear experience like a haunted house with friends, you are setting the emotional stage to feel bonded with the people beside you.

Sitting in the dark with friends while you watch a scary movie or navigating a haunted corn maze with a date is good for your health, in that it helps you strengthen those social connections

. 

Consuming lots of horror as entertainment may make some people more resilient in real life. Edwin Tan/E+ via Getty Images

An ounce of prevention = a pound of cure

Controlled fear experiences can also be a way for you to prepare for the worst. Think of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the films “Contagion” and “Outbreak” trended on streaming platforms as people around the world sheltered at home. By watching threat scenarios play out in controlled ways through media, you can learn about your fears and emotionally prepare for future threats.

For example, researchers at Aarhus University’s Recreational Fear Lab in Denmark demonstrated in one study that people who regularly consumed horror media were more psychologically resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic than nonhorror fans. The scientists suggest that this resilience might be a result of a kind of training these fans went through – they practiced coping with the fear and anxiety provoked by their preferred form of entertainment. As a result, they were better prepared to manage the real fear triggered by the pandemic.

When I’m not teaching, I’m an avid reader of crime fiction. I also write psychological thrillers under the pen name Sarah K. Stephens. As both a reader and writer, I notice similar themes in the books I am drawn to, all of which tie into my own deep-rooted fears: mothers who fail their children somehow, women manipulated into subservience, lots of misogynist antagonists.

I enjoy writing and reading about my fears – and seeing the bad guys get their just desserts in the end – because it offers a way for me to control the story. Consuming these narratives lets me mentally rehearse how I would handle these kinds of circumstances if any were to manifest in my real life.
Survive and thrive

In the case of controlled fear experiences, scaring yourself is a pivotal technique to help you survive and adapt in a frightening world. By eliciting powerful, positive emotions, strengthening social networks and preparing you for your worst fears, you’re better able to embrace each day to its fullest.

So the next time you’re choosing between an upbeat comedy and a creepy thriller for your movie night, pick the dark side – it’s good for your health.

Sarah Kollat, Teaching Professor of Psychology, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Progressive Delegation Back From Palestine Boosts Case for Embargo on Israel

"The evidence is clear: The genocide in Gaza and the systematic nature of the abuse of Palestinian detainees recall the worst historical abuses committed by colonial powers against Indigenous populations."


Demonstrators call for a cease-fire in Gaza and Lebanon and an arms embargo on Israel during an October 20, 2024 rally in Brussels.
(Photo: Laia Ros/Getty Images

Brett Wilkins
Nov 07, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

Progressive International's Palestine Delegation—whose members were attacked earlier this week by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank—on Thursday issued "an urgent call to governments across the globe" to impose "a total energy, economic, and arms embargo against Israel" to punish its ongoing 13-month U.S.-backed assault on Gaza.

The Palestine Delegation—which was co-convened by Progressive International (PI), the National Lawyers Guild of the United States, and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers—released a report containing findings of members Ada Colau, the former mayor of Barcelona and lead delegate; Marc Botenga, a Belgian member of European Parliament (MEP) from the Marxist-socialist Workers' Party; and Jaume Asens, a leftist MEP from Spain.

"The Israeli regime must urgently be subject to total isolation on all fronts."

"The evidence is clear: The genocide in Gaza and the systematic nature of the abuse of Palestinian detainees recall the worst historical abuses committed by colonial powers against Indigenous populations... seeking their liberation, from the concentration camps used by Britain against the national liberation movement in Kenya to the internment of millions of Algerians by France," the report states.

Israel's 398-day assault on Gaza has killed or injured at least 155,000 Palestinians, including those who are missing and feared dead, while forcing nearly the entire population of the coastal enclave from their homes and causing widespread starvation and sickness. The International Court of Justice in The Hague is weighing evidence of genocide presented by South Africa in a case backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs and thousands of experts, advocates, and rights groups around the world.

"Any government providing arms, energy, economic, or diplomatic support to Israel is complicit in these crimes against humanity—and threatens the basic integrity of the international order," PI asserted. "The Israeli regime must urgently be subject to total isolation on all fronts—economic, military, cultural, political, and diplomatic—to lay the groundwork for the end of the genocide and the dismantling of the colonial occupation in Palestine."

The U.S. boosts Israel with tens of billions of dollars worth of armed aid and unwavering diplomatic support. Other nations including Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and India also provide Israel with substantial backing.

The PI delegation said it "arrived in Palestine amid sustained efforts by Israeli authorities to prevent access to the occupied territories and obscure the conditions of deprivation, detention, apartheid, and annexation endured by the Palestinian people."

Delegation members got a small taste of what Palestinians living in the occupied territories endure when they were reportedly attacked with tear gas and stun grenades by armed Israeli settlers and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops Monday while accompanying West Bank farmers in Qusra as they attempted to harvest from the olive trees that are the lifeblood of Palestine's rural economy and a frequent target of land-grabbing settlers trying to drive Arabs away.

Last month, IDF soldiers fatally shot Hanan Abu Salameh, a 59-year-old Palestinian woman who was working with relatives in her family's olive grove in the village of Faqqua, located east of Jenin in the northern West Bank.

"We are dealing with something as simple as harvesting olives," said Colau. "And even this has now been turned into an act of war by the illegal settlers and the army."

Earlier this week, around 50 countries joined in a call for an arms embargo on Israel. All but one of the nations—Norway—are in the Global South. They include: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Palestine, Russia, South Africa, Sudan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam.

Where do we begin bringing light to a new dark age?

Maryland Governor Wes Moore at the Democratic National Convention's roll call in August of 2024

 (Image: Screengrab via Democratic National Convention / YouTube)

John Stoehr

November 08, 2024


It may seem odd to talk about joy after Tuesday’s devastating defeat. Many of us, including myself, believed for good reasons that most people in this country would make the right choice, because the right choice seemed so obvious. They didn’t, and now we must face a future in which the president is no more accountable than a king.

Some would say despair is the more appropriate emotion, and I can’t say I blame them. We should despair, though temporarily, as we are in the process of mourning the loss of what could have been: a future that could have been more equal and more prosperous, a future that could have seen the restoration of individual liberty and justice for all.

And we should mourn, perhaps especially the loss of what we thought America was – the exception to the norm of world history in which tyrants rule with impunity for the law rather than under it.

With this election, we now know with greater clarity than ever before that it can happen here. Authoritarianism has arrived, and it came with a flag and a Bible. As John Harwood said, “voters handed the White House back to a leader devoid of virtue – a deranged, lawless con man who triumphed with a venomous campaign of lies, bigotry and cruelty. Instead of hiding his darkest qualities, Donald Trump emphasized them. A majority of the electorate responded, ‘Yes, please.’”

But here’s why we should talk about joy. The people who are about to enter the White House are planning to do a lot of horrible things. They want to deport millions of migrants; raise prices for everyone with ludicrous tariffs; enrich themselves though exortion and theft; weaponize the Justice Department against perceived enemies; and corrupt government agencies for education, climate and science.

What they want most of all is for you to give up.

They want you to feel alone. They want you to feel like you can’t trust anyone. They want you to feel isolated and afraid and small. They want you to feel like there’s no purpose in practicing democratic politics. They are going to say this election is evidence of that. And they want you to stop flourishing as a human being. Then they got you. You have surrendered. At that point, all you’re doing is existing, not thriving.


That’s why you must feel joy. Not in spite of the tyranny we are about to witness, but because of it. Without joy, there is no hope. Without hope, there is no trust. And without trust, a democratic society collapses under its own weight. They want you to believe nothing matters except power and greed and selfishness. But as long as you protect your joy, something will matter, even if it’s the smallest thing.

And every act of joy is an act of defiance.

In this, I’m drawing inspiration from the Black American tradition, from people who have faced worse than we are facing now and perhaps worse than what we will face. For most of our history, Black citizens were treated like subhumans, in culture, in custom and in law. Yet “the least of these” found the strength to carry on. They found a reason to believe, as Harwood said, “that a critical mass of Americans [can embrace] the values of freedom, pluralism and common sense.”

In the same sentence, Hardwood said the choice voters made Tuesday “defies comprehension.” Americans, he suggests, are supposed to stand up for democracy and the rule of law by dint of being Americans. Harwood added that he feels “embarrassingly naive” for believing that.

But I don’t think he’s naive. Instead, he might be taking past victories for granted, as if the story of American progress unfolded on its own, rather than what happened: people fought hard for their freedom. Sometimes they lost. Sometimes they were murdered. In any case, progress didn’t spring out of “American exceptionalism.” It happened because good people never stopped fighting for what they want.

It’s tempting, perhaps fashionable, to say that America is done. We had a good run, but “the great experiment” is over now. That suggests, however, that the past was better than it was and that the future is knowable. While I yield to no one in my belief that Trump is going to try making the United States a more miserable place to live, I don’t know how exactly, and I don’t know what kind of reaction he’s going to provoke. And in not knowing these things, there’s room for hope.

This is going to be hard. As I’m writing this, a federal judge “paused” the case against Donald Trump in which he stands accused of crimes committed during the J6 insurrection. The president-elect is now untouchable, if not infallible. He’s said to be planning mass pardons of insurgents who sacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. A traitor can become a patriot if he gets enough people to vote for him. Traitors can be heroes if the leader of their mutiny is above the law. What we are witnessing is a perversion of morality and equal treatment under law.

How do you fight that? I don’t know.

Where do we begin bringing light to a new dark age?

What I do know is we’ll never find out if we don’t protect our joy.

AMERIKA

Who are we anyway?

Photo by roya ann miller on Unsplash
group of person waving

Robert Reich

November 07, 202

All day today, people I’ve worked with over the years have been contacting me — some in tears, some in abject panic, most deeply worried. It has been a hard day for so many.

Since 2015, I’ve been saying that America is better than Trump. I’m no longer so sure.

Yet the roots of Trumpism extend many years before 2015. I first came across them in 1994, when the Democrats lost both houses of Congress in what was then termed a “repudiation” of the Democratic Party.

Trumpism is the consequence, not the cause, of a long-term structural change in the American political economy.

Over much of the past 30 years, as the Republican Party embraced bigotry, lies, and hate to stir up working-class fears and resentments, the Democratic Party abandoned the working class and embraced global trade, deregulation of finance, and lower taxes on the wealthy, and has allowed corporate bashing of labor unions and monopolization of industry.

As a result, the median wage of the bottom 90 percent has risen just 15 percent, adjusted for inflation, while the stock market has soared 5000 percent.

To its credit, the Biden administration is the first Democratic administration in more than 30 years to reject additional moves toward globalization and deregulation, propose higher taxes on the wealthy, strengthen labor unions, aggressively utilize antitrust, and adapt a forward-looking industrial policy.

But these measures require years to take effect, and many working-class Americans have not yet benefited from them.

So who are we, and where do we go from here? I will share my thoughts about these questions over the next weeks and months. But today, as we process what’s happened, I want to share with you three short pieces.

The first is the transcript of a radio call-in program I did in the fall of 1994 when, as secretary of labor, I was campaigning for Democrats in the midterm elections that resulted in losses of both chambers of Congress.

***


“You’re on Talk Radio 95, The Charles Walter Show, where you hear the news when it’s news! Joining us this evening, the United States secretary of labor! Here to take y-o-o-o-u-u-u-r calls! … John from Garden Park. You’re on Talk Radio 95!”

“Hello?”

“You’re on the air, John! Do you have a question for the secretary?”

“Yes. Mr. Secretary, have you ever held a real job in your entire life?”


“Well, John, I used to teach.”

“Just what I thought. You don’t know nothing.”

“Thank you, John! Diane from Oak Brook, you’re on the air!”

“Hi, Charlie.”


“Hi, Diane!”

“Love your show, Charlie.”

“Thanks, Diane! A question for the labor secretary?”

“Why does the secretary think government has all the answers?”


“I don’t think government has all the answers, Diane.”

“Yes you do. You and all the other liberals in the Clinton administration. Ever heard of free enterprise? Socialism doesn’t work!”

“Thank you, Diane! Next up, Peter from Lakeview! Pete, you’re on the air!”

“Great show, Charlie.”

“Thanks, Pete! Your question?”

“I don’t understand something.”

“What is it you don’t understand, Pete?”

“I don’t understand where these guys get off.”

“Your question for the labor secretary, Pete?”

“Mr. Secretary, why do you think you have the right to tax honest hard-working people? It’s our money.”

“Pete, your federal taxes pay for national defense, Medicare, highways, environmental protection, air-traffic control, safe workplaces, all sorts of things you rely on.”

“It’s my money. I should decide what I need. You have no right.”

“Thank you, Pete! We’re cooking tonight, folks! The board’s all lit up! Ted from Orleyville, you’re on the air!”

“I really appreciate your show, Charles.”

“Thank you, Ted! Your question for the secretary?”

“Yes. Mr. Secretary, you’re a fucking —”

“Michelle in Garden View! You’re on the air!”

“I’d like to know why we spend billions and billions of dollars on welfare for people who do nothing all day but sit around and watch TV.”

“Michelle, all welfare spending is less than 3 percent of the federal budget, and most people on welfare are off it and into jobs within two years.”

“You’re lying.”

“Tony in Lakeview! You’re on the air!”

“I just lost my job. My company went to Mexico. I want to ask the labor secretary how anybody can get a good job in America if we have to compete with Mexicans who are paid a nickel an hour?”

“Good question, Tony! Mr. Secretary?”

“Tony, I’m sorry you lost your job. But there are millions of good new jobs out there, some of them exporting to Mexico and other countries. You can get —”

“Good new jobs? Where? The new jobs pay nothing. They pay shit. You’re talking out of your asshole.”

“Afraid that’s all the time we have! Mr. Secretary, thanks so very much for being with us this evening!”

***

The second piece is an essay by Carlos Lozada from today’s New York Times.

I remember when Donald Trump was not normal.

I remember when Trump was a fever that would break.

I remember when Trump was running as a joke.

I remember when Trump was best covered in the entertainment section.

I remember when Trump would never become the Republican nominee.

I remember when Trump couldn’t win the general election.

I remember when Trump’s attacks on John McCain were disqualifying.

I remember when Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape would force him out.

I remember when Trump was James Comey’s fault.

I remember when Trump was the news media’s fault.

I remember when Trump won because Hillary Clinton was unlikable.

I remember when 2016 was a fluke.

I remember when the office of the presidency would temper Trump.

I remember when the adults in the room would contain him.

I remember when the Ukraine phone call went too far.

I remember when Trump learned his lesson after the first impeachment.

I remember when Jan. 6 would be the end of Trump’s political career.

I remember when the 2022 midterms meant the country was moving on.

I remember when Trump’s indictments would give voters pause.

I remember when Trump’s felony convictions would give voters pause.

I remember when Trump would win because Joe Biden was old.

I remember when Kamala Harris’s joy would overpower Trump’s fearmongering.

I remember when Trump was weird.

I remember when Trump was not who we are.

There have been so many attempts to explain away Trump’s hold on the nation’s politics and cultural imagination, to reinterpret him as aberrant and temporary. “Normalizing” Trump became an affront to good taste, to norms, to the American experiment.

We can now let go of such illusions. Trump is very much part of who we are. Nearly 63 million Americans voted for him in 2016. Seventy-four million did in 2020. And now, once again, enough voters in enough places have cast their lot with him to return him to the White House. Trump is no fluke, and Trumpism is no fad.

After all, what is more normal than a thing that keeps happening?

In recent years, I’ve often wondered if Trump has changed America or revealed it. I decided that it was both — that he changed the country by revealing it. After Election Day 2024, I’m considering an addendum: Trump has changed us by revealing how normal, how truly American, he is.

Throughout Trump’s life, he has embodied every national fascination: money and greed in the 1980s, sex scandals in the 1990s, reality television in the 2000s, social media in the 2010s. Why wouldn’t we deserve him now?

At first, it seemed hard to grasp that we’d really done it. Not even Trump seemed to believe his victory that November night in 2016. We had plenty of excuses, some exculpatory, some damning. The hangover of the Great Recession. Exhaustion with forever wars. A racist backlash against the first Black president. A populist surge in America and beyond. Deaths of despair. If not for this potent mix, surely no one like Trump would ever have come to power.

If only the Clinton campaign had focused more on Wisconsin. If only African American turnout had been stronger in Michigan. If only WikiLeaks and private servers and “deplorables” and so much more. If only.

Now we’ll come up with more, no matter how contradictory or consistent they may be. If only Harris had been more attuned to the suffering in Gaza, or more supportive of Israel. If only she’d picked Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, as her running mate. If only the lingering fury over Covid had landed at Trump’s feet. If only Harris hadn’t been so centrist, or if only she weren’t such a California progressive, hiding all those positions she’d let slip in her 2019 campaign. If only Biden hadn’t waited so long to withdraw from the race, or if only he hadn’t mumbled stuff about garbage.

Harris decried Trump as a fascist, a petty tyrant. She called him divisive, angry, aggrieved. And that was a smart case to make if, deep down, most voters held democracy dear (except maybe they didn’t) and if so many of them weren’t already angry (except they were). If all America needed was an articulate case for why Trump was bad, then Harris was the right candidate with the right message at the right moment. The prosecutor who would defeat the felon.

But the voters heard her case, and they still found for the defendant. A politician who admires dictators and says he’ll be one for a day, whose former top aides regard as a threat to the Constitution — a document he believes can be “terminated” when it doesn’t suit him — has won power not for one day but for nearly 1,500 more. What was considered abnormal, even un-American, has been redefined as acceptable and reaffirmed as preferable.

The Harris campaign, as the Biden campaign before it, labored under the misapprehension that more exposure to Trump would repel voters. They must simply have forgotten the mayhem of his presidency, the distaste that the former president surely inspired. “I know Donald Trump’s type,” Harris reminded us, likening him to the crooks and predators she’d battled as a California prosecutor. She even urged voters to watch Trump’s rallies — to witness his line-crossing, norm-obliterating moments — as if doing so would inoculate the electorate against him.

It didn’t. America knew his type, too, and it liked it. Trump’s disinhibition spoke to and for his voters. He won because of it, not despite it. His critics have long argued that he is just conning his voters — making them feel that he’s fighting for them when he’s just in it for himself and his wealthy allies — but part of Trump’s appeal is that his supporters recognize the con, that they feel that they’re in on it.

Trump has long conflated himself with America, with the ambitions of its people. “When you mess with the American dream, you’re on the fighting side of Trump,” he wrote in “The America We Deserve,” published in 2000.

The Democrats tried hard to puncture those fantasies in this latest campaign. They raised absurd amounts of cash. They pushed the incumbent president, the standard-bearer of their party, out of the race, once it became clear he would not win. They replaced him with a younger, more dynamic candidate who proceeded to trounce Trump in their lone presidential debate.

None of it was enough. America had voted early, long before any mail-in ballots were available, and it has given Trump the “powerful mandate” he claimed in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

This time, that choice came with full knowledge of who Trump is, how he behaves in office and what he’ll do to stay there. He hasn’t just shifted the political consensus on a set of policy positions, though by moving both parties on trade and immigration, he certainly has done that. The rationalization of 2016 — that Trump was a protest vote by desperate Americans trying to send a message to the establishment of both parties — is no longer operative. The grotesque rally at Madison Square Garden, that carnival of insults against everyone that the speakers do not want in their America, was not an anomaly but a summation. It was Trumpism’s closing argument, and it landed.

The irony of one of the more common critiques of Harris — that her “word salad” moments and default platitudes in extended interviews made it hard to know what she believed — is that Trump manages to seem real even when his positions shift and his words weave. Authenticity does not require consistency or clarity when it is grounded in pitch-perfect cynicism.

We don’t call this period “the Trump era” just because the once and future president won lots of votes and has now prevailed in two presidential contests. It remained the Trump era even when Biden exiled him to Mar-a-Lago for four years. It is the Trump era because Trump has captured not just a national party but also a national mood, or at least enough of it. And when Democrats presented the choice this year as a referendum on Trumpism more than an affirmative case for Harris, they kept their rival at the center of American politics.

Harris gave it away whenever she called on voters to “turn the page” from Trump. Didn’t we do that in 2020 when we chose Biden and Harris? Not really. Trump was still waiting in the epilogue.

For those who have long insisted that Trump is “not who we are,” that he does not represent American values, there are now two possibilities: Either America is not what they thought it was, or Trump is not as threatening as they think he is. I lean to the first conclusion, but I understand that, over time, the second will become easier to accept. A state of permanent emergency is not tenable; weariness and resignation eventually win out. As we live through a second Trump term, more of us will make our accommodations. We’ll call it illiberal democracy, or maybe self-care.

“We’re not going back,” Harris told us. The tragedy is not that this election has taken us back, but that it shows how there are parts of America’s history that we’ve never fully gotten past.

In her book “America for Americans,” Erika Lee argues that Trump’s immigration policies and statements are part of a long tradition of xenophobia — against Southern Europeans, against newcomers from Asia, Latin America and the Middle East — a tradition that has lived alongside our self-perception as a nation of immigrants. In his book “The End of the Myth,” Greg Grandin warned of the “nationalization of border brutalism” under Trump, whereby harsh policies at the U.S.-Mexico border would spread elsewhere, an “extremism turned inward, all-consuming and self-devouring.”

When Trump first began his ascent into presidential politics, some readers turned to Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel, “It Can’t Happen Here,” about homegrown authoritarianism in the United States. In the story, Doremus Jessup, a liberal-minded newspaper editor, marvels at the power of Buzz Windrip, a crudely charismatic demagogue who captivates the country and imposes totalitarian rule. The stylistic similarities between Trump and Windrip are evident, but Lewis’s real protagonists are the well-meaning, liberal-minded citizens, like Jessup, who couldn’t quite bring themselves to grasp what was happening.

Jessup tells his readers that the insanity won’t last, that they can wait it out. “He simply did not believe that this comic tyranny could endure,” Lewis wrote. When it does endure, Jessup blames himself and his class for their obliviousness. “If it hadn’t been one Windrip, it’d been another. … We had it coming, we Respectables,” he laments.

For too long, today’s Respectables have insisted on Trump’s abnormality. It is a reflex, a defense mechanism, as though accepting his ordinariness is too much to bear. Because if Trump is normal, then America must be, too, and who wants to be roused from dreams of exceptionalism? It’s more comforting to think of Trumpism as a temporary ailment than a pre-existing condition.

When Hillary Clinton described half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables” in September of 2016, she did more than dismiss a massive voting bloc and confirm her status as a Respectable in good standing. What she said about those voters moments later was even more telling: “Some of those folks, they are irredeemable. But, thankfully, they are not American.”

It’s a neat move: Rather than accept what America was becoming and who Americans could become, just write them out of the story.

Are we what we say, or what we do — are we our actions or our aspirations? From America’s earliest moments, we have lived this tension between ideals and reality. It may seem more honest to dismiss our words and focus on our deeds. But our words also matter; they reveal what we hope to do and who we want to be. That yearning remains vital, no matter in what direction our national reality points.

The way to render Trump abnormal is not to insist that he is, or to find more excuses, or to indulge in the great and inevitable second-guessing of Democratic campaign strategy. It begins by recognizing that who we are is decided not only on Election Day — whether 2024 or 2016, or 2028 for that matter — but every day. Every day that we strive to be something other than what we’ve become.

I remember when I thought Trump wasn’t normal. But now he is, no matter how fiercely I cling to that memory.

***

The third is a short essay by one of my favorite authors, Rebecca Solnit:

They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.

The Wobblies used to say don't mourn, organize, but you can do both at once and you don't have to organize right away in this moment of furious mourning. You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who's upset and check your equipment for going onward. A lot of us are going to come under direct attack, and a lot of us are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones.

People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it's sunny or raining. Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

'Really jarring moment': Historian lays out 'alarming' parallels to turbulent time period

David McAfee
November 9, 2024 9

Trump at St. John's Episcopal Church (Photo: White House/Flickr)


Current events largely resemble what happened in the early 1800s, but there is a way to fight back, a historian said Saturday.

Nicole Lee Schroeder, PhD, an Assistant Prof at Kean University, took to social media this weekend to explain some parallels between the 2000s and the 1820s.

"It is a really jarring moment to be a historian. To know what might be coming is alarming," Schroeder wrote Saturday. "To realize that no one around you sees it or acknowledges it is a weird place to be in. It's like time traveling without time traveling."

Schroeder continued, "I study the 19th century and the 2020s look a lot like 1820s. Frequent epidemics? Check. Inflation? Check. Xenophobia and deportation schemes? Check. Women's rights losses? Check. Rampant backlash against women's economic freedoms and jobs outside the home? Check."

Schroeder went on to list even more similarities between the two time periods.

"Growth of carceral facilities? Check. Legislation to forcibly institutionalize disabled people? Check. Targeted attacks on Indigenous peoples? Check," Schroeder wrote. "Extreme religious fervor? Check. Efforts to shape public school curriculum with religious rhetoric? Check. Tariffs? Check."

Schroeder went on to say that, while "the antebellum era was a time of progress," it "was also a time fueled by hate."

"Slavery fueled the economy, and antislavery efforts were not very radical on the whole. Hatred against immigrants was widespread and poverty was extensive," Schroeder added. "Everything we are seeing right now happened in the early 1800s. And these choices were fueled by white supremacy, misogyny, and xenophobia. I really wish more people understood that we've been here and done this. Life only got better for those who actively oppressed others."

Schroeder also gave a ray of hope by encouraging people to learn from the history.

"It's time to learn from that history if you haven't already. We cannot go back to that. For anyone despairing, it's also time to learn from the radical activists who shaped resistance. 19th century activists didn't lose hope, we cannot lose hope either," Schroeder said. "Abolitionists, women's rights organizers, workers rights unions, disability rights orgs, and pro-immigration orgs did the work under far worse circumstances with very little global solidarity. We have better tools, connections, and resources."

If you're "in despair," Schroeder said, "pick up a history book."

"Before every win for human rights came a fight for it. We are now a part of that fight. We are not alone. We have all of these histories to guide us," the assistant professor added.

MSNBC hosts left speechless after authoritarian expert predicts what's next from Trump

Tom Boggioni
November 9, 2024 
RAW STORY

Symone Sanders Townsend, Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele, Georg Conway, Ruth Ben-Ghiat (Sceenshot)


The entire panel of MSNBC's "The Weekend" was left speechless before dissolving into nervous laughter after a noted expert on authoritarianism detailed how Donald Trump managed to get himself re-elected and what to expect now that voters have handed him another four years in office.

Co-host Michael Steele prompted historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat with, "I want to get your thoughts of what we can now say is the emerged, the realized form of American fascism that the American people, by some 50-plus percent decided, 'Yes, let's do that.'"

"I mean there is much to say," she began. "We are here now, you know, Donald Trump was very skilled at conditioning Americans to think that democracy and American democracy in particular was failing."

"He called America a garbage can. He spread with his allies disinformation about the economy, said that America was failing and praised foreign dictators so he could bolster his own idea of leadership, which is 'I alone can fix it,'" she elaborated.

"And all the slogans we have seen for years from him add up to this kind of strong men model of leadership which depends on having an enemy and an internal enemy, the enemy within," she continued.

"So you can justify these kind of crackdowns on the vulnerable, these repressions," she predicted. " And so this is all very unfortunate but he did a good job of conditioning over and over. We've have had eight years of this, Americans to see democracy is inferior to something else. That something else would be strong men ruled by him."

After she concluded, there was a long pause before Steele and co-host Symone Sanders Townsend simultaneously uttered, "Hmmm," which then led to a smattering of nervous laughter before turning to guest George Conway.

You can watch below or at the link