Thanksgiving food for thought: Immigrants are not 'invading' the United States

Image via Shutterstock.
Mia Brett November 22, 2022


White Christian men are really scared of immigrants. Or at least they’re scared of immigrants who are “undesirable.”

They’re just terrified that new people are going to come into their country and make them eat weird food or hear weird languages.

They’re so fragile they have to cast poor people and children just trying to survive as “invading.” Texas Governor Greg Abbott is now so scared he’s begging President Biden to invoke the invasion clause of the US Constitution to protect Texans from refugees and migrant workers.

READ MORE: 'Too pro-Christmas': Fox News brutally mocked for claiming Biden is 'jumping the gun on Christmas'

The US has a decidedly weird relationship with immigration. It’s unique in its need for immigrants to “settle” the country (indigenous Native Americans don’t count). So immigration and naturalization have an outsized importance in the nation’s history. However, despite this need, nativism sprang up with a vengeance as soon as “undesirable” immigrants began arriving in the 19th century.

The narrative that immigrants were an “invading” force began with Samuel Morse’s Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States published in 1836. He said every American citizen who values his birthright should attempt to repel “this insidious invasion of the country” of “illiterate” Catholic immigrants. Chinese immigration was cast as an invasion in the 1870s in such a way that directly led to the Chinese Exclusion Act. Such rhetoric, and comparisons to an invasion of locusts, was applied to immigrants from Eastern Europe. The “invasion” moved on to Mexican immigrants in the 1920s and has remained focused on immigrants from South and Central America, even sometimes being described as a “Wetback Invasion.”

Immigrants are not invading the US.

They are not trying to conquer us, or take land, or forcibly convert us, or steal resources, or do anything else that invading armies have done (or that Americans have historically done to indigenous people).

READ MORE: The good priest who called greed 'venomous'

Current immigrants are coming to the US for the same reasons immigrants came historically. Undocumented immigrants are coming for the same reason documented immigrants are. Everyone just wants safety and economic opportunities. But casting immigrants as “invading” is a purposeful conscious choice to make vulnerable people doing no harm seem threatening and violent.

And now Abbot isn’t just accusing immigrants of invading rhetorically. He’s actually trying to get the president to treat poor people without weapons or power as a military invasion!

On November 16, a day after tweeting it publicly, Abbot wrote a letter to President Biden informing him that he has not lived up to the promise of Article IV, § 4, that the federal government “shall protect each of them against Invasion.”

Since, according to Abbott, the federal government isn’t treating poor immigrants like an invading army, Abbott will now invoke Article I, § 10, Clause 3 of the US Constitution, which allows states to “engage in War” when they are “actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”

Oh, and just to make it extra scary, Abbot specifies that the invasion is by “Mexican drug cartels.” You’d think we would have heard about drug cartels invading large swaths of Texas.

As far as I can tell the Invasion Clause has rarely been invoked in US history. The one example I could find was in 1914 when the Colorado governor asked Woodrow Wilson to invoke the clause during the Colorado Coalfield War, a bloody labor dispute, not an invasion.

Abbot’s strategy has been regularly rejected by the courts. In New Jersey v. United States, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals rejected New Jersey’s claim that the US had violated its obligation to protect states from invasion by not controlling immigration through international borders better.

In Chiles v. Florida, the plaintiffs, Florida, claimed that the "government breaches its duty when its failure to protect against invasion of illegal aliens imposes coercive pressure on the state and local political processes.” The Southern District of Florida rejected this argument and said the plaintiffs were making a political argument, not a legal one.

Abbott seems to be trying to enforce war powers which, along with immigration enforcement, is the purview of the federal government.

Therefore, he’s clearly trying to unlawfully invoke the threat of invasion to justify rounding up asylum seekers. Last year, Texas passed Operation Lone Star, which already further militarizes the border by giving Abbot authority to deploy the national guard.

Of course, this was also justified through complaining that President Biden wasn’t doing his job. This latest ploy invoking invasion is likely in response to a Texas court ruling that the arrests under Operation Lone Star violated established law that immigration enforcement was the sole purview of the federal government.

For Article I Section 10 to be invoked, invasions must be armed invasions that are “too formidable for the civil power to overcome.”

New Jersey v. US, as well as Padavan v. US and State of California v. US in the 1990s all confirm this definition. Asylum seekers and poor immigrants are not armed and they are certainly not too formidable for civil powers to deal with. Even if we include the threat of cartels who might be armed, there is nothing to suggest that threat amounts to a formidable invasion.

Like previous courts have said, invoking the Invasion Clause is a political ploy not a legal strategy.

We never know how courts will react anymore but it’s likely Abbott’s actions would be rejected if he did take steps to further militarize immigration enforcement and take jurisdiction away from the federal government.

Unfortunately, harm can be done in the meantime, and immigrants can be unlawfully arrested. Not to mention the political narrative itself is insidious and harmful to any reasonable response to immigration. Asylum seekers are often traumatized. They don’t need to be met with a response as if they are trying to invade.

It might be something we all want to think about the week of Thanksgiving.

Missouri newspaper editorial board shreds GOP for pushing discredited Reagan-era economic theory

Official Portrait of President Ronald Reagan

Matthew Chapman and
Raw Story November 22, 2022


On Tuesday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board shredded Republicans for clinging to a pro-tax cut political theory of economics pushed by former President Ronald Reagan decades ago — despite it having repeatedly failed.

The "Laffer curve," famously first scrawled on the back of a napkin at a restaurant by right-wing economist and GOP adviser Arthur Laffer, is the notion that tax cuts actually raise revenue for the government because the investment spurred by more money in the hands of businesses and millionaires grows the tax base more than the marginal revenue lost.

The ideology has a kernel of truth to it in that taxation generally reduces economic activity; however, there has never been any evidence U.S. taxes were high enough to begin with to depress economic activity beyond the returns to government revenue.

"Today’s stubborn Republican mythology that treats tax cuts as a magical economic elixir is largely traceable to Laffer’s theory, which arose in the late 1970s," wrote the board. "His famous 'Laffer curve' presumes to prove that tax cuts for the rich will spur economic investment, causing such strong economic growth that the government’s tax revenue would actually rise instead of falling. Even 1980 Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush derided the notion as 'voodoo economics.' That is, until he became vice president to Ronald Reagan, who embraced it."

"And how did Laffer’s theory, recast as 'Reaganomics,' turn out in practice?" wrote the board. "Yes, the economy was robust in the 1980s after Reagan’s historic tax cuts. But that’s also when the era of big budget deficits began, to the point that Reagan himself had to implement a series of later tax hikes to address it. Republicans today always seem to forget that part of the story. They certainly forgot it in Kansas in 2012, when they went full-Laffer with massive tax cuts. This deliberate test of Laffer’s theory, known as 'The Kansas Experiment,' was a debacle. The state’s economy didn’t skyrocket, but the deficit did, forcing deep cuts to education before the legislature finally acknowledged defeat and reversed the tax cuts."

Republicans then went on to try the same thing at a national scale under Donald Trump, noted the board, passing enormous tax cuts for corporations in 2017 — which did not deliver the sweeping economic growth Republicans promised. In fact, some experts believe, those tax cuts made the post-COVID inflation spell worse than it would have been otherwise. But still, House Republicans want to use their new majority to force President Joe Biden to do another round of tax cuts — when what is really needed to reduce inflation is targeted tax increases.

"You’d think after blaming the Biden administration (with some justification) for making inflation worse by pumping more money into the economy, they would at least see the irony of what they’re proposing, if not its damning precedent," concluded the board.

FDA lays out plan to combat bacterial contamination of baby formula

Story by Brenda Goodman • CNN

The US Food and Drug Administration is charting a plan to enhance its surveillance of infant formula for Cronobacter bacteria.

CNN anchor presses FDA chief on baby formula shortage. See his response

The agency said in a statement Tuesday that it would like to see Cronobacter infections added to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list of national notifiable diseases, which would mean doctors would be required to report cases to public health officials.

Cronobacter infections are rare, but they can be serious and even fatal, especially in newborns. Cronobacter lives in the environment, but when these infections are diagnosed in infants, they are often linked to powdered formula.

Only one state, Minnesota, now requires doctors to report Cronobacter infections to the state health department. Because of this requirement, Minnesota was the first state to alert federal regulators to a potential problem with powdered baby formula last year.

Ultimately, the FDA received four reports of Cronobacter infections in babies last year, including two deaths. The infants had all consumed powdered formula manufactured at an Abbott Nutrition production facility in Sturgis, Michigan.

A lengthy FDA inspection of the plant and subsequent recall of products manufactured there exacerbated a nationwide infant formula shortage that only got worse when Abbott shut down the plant to make needed repairs. Census data shows that families are still struggling to find baby formula months after the facility restarted.

Ulitmately, although the FDA detected Cronobacter bacteria in the plant, genetic testing couldn’t link that bacteria to the sick infants.

In a written statement to CNN, Abbott said “Since our voluntary recall in February, investigations conducted by the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Abbott, including genetic sequencing, retained product samples and available product from the four complaints, did not find any definitive link between the company’s products and illnesses in children. No retained samples of recalled product tested positive for Cronobacter. And, in all four cases, unopened containers of formula in the infant homes tested negative for Cronobacter sakazakii.”

Although the FDA’s statement adds important weight to the push to add Cronobacter to the list of notifiable diseases, ultimately, the decision is made by a different group: the nonprofit Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.

“If FDA supports it and calls for it, I think that provides a lot of support to move the issue forward with the State and Territorial Epidemiologists,” said Mitzi Baum, chief executive officer of Stop Foodborne Illness, a nonprofit group that advocates on behalf of the victims of food poisoning.

Stop Foodborne Illness wrote a letter to the FDA and the CDC in March, urging them to move the ball forward to get Cronobacter added to the list.

Baum said there are several interesting ideas in the FDA’s outline, but because there’s no timeline attached to the plan, it strikes her as only a half measure.

“It lacks a sense of urgency associated with this issue, which is really focused on the most vulnerable population,” she said. “It’s just not a strong enough step. But it is a step.”

The FDA said Tuesday that it is also considering other actions including:
Creating a dedicated team of food inspectors that would focus on infant formula
Providing additional education and training for staff who inspect infant formula production facilities
Reviewing and updating guidance and rules for infant formula production facilities
Re-evaluating testing requirements to enhance safety of finished infant formula products
Developing and improving consumer education on how to safely prepare and store infant formula
Conducting and supporting more research to fill in gaps in the scientific knowledge of Cronobacter

The agency says it will meet with stakeholders and continue to refine its plans over the next few months.

The FDA has released similar action plans for other foods that have a history of certain types of contamination. In September, the agency released plans to prevent salmonella infections caused by contaminated bulb onions and listeria and salmonella infections linked to wood ear mushrooms.

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YUKON/NWT

Deal protects some key Tłı̨chǫ areas from development

The Tłı̨chǫ Government says it has reached an agreement with Explor Silica to protect some culturally and ecologically significant areas from mineral exploration.

The agreement, announced on Wednesday, means Explor will relinquish four mineral claims in a region known as the Dınàgà Wek’èhodì candidate protected area.

That area covers the lake, shoreline and islands near the top end of Great Slave Lake's North Arm.

Explor is interested in drilling for silica sand, a product used in the process of fracking.

The Husky mining company first proposed drilling for silica sand in the area, but backed out in 2015 after the Tłı̨chǫ Government, Yellowknives Dene First Nation and North Slave Métis Alliance each expressed concern that K’ıchıì – or Whitebeach Point, a culturally significant area – could be affected.

Explor bought Husky's claims but met with similar resistance.

Now, the Tłı̨chǫ Government says an agreement has been reached in which Explor relinquishes four claims, including in the region of K’ıchıì, to allow evaluation of potential development at its remaining claims.

In Wednesday's press release, Explor president Allan Châtenay said he knew, going into the project, that building a partnership with the Tłı̨chǫ Government would be an essential part of the deal.

"We are thrilled to be working closely with the Tłı̨chǫ Government to move forward with the development of this world-class and strategically important resource," stated Châtenay.

Tłı̨chǫ Grand Chief Jackson Lafferty stated: “By relinquishing the four claims around Whitebeach Point, Explor has shown its willingness to work with the Tłı̨chǫ Government in a good and respectful way that acknowledges the longstanding wishes of Tłı̨chǫ Elders and leadership.

"This gives us the foundation to begin exploring the next steps for a successful future together.”

Caitrin Pilkington, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Cabin Radio

GREEN CAPITALI$M

Bankers bet billions on new wave of debt-for-nature deals

Story by By Clare Baldwin, Marc Jones and Simon Jessop • Thursday, Nov 17,2022

FILE PHOTO: A hammerhead shark swims close to Wolf Island at Galapagos Marine Reserve© Thomson Reuters

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - The Galapagos Islands, whose thousands of unique species inspired Darwin's theory of evolution, have incalculable ecological value. But what are they worth?

Perhaps around $800 million, judging by the size of a "debt-for-nature" swap deal that could see Ecuador's debts cut in exchange for protecting its offshore territory's fragile ecosystem, according to people with knowledge of the talks.



Sea lions swim near San Cristobal at Galapagos Marine Reserve© Thomson Reuters

These kind of agreements are part of efforts to address an intractable quandary facing world leaders at the U.N. COP27 summit underway in Egypt: who will pay the bill for the global fight against biodiversity loss and climate change?

"There's now a big push to get nature into sovereign debt markets," said Simon Zadek, executive director at NatureFinance, which advises governments on debt-for-nature swaps and other types of climate-focused finance.

"The tragedy of debt distress offers a real opportunity," he added, pointing to nature-rich countries who look like ideal debt swap candidates following big drops in their bond prices this year.

Ecuador isn't among the world's richer nations. It's a serial defaulter and its sovereign bonds are again trading at "distressed" levels, or a deep discount to their face value. But it does have a wealth of biodiversity that it could leverage in a wider region where much of the wildlife has been wiped out.

The country is holding talks with banks and a nonprofit group in an attempt to reach a deal that would see about $800 million of its debt refinanced more cheaply, freeing up the savings for conservation efforts, according to the three people with knowledge of the deal, who declined to be named as the discussions are confidential.

At that level, it would be the biggest debt-for-nature swap struck to date. Yet it could eventually be trumped by others, including Sri Lanka, which has been discussing a deal of up to $1 billion according to people familiar with those talks.

Cape Verde, an archipelago nation off West Africa, is meanwhile close to a nature swap that could be worth up to $200 million, said Jean-Paul Adam, a former Seychelles government official who now works for the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), providing financing advice to governments.

The Ecuadorian, Sri Lankan and Cape Verde governments didn't respond to requests for comment for this story, although Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso said in an local newspaper on Oct. 12 that its Galapagos swap deal could be wrapped up in four or five weeks.

Graphic: Debt-for-nature swaps 

https://graphics.reuters.com/CLIMATE-DEBTFORNATURE/movaknjnava/chart.png

VANISHING ANIMALS

The potential deals for Ecuador, Sri Lanka and Cape Verde, reported here in detail for the first time, point to a jump in interest for this form of financial alchemy, which was conceived decades ago but has remained something of a niche area until recently.

Only three of over 140 or so swaps struck over the past 35 years - the first in 1987 - had a value of more than a quarter of a billion dollars, according to global data published by the African Development Bank. The average size was $26.6 million.

The combined value of swap deals to date is $3.7 billion, according to the data. That's a fraction of the $400 billion of emerging market sovereign debt analysts at Capital Economics recently estimated had fallen to distressed levels.

Advocates say that those current debt problems, combined with the growing political will and the recent successful swap deals in the Seychelles, Belize and Barbados, mean a swathe of other countries are now exploring the model.

Indeed, Adam at UNECA said four African countries were now exploring potential swaps. He declined to name them, saying he wasn't sure if they were ready to go public.

Patricia Scotland, secretary-general of the Commonwealth of 56 countries, told Reuters: "Lots of my members are looking at it and we're looking at it with them".
]

The ecological stakes could barely be higher.

The global populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians have declined by almost 70% on average since 1970, while Latin America has seen a drop of more than 90%, according to this year's Living Planet Index compiled by the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) and the Zoological Society of London.

Graphic: Global biodiversity loss https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/egpbykywqvq/Pasted%20image%201668601669021.png

CULTIVATING PORTFOLIOS

Such swaps are often compromises.

Should a country default, its bondholders lose money or at least have to wait a lot longer to recoup it.

Debt-for-nature deals can help as they can produce so-called green, or blue bonds in the case of those that focus on ocean conservation, which appeal to a rapidly growing number of investors who want to meet ESG and net-zero goals.

Veteran debt crisis fund manager Carl Ross at GMO said Belize's pledge to protect its sprawling barrier reef - the largest in the western hemisphere - helped get its restructuring "over the hump" last year in a deal he was involved with.

At their simplest, these deals see expensive bonds or loans written down and replaced with cheaper financing, usually with the help of a credit guarantee from a multilateral development bank.

Ecuador, for example, is in talks with the Pew Charitable Trusts plus the Inter-American Development Bank and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, two of the people with knowledge of the planned deal said.

Pew and the banks declined to comment.

Securing the buy-in of development banks is usually key for the economics of a deal. But as the banks must closely guard their capital and credit ratings to preserve their ability to borrow cheaply, that hurdle has long restricted the growth of swaps.

The World Bank's managing director of operations, Axel van Trotsenburg, told Reuters on the sidelines of COP27 that it supports debt-for-nature swaps, as did African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina, who said his bank would "absolutely" start providing credit guarantees.

G7 governments and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley's "Bridgetown initiative" have all demanded the World Bank and International Monetary Fund ramp up climate-focused funding.

IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva spoke at COP27, saying swaps were a worthwhile part of the toolkit albeit no "silver bullet" in global efforts to fund conservation.

BELIZE'S $550 MLN DEAL

Indeed, debt-for-nature deals are dwarfed by the scale of the funding challenge: developing countries will need to secure $1 trillion a year in external financing by the end of the decade to take effective climate action and restore nature, a report released at COP27 said.

Nonetheless, those involved in such swaps say they are having an impact.

Belize's $553 million swap last year provided money to protect the world's second-largest coral reef and reduced its debt level by more than 10% of GDP, the government estimates.

The Seychelles' 2015 deal, which created the world's first blue bond after eight years of talks, saw the government commit to protect 30% of its waters - an area the size of Germany - from overfishing and development and bought back $22 million of its debt on favourable terms, former environment minister Ronny Jumeau said.

Swap proponents are pushing for the dozen or so major development banks to come together with expanded and standardized support to drive widespread use of the instruments.

"That's the limiting factor that keeps us from just scaling this to trillions of dollars," added Kevin Bender at The Nature Conservancy, who leads the NGO's sovereign debt teams and worked on the Belize swap.

Esteban Brenes, the WWF's U.S. director of conservation finance, said improvements were also needed in how wildlife pledges are monitored and verified so that creditors are satisfied that countries are meeting their commitments.

Monitoring can be creative.

The WWF has projects in Central and South America where they are monitoring deforestation by tracking jaguars, said Brenes, who has worked on debt-for-nature swaps for the last 25 years.

The big cats need around 50 square kilometers of good forest to hunt and reproduce, so are a good indicator of forest health. More data showing swaps work should encourage international institutions to become involved, Brenes added.

"No planet, no business - that is what we need the IMFs of this world to understand," he said.

Graphic: Spreading the pain

https://graphics.reuters.com/MARKETS-EMERGING/mopanaqkmva/chart.png

(Reporting by Simon Jessop in Sharm el-Sheikh, Clare Baldwin in Hong Kong and Marc Jones in London; Additional reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe in Colombo, Sergio Goncalves in Lisbon and Alexandra Valencia in Quito; Graphics by Sumanta Sen; Editing by Katy Daigle and Pravin Char)

THIRD WORLD U$A

Home births in US during early pandemic times rise to highest level in 30 years: CDC

Home births in the United States reached the highest level in three decades during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

The report's findings show the nationwide number of pregnant people giving birth at home rose from 1.26% in 2020 to 1.41% in 2021 -- an increase of 12% and the highest level since at least 1990. That followed a 22% increase from 2019 to 2020.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of U.S. births still happen at a hospital or birthing center, with fewer than 2% of people giving birth at home. Prior to the pandemic, the country's rate of home births hovered around 1%.MORE: US birth and fertility rates drop to record lows in 2020, CDC says

The report noted that interest in home births increased due to COVID-19 and "concerns about giving birth in a hospital." The uptick in home births is likely tied to surges of COVID-19 infections. The increase was highest during the first year of the pandemic and less sharp during the second year. The percentage peaked in January 2021 at 1.51%, corresponding to the first major surge in COVID-19 cases, driven by the alpha variant.

© Tami Chappell/Reuters, FILE

The rise in U.S. home births from 2020 to 2021 was sharpest among Black women, with an increase of 21%. That followed a 36% increase from 2019 to 2020, according to the report.

Kids around the world describe the highs and lows of the COVID-19 pandemic
Duration 3:43  View on Watch

For Hispanic women, home births increased 15% from 2020 to 2021, following a 30% increase from 2019 to 2020. For white women, home births increased 10% from 2020 to 2021, following a 21% increase from 2019 to 2020, according to the report.MORE: US life expectancy drops 1 year in first half of 2020 amid coronavirus pandemic, CDC says

From 2020 to 2021, the percentage of home births was on the rise in 30 U.S. states, with increases ranging from 8% for Florida to 49% for West Virginia. That followed increases in home births in 40 states from 2019 to 2020, the report said.

Medical associations like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists assert that every individual should have the right and opportunity to choose how they want to give birth. But they also say that hospitals and birthing centers are the safest places to give birth because trained professionals can intervene quickly if something goes wrong.

Jade Godbolt, 31, of Dallas, Texas, told The Associated Press that she had her second child at a birthing center in 2021, partly to avoid hospital risks of COVID-19 and to experience a more natural environment. She and her husband then chose a home birth for their third child, born last month. She said there were no complications and that both she and her newborn son are doing well.

"I believed that my body could do what it was made to do and I wanted to be in the comfort of my home to do that,'' Godbolt told the AP.

Angela Álvarez makes history at age 95 with Latin Grammy tie win for best new artist

Story by Marysabel Huston-Crespo •  Nov 18,2022 -CNN

Angela Álvarez made Latin Grammy history on Thursday by winning the award for best new artist at age 95.

The singer tied in the category with musician and songwriter Silvana Estrada, but she had already set a record going into the event with her nomination as the oldest musician ever nominated in the category.

“I want to dedicate this award to God and to my beloved country, Cuba, which I will never be able to forget,” Álvarez said accepting her award on stage at the Latin Grammys in Las Vegas.

The Cuban-native’s passion for music began in her youth. She was discouraged from pursuing a career in music by her father but found joy performing for her family. The mother of four, grandmother of nine and the great-grandmother of 15 immigrated to the United States in the 1960s, according to Billboard.
 
Over the years, she sang for her family about her life and developed a collection of songs she composed. At the encouragement and support of her grandson, she eventually recorded and released collection of her songs in 2021.

The Latin Grammy nomination came as a surprise to her, Álvarez told CNN en Español last month.

“I felt very, very proud to be able to tell my story, to touch people who have probably gone through the same or more than what I have gone through. There are people who give up, but I did not give up. I always fought,” she said.

Álvarez concluded her speech on Thursday with words of inspiration.

“To those who have not fulfilled their dream, although life is difficult, there is always a way out and with faith and love you can achieve it, I promise you,” Álvarez said. “It’s never too late.”

REACTIONARY NATIONALISM

Bio of Polish statesman holds lessons on today's Ukraine

NEW YORK (AP) — One hundred years ago, a revolutionary 

REACTIONARY Polish patriot argued that Russia’s hunger for territory would continue to destabilize Europe unless Ukraine could gain independence from Moscow.

Poland's Marshal Józef Piłsudski never managed to fulfil his hope for an independent Ukraine connected to Europe. But the farsighted and analytical statesman did manage to wrest his own homeland from the grip of czarism and from two other powers, Austria and Prussia.

At a time when many Poles had given up on the dream for full independence, Piłsudski put a sovereign Polish state back on the map of Europe at the end of World War I, after more than a century's erasure.

Piłsudski's story, complete with flaws, accomplishments and echoes of today’s war in Ukraine, is brought to life in a recent biography, “Józef Piłsudski Founding Father of Modern Poland,” by Joshua D. Zimmerman, a professor of Holocaust Studies and eastern European history at New York’s Yeshiva University. The book, published by Harvard University Press, also reexamines Piłsudski's relationship to Ukraine.

Thickly mustached, with heavy brows and a hawk-like visage, Piłsudski lived modestly and inspired his troops by leading them in battle. He was celebrated at home and abroad in his day, but his memory outside of Poland has faded.

After proclaiming a new Polish republic, Piłsudski and his legionnaires fought a series of wars to define, secure and defend its borders, culminating with his greatest victory: turning back a Bolshevik army in 1920 that was threatening to drive all the way to Berlin and carry a Communist revolution to the heart of industrial Europe.

Before that battle, known as the “Miracle on the Vistula,” Piłsudski's forces had marched deep into Ukraine and occupied Kyiv in an alliance with nationalist leader Symon Petliura, who also was fighting the Bolsheviks, amid Ukraine's short-lived independence in 1918-21.

As Zimmerman recounts, Piłsudski had a vision of a multilingual and multiethnic Poland that respected the rights of minorities, especially Jews. That earned him the enmity of nationalists who wanted a Poland run for ethnic Poles.

After World War I, Piłsudski hoped Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine could form an alliance to counter Russia in the style of the Polish-Lithuanian union that existed for centuries prior to 1795. But Ukrainians and Lithuanians were wary of Polish claims on their territories, and Pilsudski's vision of an anti-Russian alliance never became reality.

In language that might be applied to today's discourse, Piłsudski conceived of a sovereign Ukraine not merely to prevent Russian aggression but as an outpost of Western liberal democracy.

“There can be no independent Poland,” he is quoted as saying in 1919, “without an independent Ukraine.”

Piłsudski launched a military campaign in 1920 to support Ukrainian nationalists against Bolshevik rule, an action condemned by some as an overreach. Zimmerman believed he had a rationale that echoes today, when Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic countries, as well as Finland and Sweden, feel that Russia under President Vladimir Putin must be contained.

Related video: Polish Ukrainian Communities Unite

Duration 2:43   View on Watch

On May 7, 1920, Piłsudski's cavalry entered Kyiv, followed by Polish and Ukrainian infantry. At the peak of his Ukrainian campaign, he ordered his commanders to withdraw “as soon as possible" in order to establish friendly relations with the new Ukrainian state. according to Zimmerman.

“My view is that he clearly championed an independent Ukraine, one that would be a democratic outpost on Russia’s border, a buffer between Russia and the West, but also a staunch Polish ally that shared Piłsudski's democratic values and the values of at least his followers,” the author said.

Poland and Lithuania — two countries that emerged from Soviet rule — are among Ukraine’s strongest diplomatic champions against Putin's Russia.

Zimmerman’s book makes a balanced and “significant contribution” to the understanding of Piłsudski, said Michael Fleming, a historian and director of the Institute of European Culture at the Polish University Abroad in London.

“Pilsudski was well aware of the challenges posed by Poland’s geography and concluded that an independent Ukraine would share Poland’s interest in limiting Russia’s expansionist tendencies,” Fleming said by email. “At the same time, however, it is important to remember that western Galicia (including Lviv) was much contested” between Poles and Ukrainians.

Indeed Polish and Ukrainian nationalists clashed in the early 1900s and again during and after World War II, and some ethnic animosities have lingered.

During Russia's civil war between the Red Army and the anti-Bolshevik White Army, Pilsudski resisted pleas for Poland to help the Whites. No matter who won, he believed, Russia would remain “fiercely imperialistic."

There was little to gain from negotiations because “we cannot believe anything Russia promises,” Piłsudski is quoted as saying.

Piłsudski, born in 1867 and raised in present-day Lithuania, was steeped in the romanticism of Polish independence. He acquired a burning hatred of czarist authority that held Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine in its grip, and he and his brother were implicated in a plot to assassinate the czar and imprisoned.

Zimmerman traces how, upon his release, Piłsudski became the leading activist of the banned Polish Socialist Party, published its newspaper for years, made a daring escape from a second Russian imprisonment after he was caught — by pretending to be insane — and then turned to creating a military force in Austrian-ruled Poland that eventually fought against Russia during World War I.

Although they fought under Austria and Germany, Piłsudski's insistence on Polish independence ultimately led to his imprisonment by the Germans, a sacrifice that enhanced his legend among his fellow Poles. Upon his release, he was acclaimed the country's leader and the de facto founder of modern Poland on Nov. 11, 1918, now celebrated as Polish independence day.

After Poland's borders were secured and a civil government established, Piłsudski mostly stepped back from public life. But after several years, he followed with his own turn to strongman rule.

Concerned that a democratic Poland was slipping away and disgusted by 13 failed Polish governments, he led a 1926 military putsch to restore order. After imposing a system of “managed” democracy and soft dictatorship, Piłsudski's final years were burdened by declining health and growing worries about how to position Poland between a rising Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany.

Zimmerman captures the difficulties of knitting together Poland and details its conflicts, including pogroms against Jews by some of Piłsudski's troops. Yet he views Pilsudski as a defender of Jews and pluralism.

The author makes the case that Piłsudski, although flawed, possessed the judgment and skills to defend Poland's interests. His death in 1935 left Poland with a vacuum in leadership, unable to stave off the German and Soviet invasions of 1939.

Yet Piłsudski's creation of an independent Poland after World War I helped ensure that when World War II ended and Soviet rule receded, there would be no question that an independent Poland would reemerge.

___

John Daniszewski, editor-at-large for standards and former senior managing editor for international news at The Associated Press, is a former Warsaw correspondent.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1905/misc/polish-question.htm

Rosa Luxemburg: The Polish Question and the Socialist Movement ... 

Dec 16, 2008 ... The right of a nation to independence was neither here nor there; the crucial concern was to have the campaign of Polish Socialists to establish ...

Rosa Luxemburg, national liberation, and the defeated Polish revolution - John Riddell

Rosa Luxemburg and the National Question | Prometheus (prometheusjournal.org)

A war we can no longer ignore: Why the waters are running red in Africa’s Great Lakes region 

 Opinion
Story by AlterNet • Sunday
By Vijay Prashad, Globetrotter

Image via Shutterstock.© provided by AlterNet

In early November, foreign ministers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Christophe Lutundula Apala Pen’Apala, and Rwanda, Vicent Biruta met in Luanda, Angola, to find a political solution to a conflict that has been ongoing in eastern DRC for decades. The foreign ministers agreed that the “peace roadmap” agreed to in a July meeting had to be implemented. Angola’s President João Lourenço shuttled between Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and the DRC’s President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi in his role as the African Union’s “mediator in the crisis” between Rwanda and the DRC.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Meanwhile, the M23 rebels—backed by Rwanda—have expanded their attacks in the DRC. In retaliation, the DRC expelled Rwandan Ambassador Vincent Karega. The M23 with the assistance of Rwanda troops captured Kiwanja and Rutshuru, two towns in the DRC’s North Kivu province. Rwanda argues that it was the DRC that violated agreements leading to the fighters being reinstated.

Related video: Kenya's President William Ruto says East African troops will enforce peace in Eastern DR Congo
Duration 11:10  View on Watch



In August, a leaked report from the United Nations showed that Rwanda had backed the M23. It was difficult for Rwanda to deny the details in the report, particularly after U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood, alternate representative for special political affairs, told the UN Security Council that his government calls “on state actors to stop their support for these groups, including the Rwandan Defense Forces’ assistance to M23.” The M23 is a recent entrant into the wars in the DRC’s eastern provinces, which have been ongoing since the early 1990s. A UN report from August 2010 details several hundred violent incidents that took place in the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003, with “deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people”; one estimate, based on studies conducted in 2000 and 2004, suggests that more than 3 million people have died in the conflict since 1998.

In June, the DRC allowed the East African Community to send troops into its eastern regions, as long as the Rwandan military was not involved in the intervention. Through this agreement, troops from Burundi and Kenya arrived in eastern Congo. This has caused alarm. Carina Tertsakian of the Burundi Human Rights Initiative told the Associated Press, “It is no surprise that Burundi is the first country to offer troops. Burundi is a direct party to the conflict, so cannot be viewed as a neutral actor. It therefore seems unlikely that their deployment will end the insecurity in the area.”

Former DRC presidential candidate Martin Fayulu told Deutsche Welle recently that he is distressed by the lack of international attention to this conflict. “Ukraine is having a problem,” he said, and the widespread media coverage has brought the world’s attention to that. “[W]e are having a problem in Congo, but nobody is condemning Rwanda. Why?” Perhaps, it has to do with the cobalt, copper, lithium, and the trees of the rainforest, precious resources that continue to be exploited by the rest of the world despite the carnage that has afflicted Africa’s Great Lakes for the past 30 years.

Author Bio: Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power.

Dynamite and picket lines: The great textbook debate that forever changed US school boards

Story by Janelle Davis • Thursday, Nov 17,2022 - CNN

School board meetings have become ground zero for clashing political movements. Once placid meetings now erupt in chaos with heckling, protests and even death threats.

This divisiveness has been boiling over since the pandemic, but it’s nothing new.

One of the biggest school board debates started in 1974 over textbooks in West Virginia. It spiraled into a boycott and then bombings. This battle created the lasting framework for conservative activism.

How it began

The 70s were a tumultuous time in American history with civil rights and women’s rights, and the Vietnam war all in the mix. There was a progressive push to not only integrate classrooms but also to integrate reading lists.

West Virginia approved a new set of textbooks that would modernize its curriculum. Adam Laats, a history professor at Binghamton University, said it featured a diverse range of multicultural writers, including George Jackson and Eldridge Cleaver. It also added new literary works at the time, including “Animal Farm” by George Orwell, “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller and “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” by Alex Haley.

“They really were trying to shake up what they saw as traditional classrooms, but also traditional sort of white man content. They wanted to get more voices,” Laats explained.

Alice Moore, a conservative member of the Kanawha County Board of Education, objected to the books.

“She said, they’re full of anti-American sentiment. They’re full of anti-White racism,” Laats said. “They’re just full of ideas that she thought were really dangerous for kids.”

Despite her concerns, the school board pushed ahead with the new curriculum. But for Moore, a conservative activist, this was the start of the debate – not the end.



Kanawha County Board of Education member Alice Moore makes one of many motions that were defeated Nov. 8, 1975 in Charleston as the board voted to return most of the disputed school books to the classrooms. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma) 

The tension started to build

Rumors began to fly about the textbooks and groups galvanized. Parents formed grassroots campaigns. Ministers started mobilizing their congregations.

Flyers were passed around claiming the new books promoted reverse racism and criminality, which was untrue. Fake news 1974, if you will.

“There was no Facebook in 1974, but it was a community, like every community, that really cared about what went on in the schools. It doesn’t take long for people to hear rumors – with or without the internet – that can get them, in this case, violently upset about a perceived danger to their kids,” Laats said.

At the next school board meeting, the gymnasium was packed with more than a thousand people. Some stood outside, sticking their heads in the windows to see inside, Laats said.

Boos and cheers filled the room as people took the mic.

“We absolutely refuse to have the liberal point of view pushed upon our children,” one parent said.

“We the parents are the taxpayers. We pay your salary, we elected you to office,” another said.

“In the room, it sure sounded like most people wanted the books out,” Laats said. “That’s not actually a fair estimation of how people in the county felt. But that night, at that meeting, it certainly felt like the people were speaking against the books.”

After three hours of back and forth, the board again voted in favor of the textbooks.

Activism turns violent

Nearly 10,000 kids stayed home to boycott the books, about 20% of the students, according to National Endowment for the Humanities. Parents created picket lines in front of the schools with signs saying, “I have a bible. I don’t need those dirty books.”

Nazi symbols were graffitied onto school buildings, windows were smashed and people shot at school buses on their way to pick up the students going to school, reported The New York Times.

The Appalachian county, home to many miners, weaponized its most powerful tools. Bombs were planted at three elementary schools and dynamite was thrown into a school board building and an elementary school. Fortunately, no one was injured in any of these incidents, according to American Public Media.

The story drew national attention.

Ultimately, all the books but one were adopted, but in return, Moore created new guidelines for selecting future textbooks – requiring “books encourage loyalty to the United States,” “not encourage sedition or revolution against our government” and “not defame our nation’s founders or misrepresent the ideals and causes for which they struggled and sacrificed,” according to American Public Media.

The 1974 controversy showed the explosiveness of politics, culture and religion colliding in the classroom.

The renewed debate over The 1619 Project and 1776 curriculum show this age-old tendency to turn the classroom into a battlefield is here to stay.

“It’s a fight over who gets to decide what goes on in schools. It’s who gets to decide what goes into magazines. It’s what mainstream America is. It’s who are the ‘real Americans,’” said Laats.