The Last Chapter

No matter where a Social Studies curriculum starts, it always ends up in the same place. It can begin with Athens and Sparta, or the fall of the Roman Empire. It can explore the Industrial Revolution, the Renaissance or the Holocaust. But no matter where these courses start, they all culminate in the ascendence of the United States. At the end, students and teachers join in  hoping that the mass murders of history will somehow melt away under our country's benevolent world order. 

In the spirit of human advancement, students explore the end of slavery, but not the 100 years of Jim Crow that followed. They celebrate the American flag on Iwo Jima, but not the two nuclear explosions that wiped out hundreds of thousands. We can all agree that the barbarism of the past will certainly give way to the American dream of human rights and world peace. Our Judeo-Christian leaders fill us with thoughts of a better world. 

Except that Israel and the US are perpetrators of the worst genocide of the twenty first century. Hundreds of thousands are being slaughtered, a godless crime against humanity. Is this the Judeo-Christian alliance we are urged to glorify? The empire makes the bombs, and the colony drops them on its helpless victims. The empire manufactures the bullets that the Israel Defense Force shoots through the heads of Palestinian reporters, doctors, and ambulance drivers. And through the heads of the children. Perhaps Moloch, the ancient deity of child sacrifice, is really the last chapter of our curriculum.     

Kleptocracy

No matter how crazy Trump gets, the DNC (Democratic National Committee) wants to keep him in power. Instead of taking its cues from the vast majority of Democratic voters, the committee refuses to consider ending military aid to Israel. And despite an ongoing genocide in Gaza, the committee won't condemn the bloodbath. This despite polls that show 77% of Democratic voters think that Israel is the cause of the slaughter. 

Is the majority of the DNC just keeping Trump around long enough to run against him in the next election? Palestinians be damned, as long as the Democrats gain control of the Congress?

I think the truth is worse than that. To understand what really motivates the DNC, we have to learn the meaning of an unusual word: "kleptocracy." It is really a combination of two Greek words, one for "thief" and one for "ruler." Of course, no one fits that definition better than our current scoundrel in chief. But we can identify other elected official much closer to home.

Representative Pat Ryan thrives in our current kleptocracy. He talks endlessly about human rights, despite spending most of his career in the US military occupying foreign countries in the Middle East. He was also a contractor for Palantir, an AI company linked to the killing of 120 school children in Iran. Not surprisingly, Ryan's top two campaign contributors were the Israel Lobby and Palantir. Together, they lined Ryan's pockets with about 269,000 dollars for the last election. Our hometown grifter is doing very well.  

Fred Nagel
8 Clay Ct.
 

The American Genocide

All of us are aware of what Gaza looks like. It is rubble, bones and dust. What we don't get to experience is how we could ever live in such an environment. Or how we would protect our family and loved ones. There are 20 thousand Palestinian children who will never grow up, and each one is a tragedy for some extended family. How would we cope? Would our lives ever be whole again?

The Old Dutch Church in Kingston presented a play this Friday that is made up of the real text messages sent to a family friend in the United States. There is a Palestinian father who spends his days looking for a few cups of water. There are words of encouragement and empathy that he gets from his friend in return. Finally, there is a news reporter who covers the facts and figures of who gets hit by shrapnel, and who is dying of starvation.  

Will future history books call this the American Genocide? Will we, peace loving and enjoying our own lives, ever be blamed for these war crimes? These are all questions that this theater production brings up. Congratulation to the Old Dutch Church for this thought provoking theater event. 

Fred Nagel

Film Screening of "Jenin's Freedom Theatre"

Live theater presentation of “One Family in Gaza”

Friday, April 3 at 7 pm, at the Old Dutch Church, 272 Wall St., Kingston, NY. Live theater presentation of “One Family in Gaza,” a screenplay that follows the emails of a family caught in the Gaza Genocide. Written by Crystal Zevon. Cosponsored by: Middle East Crisis Response mideastcrisis.org, Veterans For Peace, and Women In Black - New Paltz. Contact: mecr@mideastcrisis.org or 845 876-7906

Sweet Land of Liberty

Sweet land of liberty. These were the words sung to our elementary school class as the US flag went up the pole, snapping in the morning breeze. Maybe it was Memorial Day, or Flag Day. It doesn't matter. I remember thinking that my country must be an amazing place if grownups choke up about it. I was proud to be part of a country that even sang these words.

So many years later, my basic beliefs in these words and the country that still sings them, are gone. The US is the mightiest nation the world has ever seen.  We are starving two million people in Palestine. We are bombing Iran. We are kidnapping world leaders, or assassinating them along with their families. We threaten the rest of the world with endless wars, and our implacable war machine is on the move, looking for more victims.

Is there anything sweet about US militarism? Is there any liberty after the US and its reprehensible ally in crime, Israel, have murdered millions of people? Those stars and stripes don't bring me any assurance. The reasons for our perpetual invasions of other countries have turned out to be transparent lies. Were they always? Was there ever a time when our country was a sweet land of liberty, free from Zionist manipulation and its million dollar payoffs to members of Congress?

I don't think that the US and Israel can conquer the rest of the world. Their heinous crimes against humanity will be our epitaph.  

Germany Over All in the World

"Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt." So begins the German national anthem, which was used by the Nazis as a declaration of world hegemony. No international laws could hold Germany back. No sense of decency or morality would alter its drive for military dominance.

The same ultra nationalist thinking now controls our own White House. We bomb, we starve, we invade any country that gets in our way. We laugh at the rules that have held us back since World War II. Any world leader who resists will be assassinated or captured. With 800 military bases in the rest of the world, we will crush all dissent both home and abroad.

How did Germany think it could control the world? Racism convinced Hitler that Germany would prevail against all other ethnicities. Also, Hitler ruled by hunches and constantly went against his generals. By the time he invaded Poland, there was nobody in the press, or the courts, or the universities who could stand up against him.

Our own Hitler is busy crushing dissent and destroying our Constitution. His billionaire class has bought up all the media. He controls what is taught in our colleges, and simply ignores the courts when they urge caution. Finally, he is deeply racist and has energized the white Christian nationalists.

He is talking about taking a third term, and has ICE as his private Storm Troopers. Unless we stop Trump now, we will have to fight him in the streets.

Fred Nagel

Some Sort of Perspective

How can we put America's starvation of Gaza in some sort of perspective? Do we write songs about it? Do we hold up signs? How do we get beyond what our country is capable of doing? Has it always been that way and we didn't notice?

The pictures are already upon us. The skeletal bodies and shrunken eyes. There are 90,000 children under imminent threat of starvation. The trucks are only a few miles away, but Israel, backed by its partner in crime, the United States, has decided not to let them through.

Do you think we live in a humane society? That we follow some sort of moral code? Do we believe in a God that doesn't slaughter children? How did we end up in a country that always puts money and power before its basic humanity?

We the people forced an end to our invasion and occupation of Vietnam. Not in time to save the lives of 58,000 US troops and over two million Vietnamese people. We worked at it, defying the police and the college administrators that kept telling us to shut up and be patriotic. It turned out that the war resisters were the patriots. Those in power were the liars and the murderers.

Today, we must overcome the apartheid state of Israel, a toxic mixture of religious fanaticism and wanton cruelty. We must end our support of this genocide against the Palestinian people. The battle is for the soul of our democracy, just as it was in Vietnam.