Free Them All! Free Palestine!
Divest from Israel! Free Torture Survivors, The Wrongfully Convicted, and All Political Prisoners!
Date: Sunday May 19
Time: 3:00 P.M.
Location: 1160 N Larrabee St, Chicago, IL
MARK YOUR CALENDARS. We’re calling a demonstration May 19th at 3:00 P.M. here in Chicago bringing together the struggles to free torture survivors, the wrongfully convicted, and ALL political prisoners with the struggle to free Palestine! Join us as we unite our movements and raise our demands on the powers that be! Free Them All! Free Palestine!
Learn More About the March on the DNC here
Help us sustain our work with a donation
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Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
6353 S Cottage Grove Ave
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
caarpr.org
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Source: mondoweiss.net
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Boris Kagarlitsky is in Prison!
On February 13, the court overturned the previous decision on release and sent Boris Kagarlitsky to prison for five years.
Petition in Support of Boris Kagarlitsky
We, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison.
Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles.
The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested.
On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release.
The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison.
The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences.
There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering.
Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course.
We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally.
We also call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest.
Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitsky
https://freeboris.info
The petition is also available on Change.org
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*Major Announcement*
Claudia De la Cruz wins
Peace and Freedom Party primary in California!
We have an exciting announcement. The votes are still being counted in California, but the Claudia-Karina “Vote Socialist” campaign has achieved a clear and irreversible lead in the Peace and Freedom Party primary. Based on the current count, Claudia has 46% of the vote compared to 40% for Cornel West. A significant majority of PFP’s newly elected Central Committee, which will formally choose the nominee at its August convention, have also pledged their support to the Claudia-Karina campaign.
We are excited to campaign in California now and expect Claudia De la Cruz to be the candidate on the ballot of the Peace and Freedom Party in November.
We achieved another big accomplishment this week - we’re officially on the ballot in Hawai’i! This comes after also petitioning to successfully gain ballot access in Utah. We are already petitioning in many other states. Each of these achievements is powered by the tremendous effort of our volunteers and grassroots organizers across the country. When we’re organized, people power can move mountains!
We need your help to keep the momentum going. Building a campaign like this takes time, energy, and money. We know that our class enemies — the billionaires, bankers, and CEO’s — put huge sums toward loyal politicians and other henchmen who defend their interests. They will use all the money and power at their disposal to stop movements like ours. As an independent, socialist party, our campaign is relying on contributions from the working class and people like you.
We call on each and every one of our supporters to set up a monthly or one-time donation to support this campaign to help it keep growing and reaching more people. A new socialist movement, independent of the Democrats and Republicans, is being built but it will only happen when we all pitch in.
The Claudia-Karina campaign calls to end all U.S. aid to Israel. End this government’s endless wars. We want jobs for all, with union representation and wages that let us live with dignity. Housing, healthcare, and education for all - without the lifelong debt. End the ruthless attacks on women, Black people, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. These are just some of the demands that are resonating across the country. Help us take the next step:
Volunteer: https://votesocialist2024.com/volunteer
Donate: https://votesocialist2024.com/donate
See you in the streets,
Claudia & Karina
Don't Forget! Join our telegram channel for regular updates: https://t.me/+KtYBAKgX51JhNjMx
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We are all Palestinian
Listen and view this beautiful, powerful, song by Mistahi Corkill on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwuhbLczgI
Greetings,
Here is my new song and music video, We are all Palestinian, linked below. If you find it inspiring, please feel free to share with others. All the best!
Mistahi
We are all Palestinian
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Labor for Palestine
Thousands of labor representatives marched Saturday, December 16, in Oakland, California. —Photo by Leon Kunstenaar
Video of December 16th Labor rally for Palestine.
Bay Area Unions and Workers Rally and March For Palestine In Oakland
https://youtu.be/L9k79honqIA
For More Information:
bayarealabor4palestine@gmail.com
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
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Just Like The Nazis Did
By David Rovics
After so many decades of patronage
By the world’s greatest empire
So many potential agreements
Were rejected by opening fire
After crushing so many uprisings
Now they’re making their ultimate bid
Pursuing their Final Solution
Just like the Nazis did
They forced refugees into ghettos
Then set the ghettos aflame
Murdering writers and poets
And so no one remember their names
Killing their entire families
The grandparents, women and kids
The uncles and cousins and babies
Just like the Nazis did
They’re bombing all means of sustaining
Human life at all
See the few shelters remaining
Watch as the tower blocks fall
They’re bombing museums and libraries
In order to get rid
Of any memory of the people who lived here
Just like the Nazis did
They’re saying these people are animals
And they should all end up dead
They’re sending soldiers into schools
And shooting children in the head
The rhetoric is identical
And with Gaza off the grid
They’ve already said what happens next
Just like the Nazis did
Words of war for domestic consumption
And lies for all the rest
To try to distract our attention
Among their enablers in the West
Because Israel needs their imports
To keep those pallets on the skids
They need fuel and they need missiles
Just like the Nazis did
They’re using food as a weapon
They’re using water that way, too
They’re trying to kill everyone in Gaza
Or make them flee, it’s true
As the pundits talk of “after the war”
Like with the Fall of Madrid
The victors are preparing for more
Just like the Nazis did
But it’s after the conquest’s complete
If history is any guide
When the occupying army
Is positioned to decide
When disease and famine kills
Whoever may have hid
Behind the ghetto walls
Just like the Nazis did
All around the world
People are trying to tell
There's a genocide unfolding
Ringing alarm bells
But with such a powerful axis
And so many lucrative bids
They know who wants their money
Just like the Nazis did
There's so many decades of patronage
For the world's greatest empire
So many potential agreements
Were rejected by opening fire
They're crushing so many uprisings
Now they're making their ultimate bid
Pursuing their final solution
Just like the Nazis did
Just like the Nazis did
Just like the Nazis did
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Free Julian Assange
Immediate Repeated Action Needed to Free Assange
Please call your Congressional Representatives, the White House, and the DOJ. Calls are tallied—they do count. We are to believe we are represented in this country. This is a political case, so our efforts can change things politically as well. Please take this action as often as you can:
Find your representatives:
https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
Leave each of your representatives a message individually to:
· Drop the charges against Julian Assange
· Speak out publicly against the indictment and
· Sign on to Rashida Tlaib's letter to the DOJ to drop the charges:
202-224-3121—Capitol Main Switchboard
Leave a message on the White House comment line to
Demand Julian Assange be pardoned:
202-456-1111
Tuesday–Thursday, 11:00 A.M.–3:00 P.M. EST
Call the DOJ and demand they drop the charges against Julian Assange:
202-353-1555—DOJ Comment Line
202-514-2000 Main Switchboard
Sign the petition:
https://dontextraditeassange.com/petition/
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Leonard Peltier Update - Not One More Year
Coleman 1 has gone on permanent lockdown.
The inmates are supposed to be allowed out two hours a day. I have not heard from Leonard since the 18th.
The last time I talked to Leonard, he asked where his supporters were. He asked me if anyone cared about these lockdowns.
Leonard lives in a filthy, cold cell 22 to 24 hours a day. He has not seen a dentist in ten years. I asked him, “On a scale of 1 to 10, is your pain level at 13?” He said, “Something like that.” Leonard is a relentless truth-teller. He does not like it when I say things that do not make sense mathematically.
That is why Leonard remains imprisoned. He will not lie. He will not beg, grovel, or denounce his beliefs.
Please raise your voice. Ask your representatives why they have abdicated their responsibility to oversee the Bureau of Prisons and ensure they adhere to Constitutional law.
Uhuru, The African People’s Socialist Party, has stepped up for Leonard. NOT ONE MORE YEAR.
Fight for Free Speech – YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM8GDeGv90E
Leonard should not have spent a day in prison. Click “LEARN” on our website to find out what really happened on that reservation:
www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org
Write to:
Leonard Peltier 89637-132
USP Coleman 1
P.O. Box 1033
Coleman, FL 33521
Note: Letters, address and return address must be in writing—no stickers—and on plain white paper.
Sign our petition urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier:
https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition
Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Address: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Mr. Kevin Cooper
C-65304. 4-EB-82
San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin, CA 94974
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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The writers' organization PEN America is circulating this petition on behalf of Jason Renard Walker, a Texas prisoner whose life is being threatened because of his exposés of the Texas prison system.
See his book, Reports from within the Belly of the Beast; available on Amazon at:
https://www.amazon.com/Reports-Within-Belly-Beast-Department-ebook/dp/B084656JDZ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/protect-whistleblowers-in-carceral-settings
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Daniel Hale UPDATE:
In February Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale was transferred from the oppressive maximum-security prison in Marion, Illinois to house confinement. We celebrate his release from Marion. He is laying low right now, recovering from nearly 3 years in prison. Thank goodness he is now being held under much more humane conditions and expected to complete his sentence in July of this year. www.StandWithDaniel Hale.org
More Info about Daniel:
“Drone Whistleblower Subjected To Harsh Confinement Finally Released From Prison”
https://thedissenter.org/drone-whistleblower-cmu-finally-released-from-prison/
“I was punished under the Espionage Act. Why wasn’t Joe Biden?” by Daniel Hale
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) A ceremony reflects on losses suffered by both Israelis and Palestinians.
By Matthew Mpoke Bigg, May 13, 2024
“‘The Israeli army is still killing shamelessly. Everyone in Gaza is a terrorist in their eyes,’ said Mr. Helou, as he recounted a litany of death his family had endured in Gaza. ‘Does causing unsurmountable pain promise peace for the Israelis?’”
The Joint Israel-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony was prerecorded on Wednesday to avoid the possibility of disruption by protesters, and shown online on Sunday. Credit...Gili Getz, via Combatants for Peace
With Israel’s most sacrosanct day of remembrance as a backdrop, peace activists in Israel broadcast their annual Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony on Sunday night, with parallel events in London, New York and Los Angeles.
The ceremony, organized by Combatants for Peace and the Parents Circle — Families Forum, two peace-building organizations, is unusual in that it tries to recognize not only Israeli grief, but also the toll of Palestinian suffering over the decades. This year’s event was especially poignant given that it was the first since the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and comes amid the devastation caused by the war in Gaza.
This year the ceremony, which has been held annually since 2006, was prerecorded to avoid the possibility of disruption by protesters. In previous years it attracted sharp criticism and a legal challenge in Israel, and on Sunday organizers said just before the ceremony was set to be broadcast that its website had been hacked. As a result, the organizers said it was not possible to watch it on YouTube as planned, and viewers instead watched on Facebook.
The ceremony, an annual focus for peace activists in Israel, featured speeches, songs, a poem about peace and a video that showed children in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank talking about the effect of war. One child wished “for everyone who died to come back to life.” Palestinians in the West Bank did not participate in person, given that Israel stopped allowing many Palestinians to work in Israel after the Oct. 7 attacks led by Hamas, which the Israeli authorities say killed around 1,200 people. There were also no direct contributions by speakers in Gaza.
“For many Israelis it seems provocative,” Yuval Rahamim said of the ceremony in an interview by telephone from Tel Aviv. Mr. Rahamim, co-director of the Parents Circle — Families Forum, an Israeli-Palestinian organization of families who have lost immediate relatives in the conflict, said that his father had been killed in the 1967 Arab–Israeli War. He acknowledged that many Israelis would find the event jarring, given the scale of suffering on Oct. 7, but he said that also gave it more significance.
“Many people have woken up to the reality that this conflict cannot go on,” he said, referring to the decades of violence. “People are willing to stand up.”
His sentiment was echoed by Magen Inon, 41, whose parents were killed on Oct. 7 and who spoke in person at the start of the screening in London, which was held at a Jewish community center. He said that he did not want what had happened to his family to be used as an argument for further war. “We felt as if our personal pain is being hijacked by the national cause,” said Mr. Inon, who now works as a peace activist.
Many Israelis have argued the country is still bound by a sense of national shock and loss over Oct. 7. and are stunned by international criticism of the war in Gaza, which they mostly see as justified.
More than 35,000 people have been killed in Gaza during Israeli’s military campaign to defeat Hamas, health officials there say, and almost everyone there has been displaced from their homes amid a hunger crisis that aid workers say has been largely caused by Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries to the enclave.
But the ceremony, which was screened at more than 200 venues in Israel, spoke to the diversity and complexity of opinion within Israeli society about the issue. Several speakers discussed their hope for an end to generations of bloodshed, and for peace.
Among the most stark contributions came from Palestinian speakers who described conditions in Gaza.
Ghadir Hani read a contribution from a woman in Gaza, whose name was given only as Najla, describing how she had lost 20 family members in the war, including her brother, a father of two, who she said had been killed while going to look for food for his parents.
“They killed him while walking in the street though posing no threat whatsoever,” Ms. Hani read. “The death machine is still ready to kill,” she added. “But I know that on the other side there are many people who believe in peace.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has repeatedly said that Israel’s war is with Hamas, rather than the people of Gaza, and that his government regrets civilian casualties.
Another contributor, Ahmed Helou, a member of Combatants for Peace, which gathers people who have fought either for Israel or for Palestinian groups, suggested that the ferocity of Israel’s campaign had forced him to reassess the personal cost of his commitment to peace.
“The Israeli army is still killing shamelessly. Everyone in Gaza is a terrorist in their eyes,” said Mr. Helou, as he recounted a litany of death his family had endured in Gaza. “Does causing unsurmountable pain promise peace for the Israelis?”
Israel’s Memorial Day began at sundown on Sunday and ceremonies will be held through Monday afternoon.
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2) High Interest Rates Are Hitting Poorer Americans the Hardest
The economy as a whole has proved resilient amid the highest rates in decades. But beneath the surface, many low- and moderate-income families are struggling.
By Ben Casselman and Jeanna Smialek, May 14, 2024
Chris Nunn of Louisville, Ky., says he has too little credit and too much debt to buy a home, and his rent keeps rising. Credit...David Kasnic for The New York Times
High interest rates haven’t crashed the financial system, set off a wave of bankruptcies or caused the recession that many economists feared.
But for millions of low- and moderate-income families, high rates are taking a toll.
More Americans are falling behind on payments on credit card and auto loans, even as many are taking on more debt than ever before. Monthly interest expenses have soared since the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates two years ago. For families already strained by high prices, dwindling savings and slowing wage growth, increased borrowing costs are pushing them closer to the financial edge.
“It’s crazy,” said Ora Dorsey, a 43-year-old Army veteran in Clarksville, Tenn. “It does make it hard to get out of debt. It seems like you’re only paying the interest.”
Ms. Dorsey has been working for years to chip away at the debts she accrued when a series of health issues left her temporarily out of work. Now she is juggling three jobs to try to pay off thousands of dollars in credit card balances and other debts. She is making progress, but high rates aren’t helping.
“How am I supposed to retire?” she asked. “I’m not able to save, have that rainy-day fund, because I’m trying to take down the debt that I have.”
Ms. Dorsey isn’t likely to get relief soon. Fed officials have indicated that they expect to keep interest rates at their current level, the highest in decades, for months. And while policymakers still say they are likely to cut rates eventually, assuming inflation slows down as expected, they could consider raising them further if prices begin rising faster again. The latest evidence will come on Wednesday when the Labor Department releases data showing whether inflation cooled in April, or remained uncomfortably hot for a fourth straight month.
The overall economy has proved unexpectedly resilient to high interest rates. Consumers have continued spending on travel, restaurant meals and entertainment thanks to rising wages and debt levels that, despite their recent increase, remain manageable as a share of income for most people.
But aggregate figures obscure an underlying divide that is likely to widen the longer interest rates remain high. Affluent households, and even many in the middle class, have largely been insulated from the effects of the Fed’s policies. Many took out long-term mortgages when rates were at rock bottom in 2020 or earlier — if they don’t own their homes outright — and most have little if any variable-rate debt. And they are benefiting from higher returns on their savings.
For poorer families, it is different. They are likelier to carry a balance on credit cards, meaning they’re more likely to feel high rates. According to Fed data, about 56 percent of people earning less than $25,000 carried a credit card balance in 2022, compared with 38 percent of those earning more than $100,000. Black Americans, like Ms. Dorsey, and Latinos are also more likely to carry balances.
Recent economic research suggests that high borrowing costs may be one reason for Americans’ dim view of the state of the economy. In surveys, lower-income households remain particularly dour about their financial well-being.
Barbara L. Martinez, a financial counselor in Chicago who works at Heartland Alliance, a nonprofit group, said that for many of her low-income clients, debt is inescapable, especially since food prices and rents have soared. They don’t have savings to cover unexpected expenses like car repairs or illness. And while high borrowing costs aren’t necessarily causing their financial difficulties, they make dealing with debt much harder.
“You’re trying to get out of the ocean, but the waves keep pushing you back,” she said. “No matter how much you swim, you get tired.”
High interest rates are always tougher on borrowers than on savers. But most of the time, they also push down the value of stocks, houses and other assets. That means rate increases usually affect households across the income spectrum, albeit in different ways.
That isn’t how things have played out recently. Stock prices fell when the Fed began raising rates, but have rebounded and are near a record. Home prices have continued rising in most of the country.
The result is a growing divide. Fed data suggests that wealth for the upper half dipped after the Fed’s initial rate increase in 2022, but is again setting records. For the bottom half, however, wealth remains below its level before the Fed began raising rates, after subtracting credit card and mortgage debt and other liabilities.
“Higher-income households feel very flush,” said Brian Rose, senior economist at UBS. “They’ve seen such a huge run-up in the value of their house and the value of their portfolios that they feel like they can keep spending.”
Airlines, hotels and other industries that cater largely to higher-income consumers have generally reported strong profits of late. But mass-market brands like McDonald’s and KFC have reported slower sales, with many citing weakness among low-income consumers as part of the reason.
The divergence puts Fed officials in an uncomfortable position: Free spending by wealthy households means high interest rates have done little to curb consumer demand. But with few other inflation-fighting tools, policymakers have little choice but to keep interest rates high — even if those policies hurt families that are already struggling.
Virginia Diaz thought she was on track for a secure retirement when she moved to Florida from New York nearly 20 years ago. But she drew down her savings and built up credit card debt helping family members, including a niece with health issues. Now high prices and high interest rates are putting her retirement in jeopardy.
“Every time I make a payment to my credit card, most of the money is going to pay interest, and that just snowballs,” she said. “I’m at the end of my rope.”
Ms. Diaz, 74, said she has cut her spending to the bone — “If I want to buy a candle, I have to think about it,” she said — and the rest of her family is also struggling. Her nephew, 35, works full time in the insurance industry, but lives in an apartment in her garage because he can’t afford to buy a house, or even a car. A friend of her niece’s also lives with her, chipping in to pay bills.
Ms. Diaz practically begged Fed officials to cut interest rates.
“I know they mean well, but it’s not working,” she said. “Lower it, for God’s sake, so people can live. Give us half a chance to give us a decent level of living.”
Many liberal economists agree, arguing that inflation has fallen enough that the Fed should start cutting rates before it causes more severe economic damage.
“High interest rates really forced cracks in that recovery, and it’s folks who are on the margins of our economy who are hit first and hit hardest,” said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive group. “They really serve as a bellwether for what could happen to the rest of our economy.”
But Fed officials argue it is essential to bring inflation under control, in part because it, too, has a bigger impact on the poor, who have little room in their budgets to accommodate higher prices.
“If you’re a person who’s living paycheck to paycheck, and suddenly all the things you buy, the fundamentals of life, go up in price, you are in trouble right away,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said at a news conference this month. “And so, with those people in mind in particular, what we’re doing is we’re using our tools to bring down inflation.”
And while high interest rates have affected many families, they have not so far caused the widespread job losses that many progressive critics predicted and that have historically been hardest on lower-wage workers. The unemployment rate remains low, including for Black and Hispanic workers, who are often more prone to lose their jobs when the economy weakens. And wage growth over the past several years has been strongest for lower-paid workers.
For most people, “the big issue is whether you’re holding onto your job,” said C. Eugene Steuerle, a fellow at the Urban Institute who has studied how monetary policy affects inequality.
But high rates today could make it harder for many families to build wealth in the longer run by making homeownership more difficult. They could also curb the construction of apartments and houses, which over time could further push up rents.
The result: a generation of young adults who fear they can neither afford to buy nor rent.
Chris Nunn, 31, has accumulated more than $6,000 in credit card debt, most of it from moving expenses tied to rent increases. His rent in Louisville, Ky., keeps rising, and he sees little hope of paying off the debt with what he makes driving for DoorDash while completing a college degree.
“We don’t have the credit to be able to buy a house, and we have a bunch of debt, either student loans or credit card debt,” he said. “So we’re trapped.”
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3) Israeli military leaders see danger in the lack of a plan for governing Gaza after the war.
By Damien Cave and Adam Rasgon, May 14, 2024
Israeli tanks near the border with Gaza in southern Israel on Monday. Credit...Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
With Israeli troops returning to clear Hamas for the second or third time from parts of northern Gaza, and fighting farther south in Rafah, too, Israel’s government has found itself confronting more vocal discontent from an important constituency: its own military leaders.
Current and former senior military officers have begun to argue more openly that because the government has failed to roll out a plan for what follows the fighting in Gaza, Israeli troops are being forced — in the eighth month of the war — to battle again for areas of the territory where Hamas fighters have reappeared.
Two Israeli officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid professional repercussions, said some generals and members of the war cabinet were especially frustrated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to develop and announce a process for building an alternative to Hamas to govern Gaza.
There was little expectation, among officials or experts, that a new government would be formed while combat raged. But “clear, hold and build” is the widely accepted practice for fighting an insurgency. And to a growing number of critics, Israel appears to be simply stuck in clearing mode, increasing the risks for Israeli soldiers and Gazan civilians while cease-fire talks remain stalemated.
The two officials said Mr. Netanyahu’s unwillingness to have a serious conversation about the latter phases of the Gaza campaign — the “day after” the fight — has made it easier for Hamas to reconstitute itself in places such as Jabaliya in northern Gaza.
Israel first attacked Hamas’s ranks there in October — and returned this week with another air and ground assault.
Eran Lerman, Israel’s deputy national security adviser from 2006 to 2015, said the backlash Israel is facing from much of the world over the war also comes in part from “the lack of coherent vision for the day after.”
Israel’s generals should have asked tougher questions months ago, according to some analysts.
“Hamas or some organization like it is going to survive — unless you’d have started much earlier to align the sun, the moon and the stars into something that would create a counter,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “There is no counter. That’s the problem.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted calls to bring the fighting to an end, arguing that there can be no civilian government in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed. On Monday, in a podcast interview, he said the territory needed “sustained demilitarization by Israel” first, because “no one’s going to come in until they know that you either destroyed Hamas, or you’re about to destroy Hamas.”
But with a growing number of analysts and officials questioning whether Israel can accomplish such a broad goal, the more vocal critique from parts of the military reflects a gradually widening rift with the Netanyahu government.
Military officials, along with the White House and other countries, have grumbled privately for months about a lack of postwar strategy, but the volume of discord is now rising internally and externally as the scale of the counterinsurgency campaign becomes more visible.
While Israeli strategists have always said they expected troops to go back to some areas of Gaza in later phases of the war to stamp out pockets of resistance, there is a growing sense of it being more difficult now than it needed to be.
The two Israeli officials said that without an alternative to Hamas for administering the basic needs of the people, or to offer hope for a return to normal life, it is easier for Hamas to slip back into its old haunts or create new ones, making the fight harder for Israeli troops.
The military’s leaders “are frustrated that they have been given a military assignment that ends up repeating like Groundhog Day, because the larger strategic and political questions haven’t been answered by the government,” said Michael Koplow, an analyst at Israel Policy Forum. “If the military frustrations and the angst of military families becomes louder, it will compound the government’s problems and put even more strain on the coalition.”
For Mr. Netanyahu, the political considerations involve trying to hold together a government with right-wing parties that have demanded an all-out assault on Gaza over American objections, and are unwilling to support what Arab countries have demanded as a prerequisite for their help in Gaza: a path to a Palestinian state.
If Mr. Netanyahu veers too far from the demands of his coalition partners, they have threatened to topple the government, which could leave Mr. Netanyahu to face a series of corruption allegations without the powers he has as prime minister.
Dr. Lerman, the former deputy national security adviser, recently published a proposed plan with other scholars at the Wilson Center that calls for a multinational authority to administer and police Gaza, led by the United States, Egypt and other nations. It has been shared with Israeli authorities.
Other proposals have included efforts to strengthen the Palestinian Authority that now governs part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but the Israeli government has also rejected that idea, arguing that the authority is not a competent, credible partner.
American officials over the weekend and on Monday repeated their argument that without a diplomatic solution, Israel would face what the United States confronted in Iraq and Afghanistan: a bloody war of attrition that drags on for years.
“They will be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency because a lot of armed Hamas will be left, no matter what they do in Rafah, or if they leave and get out of Gaza, as we believe they need to do,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said over the weekend. “Then you’re going to have a vacuum, and a vacuum that’s likely to be filled by chaos, by anarchy, and ultimately by Hamas again.”
Former Israeli officials sounded warnings about a lack of postwar planning even before the ground assault in Gaza began. On Oct. 14, a week after the devastating Hamas-led attack that killed about 1,200 people, Israeli officials say, and touched off the Israeli military offensive, Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister, called on the government to consider Gaza’s postwar future.
“Otherwise,” she said then, “we would get stuck there unnecessarily and with a heavy price tag.”
In an interview Tuesday, she said this was exactly what had happened.
“Just imagine if we had decided this before, and started working earlier with the U.S., the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, the U.A.E. and the Saudis,” she said, referring to the United Arab Emirates. “It would be much easier.”
Johnatan Reiss and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.
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