The biggest lesson from this déjà vu moment? We must resist every one of Washington’s might-makes-right policies, and fight for an entirely different relationship between the US and the rest of the world.
It’s a confounding time to be Muslim in this country. A degree of Muslim culture I would have never thought possible when I was a kid is now imbued in the lexicon of Americans. I’m still a little shocked every time I hear non-Muslims say “inshallah.”
In fact, much (though admittedly, not all) of what we’re witnessing today might simply be considered an escalation of the dire turn that this country took after the attacks of September 11, 2001, nearly a quarter of a century ago.
This capacity to predict the future is beginning to feel a bit déjà-vu-ish. It’s not too hard to foresee the approaching catastrophe in Gaza. In our presidential election, we are facing the potential elevation of a genuine instrument of fascism.
Just as the 9/11 attacks “did not speak for themselves,” neither did Hamas’s attacks on Israel. In remarks at a bilateral meeting with President Biden, however, Prime Minister Netanyahu strategically compared the Hamas attacks to the 9/11 ones.
There are still 30 detainees at Guantánamo. Sixteen of them have been deemed no longer threats to the United States and cleared for release, but arrangements have yet to be made to transfer them... Now there are tiny steps toward closure.
Jelly Roll Morton's hit single in 1923. Women's Rights Convention in 1848. Disability rights a winner in 1968. Prepaid comprehensive healthcare in 1945. Investigation smoke and mirrors in 2004. Prisoner abuse in 2006. Civil disobedience in 1846.
As those Canadian wildfires suggest, we’re now living on a new, not terribly recognizable, ever more perilous world in which not just this country but Planet Earth itself is in decline. Climate change is quickly becoming the climate emergency.
An interview with the attorney for the former al Qaeda operative, who testified to the CIA’s ‘enhanced interrogation’ and more torture at the prison camp. That torture was a war crime that should have been—and should in the future be—prosecuted as a criminal act.
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