The Legacy of Fred Hampton

Lessons for the Current Moment

By Bill Fletcher Jr

December 5, 2024

Source: Liberation Road


Thomas Hawk - Fred Hampton. Flikr.



On December 4, 1969, Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were drugged and murdered by the Chicago Police Department. There have been documentaries and a feature film about the murder but they only capture part of the moment.

Hampton was among the most outstanding of the Panther leaders. Indeed, he was a true visionary. The architect of the first “Rainbow Coalition”—uniting African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and poor whites—he had an impulse towards the uniting of class struggle and struggles against national oppression. Certainly he would have offered great leadership to the Black Panther Party as a whole had he lived.

I remember the day that his murder was announced. It is difficult to capture in words the impact of the murder. Many of us were starting to become used to news about the jailing, torturing, and murder of political activists, but Fred Hampton was in a different category. This was a strategic blow to the Panthers and to the broader movement.

Original Rainbow Coalition pin

As we enter the new MAGA era it is worth reflecting on moments of intense repression. At the time of Fred Hampton’s murder, Richard Nixon had been in office for less than a year. The repression that fell on various groups, including but not limited to the Panthers, was something that many non-activists could ignore even though for the activist world it was heart-wrenching. The MAGA world we are entering shall leave no one untouched, however. It is for this reason, if for no other reason, that we must think broadly and creatively regarding the sort of united front necessary to defeat the far Right. This is a united front that will go beyond legal defense campaigns. It may have an impact on the lives of millions. It will necessitate self-defense; creative, “guerrilla” media (social media, alternative press, etc.); forms of mutual assistance; mobilizations; worker organizing; strikes; counternarratives. And it will most especially necessitate strategy and organization.

The Panthers understood part of this but they tended to focus on the attacks against them (and other activists) by the State. We must think differently and, as such, both offensively and defensively.

On offense, we must think about the environmental movement and environmental justice movements. The environment is the Achilles heel of the far right. They have no solution to the environmental catastrophe aside from genocide. Forces on the left need to not only push for environmental reforms but also link that to the defense and strengthening of the social safety net. Recent hurricanes, wildfires, droughts and pandemics have made clear that there must be a role for government,not only to provide assistance in the aftermath of environmental catastrophes, but to be thinking in advance regarding the steps to take to mitigate disaster. The right will not be thinking about that. As socialists, we need to think about our role in this, a role that must go beyond propaganda. Environmental activists have been asking how they can support the labor movement. In truth, they need to be uniting with the labor movement rather than thinking about supporting it. Uniting as in taking on this offensive battle against environmental catastrophe and the neoliberal devastation of the social safety net. That IS class struggle.Fred Hampton (left) with members of the first Rainbow Coalition (Credit: ST-17112848-0006, Chicago Sun-Times collection, Chicago History Museum)

Fred Hampton appreciated that if we are to win we must think in majoritarian terms. In today’s situation that means fully breaking with postmodernism and its obsession with particularities and symbols, and starting to think in terms of “the people”—the conscious force led by workers that seeks to win and save humanity. Those who truly understand that it is “us” (those unplugged from “the Matrix”) against “them” (the oligarchs and those who willingly—and often stupidly—serve them).

The loss of Fred Hampton was the loss of decades. But there are many Fred Hamptons out there. They need organization and for sure they need to be focused on strategy. Socialists need to unite with those Fred Hamptons, thereby transforming ourselves and transforming them.

Failure is not an option.


Bill Fletcher Jr born 1954) has been an activist since his teen years. Upon graduating from college he went to work as a welder in a shipyard, thereby entering the labor movement. Over the years he has been active in workplace and community struggles as well as electoral campaigns. He has worked for several labor unions in addition to serving as a senior staffperson in the national AFL-CIO. Fletcher is the former president of TransAfrica Forum; a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies; and in the leadership of several other projects. Fletcher is the co-author (with Peter Agard) of “The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934-1941”; the co-author (with Dr. Fernando Gapasin) of “Solidarity Divided: The crisis in organized labor and a new path toward social justice“; and the author of “‘They’re Bankrupting Us’ – And Twenty other myths about unions.” Fletcher is a syndicated columnist and a regular media commentator on television, radio and the Web.

CANADA

Chilling Protest with Designations of Terrorism

US documents say the organization helps fund a terrorist group. But lawyers warn of chilling legitimate protest.

By Jen St. Denis

December 6, 2024

Source: The Tyee


Jada-Gabrielle Pape has fears after a National Post article falsely said she belonged to Samidoun, recently added to Canada’s terrorist entities list. 

Photo by Jen St. Denis.

The moment Jada-Gabrielle Pape saw an online National Post report calling her “one of Samidoun’s most active organizers,” she was gripped with fear.

The Canadian government had declared the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network a terrorist entity less than a month earlier. Samidoun has been an active presence at many protests in Vancouver.

Pape is passionate about advocating for Palestinians and has attended many protests in Vancouver. But she says she is not a member of Samidoun.

Pape immediately wondered about how her life could change. Would her work as a consultant be affected? Would she be added to no-fly lists or targeted by police?

“As an Indigenous person, we’re targeted by the state at a disproportionate rate,” said Pape, who is Coast Salish from the Saanich and Snuneymuxw nations. “I’m afraid to be targeted by the police and by the state and afraid of what it will do to my family. My family is very afraid for me.”

Pape immediately reached out to the National Post to demand a correction. The columnist hadn’t contacted her before claiming, without evidence, she was a member of a terrorist organization, she noted.

Editors quickly removed any reference to her from the article. The National Post did not respond to The Tyee’s request for comment.

Reader comments posted on the article are filled with threats of violence; many express the view that Muslim immigrants should be deported and immigration should be curtailed.

Supporters of Samidoun’s designation as a terrorist entity say it will let police take legal action against anyone who donates to or financially supports the organization.

But legal experts argue the designation process lacks transparency and can paint all pro-Palestinian protesters as terrorist supporters, stoke Islamophobia and have a chilling effect on legitimate protest.
What’s a terrorist entity?

Liza Hughes, executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, said Pape’s experience is an example of how the federal government designation of Samidoun as a terrorist entity can chill political speech.

The designation process, Hughes said, is opaque, politically driven and lacks transparency, with few avenues of appeal.

That can affect free speech, she said, as people fear being linked to any organization that might be designated as a terrorist entity.

“This lack of transparency that makes the system flawed to begin with is a major factor in spreading the chill on expression in support of Palestine, because it leaves people feeling like ‘Who will be next?’” Hughes said.

People — like Pape — who are organizing support for Palestine are being discredited based on the terrorism designation, she said, “whether or not they’re actually associated with Samidoun.”
Who’s on the terrorism list, and why?

There are 79 organizations on Canada’s current list of designated terrorist entities, most foreign-based.

Listed entities can have their property seized, and it’s a criminal offence to “knowingly participate in or contribute to, directly or indirectly, any terrorist group.” But that participation is only an offence “if its purpose is to enhance the ability of any terrorist group to facilitate or carry out a terrorist activity,” according to Public Safety Canada.

Jessica Davis, an expert in terrorism financing who is the president of a consulting firm called Insight Threat Intelligence, agreed Canada’s lack of transparency around the process for designating terrorist entities is a problem. It’s impossible to know why some groups are being listed, she said.

The process was introduced in response to the 9/11 attacks in the United States, in 2001, she said, and needs to be reassessed and reformed.

“Our listings are somewhat political theatre,” Davis said. “You can look at the Proud Boys listing under a similar light — no matter what you feel about the Proud Boys, there was pressure to list that group, and that’s what ended up happening.”

The Proud Boys, a far-right neo-fascist group, were added to the terrorist list in 2021 after their prominent participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that sought to disrupt the transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Joseph Biden.

Hughes said that while the listing targets organizations rather than people, individuals can be charged criminally as a result of certain actions related to the listed entity. Hughes cited multiple examples of people being charged for the criminal offence of knowingly participating in or contributing to the activity of a terrorist group. The charges have usually been related to doing something violent or travelling to another country to join a terrorist group, Hughes added.

Public Safety Canada’s website says the process of listing a terrorist entity begins with “criminal and/or security intelligence reports” indicating reasonable grounds to believe the group has either knowingly carried out, participated in or facilitated terrorist activity, or that it has acted on behalf of an entity involved in terrorist activity.

The reports are then submitted to Canada’s public safety minister, who makes a decision on whether to recommend listing the group as a terrorist entity.
The case against Samidoun

On Oct. 15, both Canada and the United States announced they would add Vancouver-based Samidoun to their terrorism lists. The Netherlands, Germany and Israel had previously listed the organization.

The organization, founded in 2011 with branches in 12 countries, says it works to support Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

Public Safety Canada’s announcement about the listing said the organization “has close links with and advances the interests of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,” which is a listed terrorist entity in Canada, the United States and Europe. The PFLP has carried out several violent attacks in Israel, including the assassination of a government minister.

The U.S. announcement said Samidoun was listed “for being owned, controlled or directed by, or having acted for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the PFLP.”

“Based on its past and recent actions, Samidoun meets the threshold for listing as set out in the Criminal Code,” a Public Safety Canada spokesperson told The Tyee over email.

The United States called Samidoun a “sham charity” that provides financial support to the PFLP.

Advocacy groups supporting Israel, such as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B’nai Brith Canada, have pushed for Samidoun to be designated as a terrorist entity for years.

Those calls intensified as pro-Palestinian activism ramped up in response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people. Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza has killed 44,000 so far and has created dire humanitarian conditions.

Both Hamas and Israel have been accused of committing war crimes. The United Nations has said Israel’s actions in Gaza are consistent with genocide, and the International Criminal Court recently issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.

On its website, Samidoun’s statements frequently support Hamas and praise violent efforts to replace Israel with a Palestinian state. The organization also has been active helping to organize several university protests in the United States.

At a rally in Vancouver in April, the international co-ordinator for Samidoun, Charlotte Kates, led a call-and-response chant in praise of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. Protesters associated with Samidoun have also been blamed for burning a Canadian flag and chanting “Death to Canada, death to the United States, and death to Israel” during a protest on the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7.

Davis said those actions don’t meet the bar for listing an organization as a terrorist entity in Canada. Samidoun’s alleged financial connections to the already-listed PFLP was the likely reason the group was listed.

In a statement responding to its listing as a terrorist entity, Samidoun said that it “does not have any material or organizational ties to entities listed on the terrorist lists of the United States, Canada or the European Union.”

The listing “is meant to introduce a norm in which organizations may be designated as ‘terrorist’ for organizing demonstrations, lectures, publishing posters and engaging in entirely public and political work that challenges imperialist states’ complicity in Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ongoing genocide in Gaza,” the organization wrote.

A week after Samidoun’s designation was announced, B’nai Brith Canada released a seven-point plan for tackling antisemitism that included the “comprehensive listing of terrorist organizations,” amendments to the Criminal Code and banning rallies “that support terror entities.”

Vancouver police have recommended hate speech charges against Kates for her comments praising the Oct. 7 attack at a rally in April, but Crown prosecutors have not yet decided to proceed.

Following Samidoun’s designation as a terrorist entity, Vancouver police carried out an aggressive raid on Kates’s home as part of their investigation. Police justified the use of force, including the use of an emergency response team, based on a prior risk assessment.

The Tyee contacted Kates’s lawyer, who declined to comment for this story.
Civil liberties concerns

While organizations like B’nai Brith see Samidoun as a public safety threat, some pro-Palestinian supporters are concerned that the terrorism listing is just one more way to shut down speech about the consequences of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Ryan Booth, a pro-Palestine supporter who says he is not a member of Samidoun, says he has attended many of the rallies Samidoun was active at over the past year. He believes attendance has dwindled following the terrorism designation.

“There’s real terrorists out there, there’s real threats — ISIS, ISIL, al-Qaida,” Booth said. “Those guys are out there, and every time you call a peaceful Canadian protester a terrorist, you’re going to take away a little bit of the actual threat that is terrorism.”

Hughes said the terrorism listing is being used to discredit anyone opposed to Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

“We are seeing this terrorism listing being used to discredit any support for Palestine and also to kind of retroactively justify the claims that anyone who attends the protest must be supporting Hamas,” Hughes said. “So, of course, it intimidates anyone organizing or thinking of organizing any form of justice for Palestinians.”

Hughes said people who want to advocate for Palestinians are already facing “systemic suppression,” often taking the form of professional consequences like being disciplined, investigated or fired.

Pape is still trying to deal with the National Post’s false claim that she is a member of a terrorist organization.

The violent raid on Kates’s home — which employed heavily armed officers and a flash bomb — has left her fearing a similar raid on the home where she lives with family members.

“I have trouble falling asleep and I wake easily throughout the night. I sleep fully clothed in case the police come,” she told The Tyee.

“These are realistic concerns for Indigenous people and for those of us in solidarity with Palestine — and they are not things I should be afraid of in my home.”

With files from Amanda Follett Hosgood.


Jen St. Denis  is a reporter with The Tyee. She has covered a variety of topics, including housing, the overdose crisis, civic issues, politics and justice. In 2023, she won a Canadian Association of Journalists written news award for her reporting on a fatal fire at the Winters Hotel in Vancouver. In 2024, her reporting on three cases involving missing Indigenous women and youth was nominated for the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Landsberg Award. St. Denis has previously worked as a reporter for the Star Vancouver, Business in Vancouver and CTV. Her work has also appeared in the Toronto Star and South China Morning Post. She grew up in Nelson, B.C., and has lived in Vancouver since 2001. Find her on X @JenStDen and on Instagram @JenStDenis.

In Hurricane Ruins, North Carolina Food Workers Organize and Fight

By Keith Brower Brown

December 6, 2024

Source: Labor Notes

Restaurant workers threw themselves into cooking meals for thousands of displaced people with the local Mutual Aid Disaster Relief group. AFBU members helped workers apply for relief funds, while another crew drove water tubs around to help isolated seniors flush their toilets. Photo: AFBU

Twenty-one days without running water. A week before any cell service or internet. Hospitals closed, and thousands of houses swept away.

Not long after developers started trumpeting the city of Asheville, North Carolina, as a “climate haven” from coastal storms, the area experienced catastrophic flooding. Upland Tennessee and North Carolina were the hardest hit by Hurricane Helene on September 27.

For restaurant workers, the crisis is still getting worse, says Miranda Escalante, a hotel bartender and co-chair of Asheville Food & Beverage United, an organization of restaurant workers. At least three-quarters have been laid off since the storm, she said, in what would have been peak season. But their landlords are still demanding rent.

When a climate disaster hits, what can unions do? North Carolina’s service workers are demanding that recovery and rebuilding happen on their terms.

FOOD HUB UPSTARTS

“There is no economy in Asheville without hospitality—tourism is the backbone,” says Escalante, who has worked “every position in restaurants” over two decades.

Until the storm, the city had 55 breweries and a nationally celebrated restaurant scene. But food workers could barely afford the monthly rents, she said, typically $1,500 and up for a one-bedroom apartment.

Jen Hampton, a longtime restaurant worker and AFBU founder, said pandemic hardships (plus a Labor Notes Secrets of a Successful Organizer training) spurred her and a handful of other industry veterans to band together across shops in 2022.

“We started canvassing downtown to find food workers, especially immigrant workers from the back of house,” said Hampton. They found an issue they didn’t expect: parking downtown was costing workers $200 to $300 a month.

AFBU started a petition to the county for free parking for workers. Members mapped out where the restaurants were; “I went right in to talk to people,” Hampton said. “We got 2,300 signatures [from workers and customers] in a few weeks, rallied at the county board, and they gave in with free passes.”

That win helped build AFBU to its current 80 members, across 20 workplaces. The network has put on organizing trainings and helped members win a union election unanimously at Green Sage Cafe. But more often the group has used protest and pressure, as in campaigns that put an end to longstanding wage theft at two bars.

AFBU has an elected steering committee of workers. Don Baker, a founding member, said the few unionized restaurants around the country tend not to expand beyond single locations, leaving them vulnerable to turnover and business closures. AFBU has chosen a different approach: organizing across workplaces, taking inspiration from construction unions like the Electrical Workers (IBEW).

Though the union is not yet aiming to win a hiring hall or a master local agreement, AFBU hopes to build a network of workers who stay involved even as they rotate from one jobsite to another, pushing for shared demands like fair scheduling and paid time off.

The Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW), an outgrowth of the Service Employees’ Fight for $15 campaign and a partner with AFBU on hurricane relief efforts, has also built networks of workers around Asheville, at Waffle Houses and Energymart convenience stores. Members held a safety strike at an Energymart in July when the temperature inside the store rose to 103° F.

SEIZING RELIEF

When Helene dropped five months of rain in three days on Asheville, Escalante says, AFBU “moved into trying to organize in a deeper way than ever before. Priority number one was making sure we’re all safe, checking in on every member.”

A next step was organizing their own relief on the ground, including a joint solidarity fund with USSW. Government agencies have struggled to reach many of the people in need, and workers often find their landlords have already taken the $750 Federal Emergency Management Agency “Immediate Needs Assistance” grants for their addresses.

Restaurant workers threw themselves into cooking meals for thousands of displaced people with the local Mutual Aid Disaster Relief group. AFBU members helped workers apply for relief funds, while another crew drove water tubs around to help isolated seniors flush their toilets.

After drawing an emergency $10,000 grant from the nearby Just Economics nonprofit, says Escalante, an AFBU member “got the largest U-Haul you can rent, went to Raleigh, and filled it to the brim” with food, water, and relief supplies to bring back to Asheville, focusing especially on the public housing complexes where many restaurant workers live.

USSW activists signed up members as “neighborhood captains” to receive supply drops from the union and redistribute them locally. Teamsters and IBEW members helped ferry supplies too.

“Everyone agrees this is the effect of climate change,” said Escalante. “I’ve lived here 20 years. Never have I ever thought a hurricane would hit Asheville.”

ROOF GONE, RENT DUE

Beyond offering aid, AFBU decided to go on offense. Just five days after the storm, “still a shitshow, no water, no electricity, skimpy cell service,” says Baker, “the public housing authority got their act together to print leaflets and post them on every door saying, ‘Tomorrow is rent day and rent is due.’ That was the only competent execution of something that day, and it was sadistic.”

Hampton and other AFBU members canvassed 300 units with information on how to get hardship waivers for rent, which the authority had neglected to mention.

When the local eviction judge opted to resume evictions two weeks into the disaster—three weeks before required by the state—the union organized a rally that drew 70 people to the courthouse, demanding a three-month moratorium on evictions.

Escalante says workers she knows are furious at being asked to pay rent “for a house they can’t stay in, with a tree through the roof.” Organizing for the hurricane eviction moratorium is gaining backing from tenant unions across the state.

Restaurant workers are also organizing to grab a chunk of Asheville’s tourism slush fund. “Our city has a $41 million budget for marketing for tourism,” says Hampton. “We said, ‘Hold up, this industry is on our backs. Seventy-five percent of service industry workers are out of work, they’re hurting.’”

The first time the county board that holds those purse-strings met after the storm, “we went guns blazing,” Escalante said, demanding that the tourism marketing money should go to workers.

That pressure has begun to bear fruit. The Asheville City Council, in its first post-storm meeting, at the end of October, opted to send $3.5 million to low-income tenants and homeowners.

WHOSE RECOVERY?

Disasters offer bosses and landlords the opportunity for a power grab. “Wealthy people come in and buy up land after disasters,” James Keenan of Tulane University told the Washington Post about Asheville’s hurricane recovery.

Layoffs and destroyed homes mean restaurant workers may struggle to stay in town, especially through the winter months, when their work typically slows down.

But Hampton says AFBU membership has grown since the storm. New restaurant workers joined rallies or jumped into volunteer food prep, and saw the benefits of the union’s cross-workplace organizing approach.

Before the hurricane, Asheville members were planning outreach to food and beverage workers in other cities to start unions on a similar model. They’re still aiming to start next year.

Libcom.orgfiles.libcom.org/files/Amadeo Bordiga- Murder of the Dead.pdf

Amadeo Bordiga Murder of the Dead - Libcom.org

Amadeo Bordiga. Murder of the Dead. Page 2. In Italy, we have long experience of "catastrophes that strike the country" and we also have a certain ...

The storm raised the stakes, but the crisis has also opened a brief window for many food workers. “A bunch of us are furloughed—we’ve just got our disaster unemployment checks,” said Escalante. “What better time to organize as much as possible?”

 

America’s ‘Greatest Ally’ Cost US Taxpayers $310 Billion

by Joziah Thayer Posted on December  06, 2024

The Qualitative Military Edge agreement between the United States and Israel has cost U.S. taxpayers $310 billion since Israel was founded. Many people in the United States and around the world are upset with how the United States continues to support Israel as they besiege and bombard Gaza, resulting in what some estimates say are 200,000 deaths. What people may not be aware of is that it is U.S. law to defend and sustain Israel’s hegemony. The QME agreement between the United States and Israel has its roots in the 1960s during the peak of Cold War tensions. The U.S. saw Israel as an invaluable geopolitical ally to combat the expansion of Soviet influence into the Middle East. Lydon B. Johnson was the first president to speak publicly about arms deals with Israel.

The Six-Day War in 1967 proved Israel’s military capabilities, and the U.S. felt that Israel could be a valuable partner in combating Soviet influence in the Middle East. Following the Six-Day War, there was a spike in military and financial transfers to Israel using the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The QME was further solidified during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 when a U.S. airlift of military supplies to Israel was critical in turning the tide of the conflict.

In 2008, in the last months of the Bush administration, the QME agreement between the U.S. and Israel became an official U.S. law by amending the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 to become the Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2008. This law made it a legal requirement for the U.S. to ensure that any arms sales to Middle Eastern countries do not compromise Israel’s military superiority.

Legacy media will tell us that this legislation enjoyed bipartisan support, driven by a recognition of Israel’s strategic role in the region when, in truth, it was driven by AIPAC and Senator Joe Liberman, while one of the biggest opponents of the bill was Senator Rand Paul who railed against the budget of this bill especially as domestic debt soared and argued he for a more balanced approach that would not alienate Arab allies, in a time when the U.S. sought to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan.

In response to what the U.S. government called a failed state in Syria and a rise in ISIS and Al-Qaeda, the U.S. gave Israel F-35 fighter jets America’s most advanced stealth fighters, making Israel the only country at the time outside of the U.S. to operate the F-35. These jets made Israel a regional superpower because no other nation in the region had this capability. The decision to equip Israel with F-35s is not a secret; we were told this move was to counter Iran’s regional influence, while the real reason at the time was to put Israel on an even playing field with Russia in Syria.

The Naval Transfer Act of 2008 legally required the United States to ensure that Israel maintains a qualitative military edge over its adversaries. Specifically, it mandates that any sale of arms to Middle Eastern countries must undergo a rigorous review to confirm that it does not compromise Israel’s QME. The law defines QME as the capability to “counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat” with minimal damage to Israel’s forces and resources. The QME is a legal commitment from the U.S. to ensure that Israel is not only victorious in battle but will be able to win decisively. This law is reaffirmed by congressional vote year after year, with Congress passing various recent provisions that mandate the Department of Defense to report on Israel’s QME status periodically.

Israel is often called America’s greatest ally when, in truth, Israel is really America’s greatest overseas asset. Since 1958, the United States has been funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to Israel. American tax dollars built the democratic state of Israel, and while this issue is often seen as a policy decision, since 2008, it has been official U.S. law. Before 2008, it was just an unwritten rule that republican and democratic administrations signed off on for decades. Politicians and talking heads can repeatedly claim that Israel is an ally, which they are, but at what cost?

Security in the Middle East or Peace in the Middle East are just catchphrases used to perpetuate this false notion that only through Israel can we attain peace in the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, and Yemen were all conflicts that Israel vehemently pushed the international community to pursue. Netanyahu lied to Congress about WMDs in Iraq, moved mountains to destabilize Syria, and then cried to the UN about the Houthis in 2014.

The original basis of the Israeli QME was to use Israel to combat Soviet expansion into the Middle East, and this policy has not changed over the last 70-plus years. The Iranian Revolution in 1979 shifted the focus of the QME a bit to containing a new threat from Iran. Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan was in part to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region, and we know how that ended. The United States cannot allow Russia or China to build relationships with Middle Eastern countries because the U.S. will not be able to guarantee Israel’s qualitative military edge if they allow Russia and China to advance the militaries and economies of nations in the Middle East.

The current status quo policy on Russian or Chinese influence in the Middle East is not to prevent Russia or China from threatening America’s interests in the region; It’s about protecting Israel’s security under the guise of perpetuating Western ideology and control. Allowing this law to remain on the books codifies into public law that U.S. lawmakers in both Democratic and Republican administrations are beholden to Israel, no matter what. The international stage is far too dynamic to have policy decisions adhere to such a static law.

The price of war is always paid by the people of those nations, not the governments that orchestrate conflicts. American taxpayers have shouldered the burden of the war machine for far too long without reaping any rewards from so-called assets overseas the military-industrial complex claims to protect. We have built infrastructure in other nations as ours crumbles and assure the security of foreign lands as ours dwindles, but it seems as soon as someone mentions Russia or Muslim extremists, people forget all of this, standing in line with a war drum strapped to their chest, pounding away robotically.

Joziah Thayer is a researcher with the Pursuance Project. He founded WEDA in 2014 to combat mainstream media narratives. He is also an antiwar activist and the online organizer behind #OpYemen.

How an atheist hoaxer got Christian nationalists to publish Karl Marx

(RNS) — James Lindsay made his name submitting hoax articles to academic journals to mock liberals. Now he’s after Christian nationalists — by submitting a fake article taken mostly from the Communist Manifesto.

James Lindsay presents a session of "The EVILution of Communism Workshop"

 for New Discourses, Nov. 4, 2024. (Video screen grab)

Bob Smietana
December 5, 2024

(RNS) — An atheist writer and critical race theory critic who made his name submitting fake articles for publication in progressive academic journals and later attacking “liberal” evangelicals has a new target: conservative Christian nationalists.

James Lindsay, who describes himself as a “professional troublemaker,” rewrote parts of “The Communist Manifesto,” adding some critiques of “the liberal establishment,” and then sent it off to the American Reformer, an online magazine that seeks to “promote a vigorous Christian approach to the cultural challenges of our day.”

The essay, published with a fake byline of “Marcus Carlson,” was published in mid-November, and begins with a lead that mimics the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

“A rising spirit is haunting America: the spirit of a true Christian Right,” the essay begins, reminiscent of the opening lines of “The Communist Manifesto”: “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.”

Karl Marx, circa 1865. (Photo via Roger Viollet Collection/Getty Images/Public Domain)

The idea, Lindsay explained, was to embarrass what he described as “Woke Right” conservatives by getting them to publish the works of actual communists.

“They published Karl Marx’s definitive Communist work, dressed up to resemble their own pompous, self-pitying drivel, when it was submitted from a completely unknown author with no internet footprint whatsoever bearing the name ‘Marcus Carlson,’” Lindsay wrote in revealing his hoax, an announcement that coincided with the magazine’s “Giving Tuesday” campaign.

The founder of American Reformer seemed to take the hoax in stride.

“Well, you have to hand it to James Lindsey — he ‘got us,’” Josh Abbotoy, co-founder of American Reformer, wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, referring to Lindsay’s hoax.

The publication’s editors, who did not respond to a request for comment, added Lindsay’s byline to the story but did not retract it. However, in an editor’s note, they wrote that they’d be beefing up their editorial screening — and noted Lindsay’s lack of faith.

“The following article was written by James Lindsay, who, as an avowed atheist, is not eligible for publication in American Reformer,” the editors wrote.

The Karl Marx hoax is the latest twist in the story of Lindsay, a former massage therapist with a Ph.D. in mathematics who reinvented himself as an internet gadfly and self-proclaimed enemy of “woke” Americans — and an occasional ally of conservative Christians.

Lindsay first came to fame in 2018, when he and a pair of co-authors submitted a series of papers to what they called “grievance studies” academic journals, including one paper about “fat bodybuilding” and another about sex at dog parks. Some of the journals published the papers — which included fake research and, in one instance, a similar strategy of updated passages of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” with buzzy academic phrases — launching Lindsay into a career in mocking so-called woke liberals and critical race theory.

RELATED: Why grievance studies hoaxer and atheist James Lindsay wants to save Southern Baptists

He later teamed up with some conservative Southern Baptists who claimed their denomination had become too liberal, especially making videos about the “woke invasion” with Michael O’Fallon, an activist who also organized cruises for Calvinist Christian nationalists.

In 2023, conservative activist Charlie Kirk interviewed Lindsay at a Turning Point USA event for pastors, claiming he’d traveled the country with the atheist activist, trying to convince Christians to fight liberals.

Lindsay, who did not respond to a request for an interview, has now turned against what he calls “The Woke Right,” which he described on his podcast as conservatives using “woke methods” to promote conservative values.

The term “woke” was popularized during the protests that followed the death of George Floyd, as a way of saying that people were aware of systemic racism. That led to a conservative backlash, including from some evangelical groups who objected to any mention of social justice in religious circles.

By 2022, some conservatives had begun to turn the phrase on their own, accusing others in their ranks of being divisive extremists who seek out conflict.

“If the first words out of their mouth, for instance, are ‘establishment’ and ‘globalists,’ you can rest assured they are not very thoughtful and they are probably about to lie to you,” U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Republican from Texas, told the Texas Tribune in 2022. “I’m just sick of it because it’s manufactured division.”

Neil Shenvi, a popular blogger and critic of critical race theory, labeled Christian nationalists such as Stephen Wolfe, author of “The Case for Christian Nationalism,” as part of the “woke right” for promoting the idea that conservative Christians — especially white Christians — are being oppressed by liberals.

Lindsay has taken up the fight, putting him at odds with the American Reformer and groups like it. Stephen Wolfe has also been among his targets, as has former Trump administration staffer turned Southern Baptist critic William Wolfe, Gab founder Andrew Torba, Candice Owen, Tucker Carlson and Joel Webbon, a Texas pastor known for his antisemitic takes, claims of “anti-white discrimination” and his hopes to ban women from voting.

The American Reformer hoax set off a social media feud between Lindsay’s allies and the supporters of those he criticized — with Lindsay’s post on X about the matter receiving 1.9 million views and 666 comments as of Thursday morning (Dec. 5).

While the American Reformer’s editors were fooled by the hoax, some of its readers were not. Within days of the article’s publication, readers noticed something was off and suspected plagiarism. “So, as an old commercial would go, is the above article real or is it memorex?” wrote a reader in the comments.

Opinion

When it comes to venerating St. Thomas Aquinas, are two heads better than one?

(RNS) — In his triple jubilee year, the great Catholic theologian has been celebrated this year in academic conferences and expositions of his relics — resurrecting an old controversy about where his true head lies.

This skull of St. Thomas Aquinas is currently touring parts of the U.S. (Photo courtesy of Thomistic Institute)

Jacqueline Murray
December 5, 2024

(RNS) — The head of the medieval Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas is currently touring 10 U.S. cities in a finale to its yearlong international journey marking the anniversary of the Dominican friar’s birth in Italy 800 years ago, as well as the 750th anniversary of his death and the 700th of his canonization.

Aquinas, the leading exponent of scholasticism, left an indelible mark on the Catholic Church and Western philosophical tradition. Thomistic theology, adapting the ideas of Aristotle to Christian thought, remains the foundation of Catholic teachings and underlies papal pronouncements on matters ranging from social justice to ecumenism. Pope Francis recently commented that Aquinas’ “remarkable openness to every truth accessible to human reason,” could “offer fresh and valid insights to our globalized world.”

With the three coinciding jubilees of a saint of such enduring consequence, Thomas has been celebrated this year in academic conferences and expositions of his relics. Francis, after medieval fashion, has granted a plenary indulgence to those who venerate Thomas by visiting or praying at remnants of his life.

Central to the latter has been his skull, displayed in a new, specially commissioned head reliquary. Since 1369, it has been kept below the altar of the Church of the Jacobins in Toulouse, France, but in January 2023 the original reliquary’s 14th-century seals of authenticity were solemnly broken and the skull was placed in the new case, commissioned by the Dominican order. It was then sent on a yearlong processional route through various European countries, ending now in the United States.

Relics were a significant part of medieval Christianity. It was believed that physical mementos of a saint, such as a piece of clothing or a part of the body, could heal the ill, relieve drought or engineer other miracles. Enough of the right relics — those of national patron saints or avenging saints — could bring victory in battle.

Relics of the most popular saints conveyed tremendous prestige on a church or monastery in the Middle Ages, attracting pilgrims who brought with them the medieval equivalent of tourist dollars. Thus, relics were not only part of a spiritual economy of miracles and devotion but also a secular economy of power, prestige and money. This commodification of relics resulted in a roaring business of buying, selling and even faking relics. Bones and other remains of saints were disassembled to be sent as gifts to friends, political allies and special churches or traded for those of other, higher-status saints.


The relic of St. Thomas Aquinas’ skull is processed at Providence College, Dec. 4, 2024, during a tour stop in Providence, R.I. (Video screen grab)

Saints were even said to collude in this process. The sixth-century Welsh saint Teilo allegedly produced three complete bodies so various groups could claim to have authentic relics. All these activities account for the wide duplication of relics of the same saint in far-flung churches and shrines.

In 1274, Aquinas was summoned by Pope Gregory X to attend the Second Council of Lyon. According to his contemporary biographers, while traveling from his home near Naples, he was struck senseless by a falling branch and later died at the Cistercian abbey at Fossanova. His body apparently remained buried there for some 50 years, but after his canonization, in 1323, the Dominicans claimed it back from the Cistercians. In 1368, the body of this very Dominican saint was translated to Toulouse, where St. Dominic’s Order of Preachers had been founded, and interred in the Church of the Jacobins.

This is where the skull relic remained, safely under the altar, until it was removed last year. But recently, an account of a second skull also belonging to the saint has gained traction. In this telling, a sealed head reliquary containing a skull was discovered in 1585 at the Abbey of Fossanova, accompanied by notarized documents identifying it as the skull of Aquinas. While it has not garnered the same stature that has accrued to the head cherished by the Dominicans of Toulouse, the town of Priverno, near the Abbey of Fossanova, has revered this relic and kept it in a church in town.

The second skull, too, has made a recent public appearance. On March 7, after a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, the head was taken in procession through the medieval streets of Priverno. The skull was then reportedly driven back to the church in the front seat of a Jeep and returned to its resting place. This event has not occasioned much media attention in Europe or North America, and what few stories there are seem to rely on the same single source published by the Catholic News Service, a subsidiary of EWTN.

This purported skull of St. Thomas Aquinas was processed through the town of Priverno, Italy, on March 7, 2024. (Video screen grab/EWTN)

The existence of two heads for Aquinas is reminiscent of the kind of scholastic question the saint was renowned for resolving. Only one of the heads can be authentic, but which? Did the Cistercians keep the authentic head and send an impostor to Toulouse, along with the authentic body? For its part, the Abbey of Fossanova does not claim to have this relic but rather permits pilgrims to view his empty tomb.

Other questions arise. Is it significant that the friend and secretary who accompanied Aquinas on his last journey and who was with him at Fossanova, Reginald of Piperno (now Priverno), had local roots? Moreover, where are the notarized documents found with the head reliquary in the 16th century? Surely, they would be too important to have been lost in the mists of time. Finally, when was this head removed from Fossanova to the church in Priverno?
RELATED: Why you should get to know Thomas Aquinas, even 800 years after he lived

Perhaps unsurprisingly, scientific and medical researchers want to examine both heads. The Priverno head has already had a preliminary examination by a team of neuroscientists, who are trying to match the physical evidence with a subdural hematoma that would be consistent with the blow to the head Aquinas reportedly suffered. Other scientists are petitioning for permission to perform DNA testing on both heads.


The Roman Catholic Church, meanwhile, seems quite comfortable acknowledging both heads, reflecting the traditional medieval view of the coexistence and plasticity of multiple relics.

(Jacqueline Murray is University Professor Emerita in history at the University of Guelph in Ontario. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

AI Jesus might ‘listen’ to your confession, but it can’t absolve your sins − a scholar of Catholicism explains

(The Conversation) — In the future, a program like AI Jesus could be used to hear confessions around the clock. But with no experience of having a human body, it cannot engage or absolve human sins.

Joanne M. Pierce
December 5, 2024
The Conversation

This autumn, a Swiss Catholic church installed an AI Jesus in a confessional to interact with visitors.

The installation was a two-month project in religion, technology and art titled “Deus in Machina,” created at the University of Lucerne. The Latin title literally means “god from the machine”; it refers to a plot device used in Greek and Roman plays, introducing a god to resolve an impossible problem or conflict facing the characters.

This hologram of Jesus Christ on a screen was animated by an artificial intelligence program. The AI’s programming included heological texts, and visitors were invited to pose questions to the AI Jesus, viewed on a monitor behind a latticework screen. Users were advised not to disclose any personal information and confirm that they knew they were engaging with the avatar at their on risk.

AI Jesus confessional.

Some headlines stated that the AI Jesus was actually engaged in the ritual act of hearing people’s confessions of their sins, but this wasn’t the case. However, even though AI Jesus was not actually hearing confessions, as a specialist in the history of Christian worship, I was disturbed by the act of placing the AI project in a real confessional that parishioners would ordinarily use.

A confessional is a booth where Catholic priests hear parishioners’ confessions of their sins and grant them absolution, forgiveness, in the name of God. Confession and repentance always take place within the human community that is the church. Human believers confess their sins to human priests or bishops.
Early history

The New Testament scriptures clearly stress a human, communal context for admitting and repenting for sins.

In the Gospel of John, for example, Jesus speaks to his apostles, saying, “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained.” And in the epistle of James, Christians are urged to confess their sins to one another.

Churches in the earliest centuries encouraged public confession of more serious sins, such as fornication or idolatry. Church leaders, called bishops, absolved sinners and welcomed them back into the community.

From the third century on, the process of forgiving sins became more ritualized. Most confessions of sins remained private – one on one with a priest or bishop. Sinners would express their sorrow in doing penance individually by prayer and fasting.

However, some Christians guilty of certain major offenses, such as murder, idolatry, apostasy or sexual misconduct, would be treated very differently.

These sinners would do public penance as a group. Some were required to stand on the steps of the church and ask for prayers. Others might be admitted in for worship but were required to stand in the back or be dismissed before the scriptures were read. Penitents were expected to fast and pray, sometimes for years, before being ritually reconciled to the church community by the bishop.

Medieval developments

During the first centuries of the Middle Ages, public penance fell into disuse, and emphasis was increasingly placed on verbally confessing sins to an individual priest. After privately completing the penitential prayers or acts assigned by the confessor, the penitent would return for absolution.

The concept of Purgatory also became a widespread part of Western Christian spirituality. It was understood to be a stage of the afterlife where the souls of the deceased who died before confession with minor sins, or had not completed penance, would be cleansed by spiritual suffering before being admitted to heaven.

Living friends or family of the deceased were encouraged to offer prayers and undertake private penitential acts, such as giving alms – gifts of money or clothes – to the poor, to reduce the time these souls would have to spend in this interim state.

Other developments took place in the later Middle Ages. Based on the work of the theologian Peter Lombard, penance was declared a sacrament, one of the major rites of the Catholic Church. In 1215, a new church document mandated that every Catholic go to confession and receive Holy Communion at least once a year.

Priests who revealed the identity of any penitent faced severe penalties. Guidebooks for priests, generally called Handbooks for Confessors, listed various types of sins and suggested appropriate penances for each.

The first confessionals

Until the 16th century, those wishing to confess their sins had to arrange meeting places with their clergy, sometimes just inside the local church when it was empty.

But the Catholic Council of Trent changed this. The 14th session in 1551 addressed penance and confession, stressing the importance of privately confessing to priests ordained to forgive in Christ’s name.

Soon after, Charles Borromeo, the cardinal archbishop of Milan, installed the first confessionals along the walls of his cathedral. These booths were designed with a physical barrier between priest and penitent to preserve anonymity and prevent other abuses, such as inappropriate sexual conduct.

Similar confessionals appeared in Catholic churches over the following centuries: The main element was a screen or veil between the priest confessor and the layperson, kneeling at his side. Later, curtains or doors were added to increase privacy and ensure confidentiality.


A 17th-century confessional at the Toulouse St. Stephen’s Cathedral.
Didier Descouens via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Rites of penance in contemporary times

In 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council. Its first document, issued in December 1963, set new norms for promoting and reforming Catholic liturgy.

Since 1975, Catholics have three forms of the rite of penance and reconciliation. The first form structures private confession, while the second and third forms apply to groups of people in special liturgical rites. The second form, often used at set times during the year, offers those attending the opportunity to go to confession privately with one of the many priests present.

The third form can be used in special circumstances, when death threatens with no time for individual confession, like a natural disaster or pandemic. Those assembled are given general absolution, and survivors confess privately afterward.

In addition, these reforms prompted the development of a second location for confession: Instead of being restricted to the confessional booth, Catholics now had the option of confessing their sins face-to-face with the priest.

To facilitate this, some Catholic communities added a reconciliation room to their churches. Upon entering the room, the penitent could choose anonymity by using the kneeler in front of a traditional screen or walk around the screen to a chair set facing the priest.

Over the following decades, the Catholic experience of penance changed. Catholics went to confession less often, or stopped altogether. Many confessionals remained empty or were used for storage. Many parishes began to schedule confessions by appointment only. Some priests might insist on face-to-face confession, and some penitents might prefer the anonymous form only. The anonymous form takes priority, since the confidentiality of the sacrament must be maintained.

In 2002, Pope John Paul II addressed some of these problems, insisting that parishes make every effort to schedule set hours for confessions. Pope Francis himself has become concerned with reviving the sacrament of penance. In fact, he demonstrated its importance by presenting himself for confession, face-to-face, at a confessional in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Perhaps, in the future, a program like AI Jesus could offer Catholics and interested questioners from other faiths information, advice, referrals and limited spiritual counseling around the clock. But from the Catholic perspective, an AI, with no experience of having a human body, emotions and hope for transcendence, cannot authentically absolve human sins.

(Joanne M. Pierce, Professor Emerita of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)