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Monthly Archives: February 2019
Immigrant Rights Advocates Know There’s No Compromising With the Trump Administration

After engineering the longest government shutdown in history over his fixation on a border wall, it appeared that Donald Trump would back down from the idea and sign a bipartisan agreement that doesn’t fund a concrete barrier but includes $1.375 billion for border fencing as well as an increase in funding for…
Why They Hate Ilhan Omar
Because she is, inter alia, not willing to pretend that war criminals aren’t war criminals during congressional hearings:
America loves a feel-good story. How else to explain our government’s appetite for redemption arcs? Elliott Abrams was once convicted of lying to Congress and on Wednesday, he got to testify before Congress again, this time in his capacity as our special envoy to Venezuela. But not everyone was happy to see him. Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, questioned the former Assistant Secretary of State about his old misdeeds. “In 1991, you pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress regarding your involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, for which you were later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush,” Omar began, before asking Abrams why the committee should believe anything he had to say.
A spluttering Abrams complained that Omar did not give him a chance to respond, but the congresswoman continued. “You dismissed as ‘communist propaganda’ reports about the massacre of El Mozote in which more than 800 civilians, including children as young as 2 years old, were brutally murdered by U.S.-trained troops,” she said. “You later said the U.S. policy in El Salvador was a ‘fabulous achievement.’ … Do you think that massacre was a ‘fabulous achievement?”
“From the day that President Duarte was elected in a free election, to this day,” Abrams responded, “El Salvador has been a democracy. That’s a fabulous achievement.” But Omar, as the Daily Beast reported on Wednesday, was not moved by Abrams’ answer. “Yes or no, do you think that massacre was a fabulous achievement? That happened under our watch.” Abrams told the congresswoman that her question was “ridiculous” and he “would not respond to it.”
Omar is right, of course. In 1993, a lengthy New York Times report detailed the dedication with which members of the Reagan administration defended their material support for El Salvador’s military, even though they knew some atrocity had occurred. The U.S. government’s role in the steady destabilization of El Salvador is not only directly pertinent to the question of Abrams’ suitability for his role, it is the subtext to a familiar piece of agitprop. Trump loves to stoke fear about immigrants, including many Salvadorans, who cross the southern border. Not only are the vast majority peaceful, they’re fleeing a violent political climate that we helped create.
Good for her and more please. Needless to say asking damning-because-they’re true substantive questions of this Beltway untouchable led to many fainting-couch retreats by Max Boot et al. about which:
I’m sure there is a more inbred, morally compromised, and intellectually bankrupt group of people than the 21st Century US national security community to be found somewhere in the history of democratic politics but examples escape me this evening.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 14, 2019
Look the man may have contributed to the deaths of a few thousand innocent people but he was a heck of a good colleague to me, a fellow important person, on a personal level, which is absolutely the important metric by which to evaluate a policymaker.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 14, 2019
LGM Review of Books: Geoffrey B. Robinson, The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66
I wonder if even one in ten thousand adults over 30 know this happened?
Of all the horrifying violence that defines the twentieth century, possibly no event gets less public attention than what happened in Indonesia after the military, led by Suharto and with support from western governments, overthrew the government of Sukarno in 1965 and then engaged in an orgy of mass and organized killing over the subsequent six months. During that time, probably about 500,000 suspected leftists were rounded up and slaughtered and about another million were placed in prison, sometimes for up to thirty years. One of the worst acts of violence, arguably genocide, in the post-World War II era, it is nearly forgotten about on an international scale.
Geoffrey B. Robinson, a historian at UCLA, has dedicated his career to changing that. His recent book is an encyclopedic exploration into this event, why it happened, who supported it, and what its impact on the nation has been. Robinson approaches this topic like an attorney. Because there is not a fully agreed upon story about why this massacre happened, who was behind the attack on a group of generals that began it, which nations supported it, or much of anything else about it, Robinson carefully lays out all the evidence for the reader to see, debunking more dubious theories and demonstrating which are the most likely, all the while being quite careful to not overstate his case.
Sukarno was the foundational political figure of early Indonesia, a huge, sprawling, and diverse nation that had suffered badly from Dutch and Japanese colonialism. Sukarno’s coalition was unstable, a combination of the military, the nation’s various groups in a majority but not exclusively Muslim nation, and communists. By 1965, Sukarno was moving to the left and building ties with China. The PKI, which was the Indonesian Communist Party, was growing and acquiring power, angering the military. Wanting land reform, the PKI made both the military and conservative Muslims nervous. On September 30, 1965, a small group of communists in the military, probably operating on their own, captured and executed six Indonesian generals. Claiming they were defending Sukarno, the 30 September Movement was poorly planned and fell apart pretty quickly. This opened the door for pro-western generals led by Suharto to strike back. They took effective power from Sukarno, eventually evicting him entirely. They then proceeded to engage in a mass genocide against the 2 million PKI members in the nation, a deeply disturbing and awful episode of violence.
Robinson attempts to answer many critical questions about this. First, did the U.S. and other western powers support it? Largely, the answer is clearly yes. The Johnson administration was already deeply involved in Vietnam and was supportive of any anti-communist movement. As far as back as the Eisenhower administration the U.S. had made it clear that it would support a right-wing coup in Indonesia. The CIA knew what was happening and was entirely supportive. In case, it wasn’t clear earlier in the text, Robinson states “the United States and its allies aided and abetted crimes against humanity, possibly including genocide” (295).
Robinson also explores how the violence was carefully planned and not the spontaneous outburst that the regime claimed. The killing did not happen everywhere at once. Rather, it started in Java in October 1965 and then spread to various other islands. It is clear that the military directly led much of it, especially in Java, where the PKI was strongest. In other areas, conservative Muslims rose up and used this as an excuse to eliminate the communists they felt were destroying traditional values. But in all areas, violence became a method to solve social and economic tensions, the violence took similar forms everywhere, and local militia groups also played a strong role in every example. The differences in timing mostly had to do with the ability of the military to raise up those militias, as well as differences between military commanders in various regions. The entire operation was planned, coordinated, and used similar forms of violence and mass incarceration that could only be planned by the military.
Robinson also notes how much Suharto and the Indonesian military had learned from the prisons and torture techniques of the Dutch and Japanese occupiers who had inflicted so much damage on the nation. He argues that the army used routine torture and sexual violence throughout the terror in learned ways. Moreover, that colonial history created a hard left-right fault line in domestic politics that led to very different historical narratives in constant tension. Robinson also indicts the Cold War writ large, noting that it “encouraged mass violence both because of its deeply polarizing political logic and language, and because it engendered alack of empathy for victims of violnce who were understood to be Communists” (295). More broadly, Robinson uses this example to think hard about how mass violence is created, playing down factors such as long-term cultural or religious enmity and instead emphasizing the role of agents in organizing and facilitating such agendas, whether it be right-wing organizations such as the Indonesian military or Communist movements.
Finally, Robinson explores just how poorly Indonesia itself has dealt with this history. Suharto’s New Order government managed to stay in power for three decades, really only ever feeling any pressure in the late 70s when an Amnesty International campaign and the Carter administration forced Indonesia to release most of its remaining political prisoners. When the period finally did end, the nation avoided any sort of national reckoning and that continues today. A few documentaries have been able to be released and there are people making demands on the state. But in the end, there is still a lot of hostility within communities that engaged in political violence themselves and against those that have delved too deeply–even, say, trying to find the mass grave where your parents are buried–are denied access, threatened, and deported. Even today, local groups are still remembering the lessons that Suharto’s army taught them, preventing any real healing.
The Killing Season is a very powerful book. I strongly recommend it to all of you, so long as you can bear reading some pretty depressing stuff.
Ad Warning Of Nazi Fascism Deemed ‘Not Appropriate’ By Fox News
Fox News is reportedly declining to run an ad for a documentary warning against the potential of fascism taking root in the United States, featuring footage from an actual Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. The network deemed the spot “not appropriate for our air.” [ more › ]
Did the Holocaust Happen? – LA Progressive
American conservatives sometimes use the Holocaust to spread inappropriate partisan messages. On Holocaust Remembrance Day two weeks ago, the Harris County (Texas) Republican Party posted a Facebook message with a yellow star-shaped badge and these words: “Leftism kills. In memory of the 6 million Jews lost to Nazi hatred in the name of National Socialism. We will never forget.” The Texas Republicans explained that they were connecting the name of the National Socialist Party with “leftism”, even though the extreme right-wing Nazis killed every socialist they could get their hands on.
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Shabu (methamphetamine)seized inside mufflers at NAIA – Manila Standard – Is a wall needed in Manila to protect against USA Meth?
Operatives from the Bureau of Customs and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency seized more than P90 million worth of shabu shipment found inside three mufflers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. In a statement, the BOC said the illegal drug shipment weighed 13.1 kilograms and came from West Covina, California, USA, which were declared as car parts.
Source: Shabu seized inside mufflers at NAIA – Manila Standard
Wife of White House communications chief goes on anti-vaccine tirade | US news | The Guardian
Darla Shine, a former TV producer, is married to Bill Shine, the former executive at Fox News who was appointed last year as Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for communications. Faced with criticism over her comments, Shine accused “the Left” of attempting to smear her. She also suggested, without evidence, that measles can cure cancer, pointing to a 2014 case that was far more complex and did not draw any kind of definitive conclusions. Advertisement This is not the first time Darla’s Shine’s public statements have sparked controversy. She once declared that sunscreen was “a hoax” and on numerous occasions pushed debunked theories about the danger of vaccines. Other unearthed tweets found Darla Shine making profane remarks about race, questioning why white people were considered racist for using “the n’word” given its use by black people and defending the Confederate flag. She has repeatedly struck a dismissive tone when discussing allegations of sexual assault, be it in the military or at Fox News.
Source: Wife of White House communications chief goes on anti-vaccine tirade | US news | The Guardian
Court Ruling Aids Wolves’ Return to California
Court Ruling Aids Wolves’ Return to California
A judge’s decision to uphold California’s protections for wolves is a step in the right direction, but one lone wolf’s epic journey across state lines shows that federal protections are necessary to ensure the species’ continued survival.
A remote camera snapped this photo of a wolf pup in California’s Lassen National Forest in 2017. Recently a state judge upheld protections for California’s growing wolf population.
The wanderer known as “Journey” is a lone wolf no more.
Recently, a California state judge upheld endangered species protections for gray wolves, ruling on the side of this iconic species as well as conservation groups represented by Earthjustice.
This victory raises the hope that the resurgence started by one wolf known as Journey will live on in California, and it strengthens our resolve to fight for the federal protections necessary to ensure wolves can thrive nationwide.
Journey, whose official radio collar designation is OR-7, is a legend among wolf enthusiasts. Back in 2011, he sparked national awe after trekking more than a thousand miles from northeast Oregon to California, where a wolf hadn’t been spotted in almost 100 years. As the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife tracked his movements, the large tan- and black-haired wolf moved through such wild areas as the Soda Mountain Wilderness, Crater Lake, and the Umpqua National Forest.
Journey became the first wild wolf to set foot in the Golden State since 1924. He traveled back and forth between California and Oregon for a few years, finding a mate in Oregon in 2014. Soon after, they had three furry black pups and were officially designated the Rogue Pack, the first wolf pack established in western Oregon since the early 1900s. The following year, siblings of Journey’s had their own set of wolf pups in California, known as the Shasta Pack. And in 2017, California’s second known pack of wolves, the Lassen Pack, were discovered with three more pups in Lassen National Forest. These wolves, too, can be traced back to Journey, whose son is the breeding male of the Lassen Pack.
But Journey’s lineage extends even further across the West. He’s likely one of several offspring originating from a successful wolf reintroduction program launched in 1995 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That program involved transplanting several wolves from Canada to Yellowstone National Park, and later elsewhere in the Rocky Mountains. When wolves returned to Yellowstone, the ecosystem began to thrive as they helped restore the balance between predator and prey. Earthjustice is pushing for a similar reintroduction program of Mexican gray wolves in the American Southwest.
Together, Journey and his extended wolf pack represent a formidable comeback in a region — and a country — that has historically been no friend of wolves. There were once as many as 2 million of these highly social creatures in North America. By the 1980s, only a few small pockets of survivors remained in the lower 48 states after hunters and fur trappers got their way.
Today, anti-wolf groups and their friends in Congress are determined to repeat the mistakes of the past, returning us to the dark ages when wolves were hunted, poisoned, and killed. Beginning in 2011, legislators stripped gray wolves of federal protections in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Since then, trophy hunters and trappers have killed nearly 3,500 wolves. Now the administration wants to remove protections for wolves across the entire contiguous United States.
The law recently upheld in California makes it illegal to kill wolves within the state’s borders, and also makes state resources available to ensure their recovery. Even if wolves are stripped of the federal protections they currently receive under the Endangered Species Act, they will remain protected within the Golden State.
Journey’s epic travels underscore the need for protections not just in California, but across the United States. That’s why we’re continuing our efforts in court and on Capitol Hill to fight the many attempts by the federal government to remove protections for this endangered species. Without these protections, California — and the country — could be at risk of losing its wolves once again. Join our fight.
Take Action: Help defend the Endangered Species Act
Wildlife could soon be under fire due to a series of regulatory rollbacks to the Endangered Species Act. The Trump administration is seeking to remove protections for wolves across the entire contiguous United States. Urge your governor to stand up for the Endangered Species Act and for wolf recovery by opposing the national wolf-delisting plan.


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