Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....
On a bridge in Asheville, North Carolina. Banners made by Ken Jones.
UNITED NATIONS, November 20.
The United States has used its
veto right and blocked a UN Security Council draft resolution on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a demand for an immediate and
unconditional ceasefire in the Gaza Strip prepared by the organization’s
ten non-permanent members.
Fourteen of the 15 members of the Security Council voted in favor of
the document. This is the fifth time that the United States has blocked
resolutions providing for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip since tensions
escalated in the Middle East last October.
The resolution was drafted by ten non-permanent members of the
Security Council and consists of nine paragraphs, the first of which
calls for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire respected
by all parties. The document also calls for the release of all hostages
held in the enclave, respect for international law by all parties, and
humanitarian access to the civilian population of Gaza. The draft
resolution also includes a clause stating that if the document is
adopted, the UN Secretary General should submit a written report on the
implementation of the resolution to the Security Council within three
weeks.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, a total of 44,000 Palestinians
have been killed and 104,000 injured in the enclave since tensions
escalated last October.
Across the US, students and faculty are continuing to resist repressive measures by university administrations intended to stifle or even criminalize speech in support of Palestinian rights, as the genocide in Gaza continues.
Along with elite US institutions calling riot cops on their own students who have been holding sit-in protests, or attempting to prevent students from holding protests altogether, some universities have tried to categorize the political ideology of Zionism as a protected identity class in order to define anti-Zionist speech as racist hate speech.
“As long as I’ve been a teacher, I’ve been teaching about Palestine – it’s always been either central or integrated into the work that I do,” Maura Finkelstein told The Electronic Intifada Podcast.
Finkelstein, a scholar of anthropology and a writer, taught at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania for nine years.
She had been teaching a course on the anthropology of Palestine, a class that she says had been approved by the college.
But even though she was tenured, she was fired in May 2024 over her social media posts in support of Palestinian rights and against the political ideology of Zionism – a move that has been seen as a warning to other anti-genocide professors.
The firing followed months of targeted harassment by Israel lobby groups and individuals who pressured the university to fire Finkelstein, accusing her of “Jew hatred” over her anti-Zionist principles. Finkelstein is Jewish.
The Intercept reported that Finkelstein “was the subject of a campaign of thousands of anonymous, bot-generated emails sent every minute for over 24 hours to the school’s administrators – as well as local news outlets and politicians – demanding the professor’s removal.”
The college administration told Finkelstein that “numerous families of students had called to express concern about her position,” The Intercept notes. “A Change.org petition started in late October by unnamed ‘Muhlenberg College alumni and supporters’ called for Finkelstein’s firing over allegedly ‘pro-Hamas’ rhetoric; it gained over 8,000 signatures.”
Finkelstein told The Electronic Intifada that one of her social media posts – a repost to her personal account of a statement about refusing to normalize Zionism by the Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi – instigated condemnation by a Muhlenberg student who had never attended her class.
“Because the student identified as a Zionist, and because the student believed that Zionism and Judaism were the same, [the student claimed that] I was violating the equal opportunity non-discrimination policy that would essentially be denying the student access to an education,” Finkelstein said.
She explained that even though the student did not know her, “the student assumed from the social media posts that they would not be safe in my class. It went through a three-and-a-half-months-long investigation, it went through various faculty, staff and administrative panels, and I was told that I was terminated for cause, which is immediately no access to severance.”
“Perfect collision”
Finkelstein says that according to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), she is the first tenured professor to be fired since October 2023 over support for Palestinian rights.
“Of course, there were cases in the past,” she notes, citing professor Steven Salaita’s firing by the University of Illinois in 2014, as well as “countless adjuncts, visiting assistant professors, lecturers, other contingent faculty who have lost their contracts, who’ve lost their jobs without the same kind of foundation that would cause outrage.”
There is a fear, she says, for academics who are being sanctioned now “that if they go public with the story, they’ll never work in higher ed [education] again. And I think that that’s a real threat.”
With her own case, Finkelstein explains, it crystallizes at least two of the big crises in higher education right now.
One crisis is the “constant erosion of federal funding, of federal support [that] has created these institutions so that they’re completely, or almost completely, dependent on tuition and donor support,” which creates a financial model that “isn’t actually about education, this is about the accumulation of resources,” she says.
The second is that administrators are in a position where they “don’t know what Judaism is. They don’t know what Zionism is. They probably actually don’t know much about the decisions they’re making. What they do know is [that] if they alienate their financial base, they will collapse.”
Finkelstein says that she understands why some professors are scared to speak up in defense of Palestine and potentially lose their jobs. But, she adds, her colleagues should not self-censor.
“We all need to be talking about Palestine. We all need to be teaching about Palestine because, in an ideal world, they can’t fire us all.”
Bruce Gagnon joins Regis Tremblay (originally from Maine but now living in Crimea) for interview with comments on Trump's cabinet picks; more war; support of Israel; BRICS is major threat to Trumps world view.
Bruce questions if the 77 year old Trump will even finish his term! A
possible assassination? The onset of Dementia like Biden? A sudden heart
attack or stroke from eating all of those McDonald’s hamburgers and
fries? Who knows?
On November 16, 2024, activists from across Canada responded to a national call to action against corporations that participate in the production of military equipment for Israel, particularly the F-35.
One such company, Gastops, is based in Ottawa, the nation's capital. Gastops produces engine sensors that are used to reduce maintenance time for the F35. U.S. arms manufacturer Raytheon, which profits in many ways from Israel's genocidal war on Palestinians, has made a major investment in Gastops.
On the national day of action, Dimitri Lascaris reported from a protest held steps away from Gastops' headquarters in Ottawa.
As Lascaris explains, the Trudeau government is violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention by allowing Gastops' engine sensors to be delivered to Israel's airforce in a time of genocide.
Is Biden and NATO planning to escalate the proxy war in Ukraine now in order to ensure that Trump will not be able to successfully end the war?
Russia states they will be forced to respond directly to those nations who have provided these long-range missiles to Ukraine.
Moscow’s position on the issue was formulated clearly earlier this year by President Vladimir Putin, who has said that attacks along the lines requested by Zelensky would be impossible without the direct contribution of Western intelligence and military expertise, Kremlin spokesman DmitryPeskov stated. If conducted, such strikes would mean that “NATO nations are at war with Russia,” he warned.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has praised the reported decision by the US to allow Ukraine to launch long-range missile strikes deep into Russian territory, describing it as a “decisive moment.”
France is still considering allowing Ukraine to target Russian territory with French-supplied missiles, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has said, after the US reportedly shifted its policy on the issue.
The decision by Washington “doesn’t change our assessment at the moment,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters on Monday, when asked if Chancellor Olaf Scholz would lift his ban on sending Taurus air-launched missiles to Kiev. Currently there is “no reason to make a different decision,” Pistorius added, speaking during a visit to a helicopter plant in Bavaria. Instead, the German military intends to provide 4,000 drones that use AI-assisted piloting, he said.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock [Green Party] made it clear
that Berlin supports Biden’s decision, insisting that the use of
long-range weapons is within the right of self-defense.
The UK has not sent any long-range Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine for several months, likely due to its low stockpiles and a desire to use them more effectively, The Times reported on Sunday, citing sources. UK defense sources told The Times that the Labour Party’s stance on the matter likely stems from the fact that “UK stockpiles have reached a level below which military chiefs are not prepared to go,” as some missiles must be kept in reserve to protect London’s own interests.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday that he had initially supported the lifting of restrictions on strikes deep into Russia, and this issue will be discussed at the Foreign Ministers council.
Spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the US Liu Pengyu underscored that Beijing condemns possible ATACMS missile strikes on Russian territory and actions that could lead to an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that Biden’s purported move means that America “has entered a phase of madness of North American imperialism.”
An interview I did some years ago (when I still had hair on my head) during a speaking tour in southern California.
It was actually quite a wide ranging interview that still holds up today as the US arrogantly claims it intends to be the 'Master of Space' where it would determine which nations can get into space and which ones cannot.
The current rush to fill up Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) is just one illustration of that sordid reality.
Our Australian friend and filmmaker, David Bradbury, made a great video
of the Nov. 15 White House peace vigil calling for an end to Israel's
genocidal war in Gaza and U.S. complicity in it.
We held another of our monthly protests in Farmington, Maine yesterday. (Each month we go to a different part of Maine.) Farmington is in a rural central part of the state. We've been doing these protests each month since February, 2022 to gather people opposing our nations enormous war appetite. Farmington is a part of the University of Maine system though a smaller school than most. It was originally a college for teachers.
Maine's population is 1.4 million, making it one of the least populated states in the nation. The largest city is Portland, which accounts for about 40% of the state's population. So we don't have a huge population base to draw on for these protests. Thus getting 30 people from across the state (from Biddeford in the south to the Belfast area further north) is a good deal.
In this moment many war strains are causing great stress for us. From the ever expanding genocide in Palestine, attacks by Israel (with full US support) on Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran, continued US-NATO weapons shipments to Ukraine and the insane plan to move NATO into the Asia-Pacific putting a clear target on China.
If there was ever a time for people of conscience to be in the street this is surely it.
I read just days ago that 44% of those who have been killed in Palestine are children. What does that tell you about the western support for the genocidal zionist war program?
Three big guys dressed in camo yelled at us at one point as they walked by saying 'You should have voted for Trump!' I yelled back 'We are not Democrats!' On their return I stopped one of them and we had a good chat. I told him I was a veteran which always kind of takes the hot air out of the balloon. He said he was opposed to the wars and I asked him what he would do if it turns out that Trump was just bluffing and keeps the wars going. He took a moment and basically said we'd be screwed for sure.
Because Farmington is in a rural part of the state we reached an audience that we don't get in the bigger cities. It was good to hear the steady numbers of honks we received - including some big blasts from truckers that drove through the town.
I know it was also very uplifting for the several folks who live in Farmington to get folks from around the state to join them. That kind of solidarity goes a long way.
We ended the day with a closing circle in a nearby gazebo and then many of us had a late lunch together. The circles are always a good time to get to know each other a bit more and to share our heartfelt reasons for coming together no matter the distance or the temperature.
Our next monthly protest will be in Freeport on December 21 at 1:30 pm. Freeport is the home of L.L. Bean and just days before Xmas we are guaranteed a huge audience. Please plan to join us for that one.
There are worrying signs that the well-funded pro-zionist lobby in the US intends to crack down on Palestine solidarity activity across the US during the in-coming Trump administration.
Don't sit back and watch the fireworks. Help stand for peace, justice and freedom of expression.
