The Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Trump, Putin, and Zelensky

Although Trump has significantly corrected his attitude towards the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there are several things that people should know about Trump’s record on that issue. 

First is the fact that in general he is very deferential to Russian President Vladimir Putin. This has taken the form of Trump siding (for example) in July 2018 with Putin over his own intelligence community when it came to the allegation that Russia interfered with the 2016 election hoping to help Trump get elected. Trump’s initial response to the February 2022 full-fledged Russian invasion of Ukraine was that Putin was “smart.” In the Spring, Summer and Fall of 2025 Trump would occasionally express a negative opinion of Putin’s behavior in relation to the war but continued to occasionally act as if Putin was a partner for peace (i.e. at the August 2025 Summit between the two leaders).

Why is Trump so deferential to Putin? In addition to reading a huge number of relevant articles at CNN, Politico, the BBC and some miscellaneous sources, I read the 2018 book “Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump” by David Corn and Michael Isikoff. They don’t analyze hardly anything AFTER the 2016 election, but there’s plenty of material about how Trump admires Putin and is connected to him in a few ways. There’s some small possibility that Putin has a compromising video of Trump.

More generally we know that Trump likes strongman leaders (including El Salvador's Nayib Bukele, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, and many others). Although this will not be a lengthy description of Russia’s democratic deficit, Putin is widely seen as a strongman. Some bases for this includes the legal shackling of pro-democracy foreign NGOs, the extreme suppression of gay rights and information about homosexuality itself, and the muzzling of any anti-war voices in the last four years. In Trump’s first administration Mike Pompeo was for one year Director of the CIA and then spent three years as Secretary of State. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Pompeo said that Putin, with his KGB background, knows how to “use power” and should therefore be respected.             

It’s also possible that Trump is friendlier to Putin than Ukraine’s President Zelensky partly because the latter is socially liberal. Although Trump makes it difficult to say that he hates the LGB in LGBTQ+, he is certainly on the HOMOPHOBIC half of the spectrum between HOMOPHOBIC and ANTI-HOMOPHOBIC, while Zelensky has expressed support for gay marriage. Zelensky is also against anti-Muslim bigotry. And as far as I can tell, Zelensky has also lobbied non-white nations for support without referring to them as “shit-hole countries.” (On a brief, related note, between this paragraph and the fact that Zelensky is partly Jewish, Putin’s propaganda when the war started, that there was a serious Nazi problem in Ukraine, was nonsense)

Although it is almost ancient history at this point, we need to take a closer look at the February 2025 meeting in the Oval Office where Trump and VP Vance attacked Zelensky. There’s a lot of details about the amount of aid sent Ukraine’s way that I won’t go into here but which undermine Trump’s idea that Zelensky was an ungrateful brat. There’s one thing about that which seems to have been barely mentioned in the mainstream media. When Zelensky came to the White House that day he brought a special gift for Trump. Trump is at least moderately if not seriously into martial arts and Zelenksy brought Oleksandr Usyk's 2024 undisputed heavyweight world boxing championship belt as a gift for Trump. He made a small mis-step and postponed presenting it to Trump- after Trump and Vance ambushed him he left the Oval Office and almost nothing has been heard about the belt since then.

There are three more aspects of Trump’s failure to support the VICTIM of the invasion, and one is that he briefly pushed the idea that UKRAINE was the aggressor in the war. Trump was probably saying it because he’s pro-Putin, but it also reminds me of what a lot of American progressives believe about the war. Whether it’s coming from Trump or the Left, it should be understood that Ukraine is definitely the victim- the Russian military crossed the border, it wasn’t the other way. Some progressives believe that Ukraine’s desire to join NATO justified the invasion. I have no idea how people who are usually driven by a strong opposition to state aggression believe that WANTING to join a military alliance which MIGHT be a threat to Russia is worse than ACTUALLY INVADING Ukraine. If Ukraine had invaded Russia that would be as bad as what Russia actually did. Ukraine was nowhere near invading Russia and they are clearly the smaller, weaker state which had already been militarily violated twice by Russia. It’s Orwellian. 

(Trump leans towards supporting Russia not because he thinks the invasion is legally a good cause, but partially for the same reason that he recognized Israel’s claim to sovereignty over the Golan Heights- he agrees with his Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller who said “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else. But we live in a world, in the real world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power”)

Trump has some times suggested that Zelensky is an illegitimate President because elections haven’t taken place since the invasion. This is nonsense. Because of the war martial-law has been declared and elections held under those conditions would be illegitimate. No one has said that the United Kingdom (outside of Northern Ireland) was no democracy during WWII even though they suspended normal politics and did so when practically ZERO parts of the Union were occupied by a foreign power and when there was a barrier (the sea) between them and their enemies.

The very last thing I’ll talk about is the main thing that inspired me to write this- it’s something that I don’t think anyone has said in defense of Zelensky. Part of the rationale for the Oval Office ambush of Zelensky was that he dressed very casually for a meeting IN THE OVAL OFFICE WITH THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT. At the beginning of the war Zelensky decided that he would dress in a military style to express that he was symbolically with Ukraine’s soldiers in harms way. He wore that outfit all the time, including meeting with other governments. Apparently Trump and his supporters decided that was dis-respectful of Trump. The thing is, Trump loves the idea of being some kind of “war-time president.” During the first several months of the Pandemic he tried that, apparently thinking that leading during a major health crisis was similar enough to leading during armed conflict with a foreign nation. In Aug 2025 he declared that he was a “war hero” (apparently because he decided that Netanyahu was a “war hero” and Trump was supporting Netanyahu or maybe Trump just felt left out and so declared that he and Netanyahu were “war heroes”) The thing is, Zelensky was a war-time leader for real, in a conflict where a decent chunk of his country was either occupied or made up the front lines, where initially a massive effort was made to seize the Ukrainian capitol and where the invasion involved tanks, soldiers armed with powerful fully automatic rifles etc. Zelensky’s status as a war-time leader is twice as legitimate as George W. Bush’s was, and Trump has ZERO claim to being a war-time leader. Although this can be taken too far and I’m not sure if I can be totally non-political about this, tweaking some of the rules of statehood to accommodate a real War-Time leader seems appropriate, especially in this case (in the movie “Iron Jawed Angels” when suffragettes continue protesting the President after America entered World War I they were severely criticized for protesting a war-time President but they shouldn’t have been).

Trump is on the side of aggression, land-grabs, social conservatism, and is in no position to be criticizing political leaders when it comes to how democratic they are. Although the cause of Ukraine is not something that energizes me as a socialist, it is an important cause and I’m glad to say that most Saturdays when I protest Trump with local progressives near a Tesla dealership in Superior (CO), there’s usually one or two Ukrainian flags held by the protestors.

 

An earlier post on the war is here. 

Charlie Kirk's Murder And Political Violence in the US

This is about some thoughts I had in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder. The first essay is what I submitted to the Daily Camera as a Letter-To-The-Editor and is I think exactly what they published here. The second essay is a longer version of the same- this time when writing something I'd like the paper to publish, after I felt that I was kind of done except for the disfiguring editing process so it would be under 300 words, I saved that first, longer version. It might perhaps be the better version because some of the editing I do involves deleting entire sentences or paragraphs which might be less valuable than the rest but are still valuable.

Tom

 

Editor,

After Charlie Kirk’s murder, we are close to another civil war. There’s been, for about 8 years, a “Cold Civil War.” In that time there’s been a large increase in political violence, from the massive insurrection of 1/6/21 by Republicans, to the sole-victim shooting of health care insurance CEO Brian Thompson in 2024.

I am not a pacifist and I define violence as something not inherently unjustified, although it could be defined as something inherently heart-breaking. When I look at Northern Ireland’s history, I defend almost everything the Irish Republican Army did. But I have also supported their 1997 cease-fire since day one. I believe very strongly in electoral politics, petitioning, non-violently protesting, etc. As a socialist I think a lot about how we can be more politically democratic (i.e. reforming the Constitution to reflect the fact that democracy is one-person-one-vote not one-state-flag-one-vote).

Kirk’s murder was wrong but to a very large degree criticizing Trump as a fascist is not deceptively encouraging people to kill people like Kirk- it’s simply not deceptive. Trump has always, since the 2016 campaign, made it clear he likes political violence. He believes that every civilian Executive Branch employee should be loyal to the President- this means that either A) he thinks that every four or eight years the entire civilian Executive Branch workforce should be completely replaced with new people, or B) he doesn’t foresee any future in this country where he is alive and not President.

There is one recent political murder that hasn’t gotten much attention. People should look into the 2020 case of Garret Foster being killed by Daniel Perry in Texas- after being convicted of murder, Perry was pardoned by the governor in 2024.

Tom Shelley

 

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After Charlie Kirk’s murder, we are close to another civil war. There’s been, for about 8 years, a “Cold Civil War” comparable to the standoff between the Soviets and the US. It can be traced back to the “New McCarthyism” after 9-11 that included censoring the anti-racist part of a book about George W. Bush by Michael Moore. In the last several years there’s been a large increase in political violence, from the massive insurrection of 1/6/21 by Republicans, to the murder of health care insurance CEO Brian Thompson in 2024 (he was probably killed because of the horrible health care situation in this country).

I am not a pacifist and we should understand that violence is not defined as inherently unjustified, although it could be defined as something inherently heart-breaking. When I look at Northern Ireland’s history, I defend, to one degree or another, almost everything the Irish Republican Army did. But I have also supported the 1997 cease-fire (permanent for many years now) since day one and have largely supported Sinn Fein (who bent over backwards to make the Peace Process work) since 2000. I believe very strongly in electoral politics, petitioning, non-violently protesting, etc. And have given a lot of thought as a socialist not just to making this country economically democratic and (what I call) sociologically democratic (i.e. racially just and racially equal) but also how we can be more politically democratic (i.e. reforming the Constitution to reflect the fact that democracy is one-person-one-vote not one-state-flag-one-vote).

Kirk’s murder was wrong. At this point it seems like nothing the Left has to own, but I still wanted to make my opinion clear. To a very large degree criticizing Trump as a fascist is not deceptively encouraging people to kill people like Kirk. It’s simply not deceptive. Trump has always, since the 2016 campaign, made it clear he likes political violence. He believes that every Executive Branch employee should be loyal to the President- this means that either A) he thinks that every four or eight years the entire Executive Branch workforce should be completely replaced with new people, or B) he doesn’t forsee any future in this country where is alive and not President.

There is one example of political violence that hasn’t gotten much attention. People should look into the 2020 case of Garret Foster being killed by Daniel Perry in Texas- after being convicted of murder, Perry was pardoned by the governor in 2024. 

A LTE About Two Examples Of How Trump Is Anti-Democratic

This was submitted as a letter to the Daily Camera in April 2025 and published on April 18th. To be honest, I have collected a bunch of little facts about Trump that I dream of making more visible to either the whole population and/or certain chunks of the American population, either when they will do the most damage, or when I have a good excuse for reminding people about them, etc. I briefly but sufficiently weaponized two of these facts below.

 

Tom

Editor,

Donald Trump is getting closer and closer to making plain his contempt for democracy. In some ways this letter might soon be unnecessary. But it wouldn’t hurt to offer more evidence and develop comprehensive arguments that might be better than what we’ve been doing so far.

There is one thing from the last election that I don’t think was used to attack Trump. That is, his calls for reforming Nebraska’s election laws so that, with the Electoral College, it’s winner-takes-all. Nebraska, as well as Maine, awards two of it’s electoral votes based on the result for the whole state, and then gives one more vote per congressional district to whoever wins each of the districts. But Trump had nothing to say about this in relation to Maine, and the thing is he would have benefited in the election from a winner-take-all law in Nebraska, but not in Maine. He has no principled objection to what Nebraska does, he just wanted to win and didn’t care how.

Trump recently suggested that he might have the Federal government take over the running of Washington DC. It’s already bad enough that DC doesn’t have statehood (which means they have no votes in Congress), it would be a huge (undemocratic) step backwards if that were done. Even progressives don’t believe in getting rid of local government- to one degree or another we love it. I think the non-white majority in DC is pretty much why Trump and other GOPers oppose statehood for the city. I should also remind everyone, especially those who rose to power as leaders of the Tea Party movement (i.e. Rand Paul), that a massive part of why America fought a war for independence was the problem of “taxation without representation.”

Tom Shelley
Gunbarrell 

Two Brief Essays About The Artifical Electoral Equality Between The Small States And The Big States in America

The first one is an LTE I sent about 4 weeks ago to the Daily Camera who published it a few days later.

Editor,

 

The attempt at killing Donald Trump brings up the claim that republicans in this country are oppressed. Some republicans even compare their situation with that of Jews during the Holocaust. This is total nonsense.

 

Members of the GOP are far from oppressed. Part of this is how the Senate works- the GOP have an undemocratic advantage in that institution. Every state, no matter it’s size, has two senators. This creates an unjustified equality between the large states and the small states when California SHOULD have 52 times the voting power in the Senate that Wyoming has. Democracy is one person one vote, not one state flag one vote. And there’s also the fact that state Senates are based on the former principle and do not involve every county in the state having the same number of State Senators.

 

The problem is, to one degree or another depending on how you define small and big, a majority of the small states at least lean towards red and a majority of the big states at least lean towards blue. Until that changes (and I doubt it will anytime soon) the way the Senate works makes it unjustifiably easy for the GOP to elect a majority of the upper house, even when the number of residents represented by the GOP in the Senate is smaller than the number of residents represented by the Dems in the Senate.

 

We need to either abolish the Senate or reform it so that every senator gets a number of votes equal to how many congressional districts there are in their state. Not only will this end the unfair advantage the GOP has, it will, independent of which party benefits, make the legislative PROCESS in this country more democratic.

 

Thanks,

 

Tom Shelley

*******

The second is another LTE about a related subject which was published by the Boulder Weekly today. This is what I submitted plus a few small changes made after I submitted it. The edited version is here. 

Editor,
 
The Electoral College is pretty unpopular- a recent Pew Research Center poll says that in 2023 2/3 of Americans wanted to get rid of the EC so that the winner of the popular vote becomes President. In 2000 and 2016 the GOP candidate who won in the EC lost the popular vote. We need to do SOMETHING about it (assuming that the moderately democratic nature of the US survives the next year). I believe that the key thing that needs to be done is to amend the constitution so that all states (and Washington DC) are stripped of the two extra votes they get because all states have two senators.
 
One fact that should be considered is that since the 2000 election some people did the math and found that, if it wasn’t for the two extra votes that every state and DC get, Gore could have totally lost Florida and yet would have won in the electoral college (I found a couple of good web-sites and did the math myself and it’s true). Gore would have won by either 12 or 13 electoral votes (one EC voter who was supposed to vote for Gore abstained). Although this isn’t a massive distortion of democracy like the related problem with votes in the Senate is, it IS undemocratic to create even a small yet false degree of equality between the big states and the small states (California SHOULD have 52 times (not 18 times) more voting power in the EC than Wyoming does). And depending on how you define small and big, to one degree or another a majority of the small states at least lean red and a majority of the big states at least lean blue. So, currently the set-up helps the GOP, but even if undoing that wasn’t part of this, addressing the problem with the EC WOULD move the US political system closer to the (small-d) democratic end of the spectrum.
 
Besides what I propose above, what other options do we have? I think that getting rid of the EC completely might be a bad idea. I’ve read that that might result in EVERY SINGLE STATE doing at least one recount. I at least kind of support the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would require states who have signed up to it to (when the electoral votes of Compact states add up to a majority) have their EC voters vote for whoever won the popular vote. I think it’s flawed but a lot better than nothing. On the other hand it doesn’t seem like a very permanent solution and says nothing about the horrible idea, that comes up at least four times in our political system, that there should be some degree of equality (or total equality) electorally between the small states and the big states.
 
Because the US Constitution sometimes DOES say (erroneously) that democracy is one state flag, one vote instead of one person one vote, and that applies to amendments, the permanent solution I propose might be elusive. But I would like to see the EC reformed so that the votes are based solely on the number of congressional districts. And until we get there the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a good idea.
 
Tom Shelley
Gunbarrell

Letter to the Editor on Early Voting

A LTE I recently submitted to a local paper. I did a similar post here 2 years ago. UPDATE 8/23/24 This was published in the Boulder Weekly on 6/16/22. (UPDATE  1/6/25 The last sentence of the second to last paragraph should read: "And the white ones who get in that situation have less to worry about as far as their white supervisor firing them for coming in a couple hours late than their black and brown co-workers do.")

 

Editor,

It may have been better if I had written this letter about a year ago BEFORE Republicans in many states made large changes to their state’s election system. But I don’t think that those of us who believe in a democratic system are completely defeated and I want to comment on this.

I didn’t read about every change made by these Republicans but I was always relieved when I read that those Democratic state lawmakers standing up to this had succeeded in preserving early voting. I’m not saying the other stuff isn’t important, but I believe that early voting is incredibly important, partly because I don’t think the Republicans have even tried to suggest that it’s easier to commit voting fraud with early voting. I mean as important as voting by mail is, it IS a little more vulnerable to fraud than in-person voting. But not voting early in-person.

I frequently hear reports about long lines at polling places in certain areas. I haven’t seen it myself but I have always voted in Boulder and I’m not surprised that it doesn’t happen in a liberal, middle-class white area. It seems these long lines, which result in some people going home without voting, are in areas with a lot of working-class black and brown people.  I don’t know what happens to cause long lines at such polling places. My theory is that some mid-level employees and maybe some senior employees of county elections departments provide an insufficient number of working computers. However it’s done, it seems like a great solution is LOTS of early voting.

This is a serious problem when people leave the line without voting so that they can go home and sleep so they can get up for work the next morning. And it’s even more classist and racist than I have already suggested. To some extent a lot of voters who are middle-class and in that situation have some flexibility in their job and can make arrangements to skip the next day or part of the next day so they can sleep in a couple hours after staying up late to vote. And the white ones who get in that situation have to worry less about as far as their white supervisor firing them for coming in a couple hours late than their black and brown co-workers do.

I think that some areas need MORE early voting and no areas needs less, and it’s also a good idea to either make election day a holiday or to have elections on Saturdays.

Tom Shelley
Boulder

Bi-Partisanship and Respect in American Politics

(UPDATE 3/23/21 I have looked at the multiple definitions in multiple dictionaries and I need to clarify what I mean by "respect." I'm talking not about admiration for someone, but about how we want to be treated. I feel like everyone deserves respect. I'm talking about treating people the way we would want to be treated; about respecting their rights; not having a double standard (like the one Senate Republicans had when it came to confirming Amy Coney Barrett in Oct. 2020 after blocking the confirmation of Merrick Garland in Feb. 2016 (they said Feb. 2016 was too close to a Presidential election and said that the winner of that election should appoint a replacement to the Supreme Court)). I hope that clears it up, but I am definitely not talking about admiring Republicans)

 

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 UPDATE 5/18/24

1. I kind of said this below, but I've been wanting to say SOMEWHERE, something about Mike Pence (of TRUMP/PENCE 2016/2020) that I don't think a lot of people say. If it weren't for Mike Pence, we would be in a civil war right now.

 

 2. You should read an article here. This is far from the first sign that the GOP is dragging this country into a civil war, but it has alarmed me to such a degree that I am almost tempted to retract what I am saying this post.

********

President Biden campaigned as the person who could unite the country and work in a bi-partisan way. Our country is in something close to a “cold civil war” and we should worry about it getting worse. Biden might have to pursue some moderate policies because he barely has a majority in the Senate and the Dem majority in the House is small. But he should not be pursuing moderate policies in an effort to be a uniter.

The cold civil war is largely the work of republicans who have become very partisan and have decided that anything goes in politics. They already have an unfair advantage in the Senate and to a lesser degree Presidential elections because of how every state gets two senators and each state get two extra votes in the Electoral College because of the two senate seats (most of the smaller states are conservative). The police forces are largely republican and are not always professional about their job. And yet republicans talk as if they’re the oppressed in this country, instead of people of color, for example. And there’s reason to believe that many of them BELIEVE they are oppressed or are on the brink of being oppressed (see that link above).

Democrats promoting liberal and progressive policies some or most of the time are not the problem (I define liberal as to the left of Bill Clinton and to the right of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and I discuss that more here). Republicans spreading conspiracy theories like QAnon and calling for the death of democratic politicians and invading the US Capitol as they did in Jan. are the problem. QAnon started with the idea that the Democrats and the so-called “Deep State” (bureaucrats hostile to Trump) are a cannibalistic, Satanic elite that sexually abuse children. There is nothing on the Democratic side that’s both A) so widely accepted and B) so wildly slanderous. Democratic members of congress don’t call for the death of their republican opponents but GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene HAS called for the execution of prominent Dems (a great video refuting one of the GOP arguments in her favor is here). Even during the eruption of Black Lives Matter protests last Summer violence was uncommon and it was aimed at targets other than democratic institutions- the Jan. 6th riot was aimed at overturning the results of a democratic election. (How do I know it was a democratic election? All of the dozens of republican lawsuits were either dismissed by a judge or were withdrawn. Even the Supreme Court of the US wouldn’t help Trump, and there are many statements by government officials like then-Attorney General William Barr which contradicted Trump’s claim that there was fraud on a scale large enough to explain Biden’s win)

Those are just a few examples of the many, many ways that republicans have become incredibly partisan. Biden pushing, for example, a massive COVID-19 relief bill as he’s doing now is not the kind of partisanship that’s the problem. When republicans oppose that kind of effort, I don’t see it as a problem unless they’re using the filibuster some large chunk of the time. If Biden wants to be a uniter, he just needs to not do the sort of things I described in the paragraph above and I can’t see him doing anything like that at all. He doesn’t, for example, believe in packing the Supreme Court, something that’s only questionable, not comparable to the things mentioned in that paragraph. He should act like he’s accountable to Congress and avoid the behavior we saw from Trump in his dealings with Congress. He needs to give the GOP (individually and collectively) credit when it’s due (for example, Mike Pence didn’t give in to Trump’s demands about Congress certifying the 2020 election results, or that a large majority of the House GOP voted to keep Liz Cheney in their leadership after she voted to impeach or that two apparently good COVID-19 vaccines were developed on Trump’s watch or that in 2005 the Chair of the RNC admitted that Nixon’s 1968 campaign appealed to segregationists and apologized for it). He needs to abstain from having a double standard and seriously criticize any Democratic politician or official if (and it’s a huge if) they say anything comparable to what Marjorie Taylor Greene said. Although I’m not sure what is involved with the “reconciliation” parliamentary move (it’ll probably be how Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill gets passed in the Senate) it seems like something that Democrats can’t and shouldn’t use often, just like the filibuster shouldn’t be used too often (actually, at this point I think the filibuster has been abused by the GOP and is a bad thing and that it should be gotten rid of independent of which party is in the majority of the Senate).

Biden should treat the GOP with respect, but you can disagree like crazy with someone and still treat them with respect, so he shouldn’t try to be a uniter by pushing moderate policies.

(I believe that there’s a spectrum between democratic and undemocratic and that our political system is  closer to the former than the latter, and I did a post here about the different ways America can become more politically democratic (there's a similar post here))

 

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UPDATE 11/13/25

I need to add two more items to this post.

First, a paragraph that I wrote about the danger of a second American civil war, for a separate post    should also be here:

Some times I think it might be becoming increasingly unavoidable, with Trump as President and the division that that means. His supporters simply do not believe the various sources that most of us (liberals and progressives/leftists) do and you cannot believe the things that people around Trump imply we support. That’s part of something that’s a big part of what’s wrong- there is no respect for the facts. I’m not saying that’s brand new or totally avoidable in politics, but it is much worse today than it usually is, and that worsening is 100% one-sided- CNN, for example, spends a HUGE amount of time fact-checking Trump, and spent about 5% as much time fact-checking Biden. I believe that there are some other fact-checkers out there that are also good and might possibly be more acceptable to Republicans (is it better if they’re NOT part of the media?). If it hadn’t just started requiring subscriptions I would, as I have in the past, strongly recommend the BBC News website- it’s WIDELY respected throughout the world, and it’s coverage of Northern Ireland 1997-2005 was close behind the Irish media in accuracy and not far behind how sensitive it was to the Irish perspective (if you know Anglo-Irish history and the early history of Northern Ireland, you’d understand the importance of that in coverage of The Troubles) (I say 1997-2005 because during that time each week I read an average of about 100 articles from Irish news sources (primarily the Irish News and the Irish Times) and about 25 articles from the BBC). GOPers would do a lot worse than getting their news there. I am not going to do an entire essay here on this topic and I think I have said all I have to say here about a possible second American civil war.

Second, I need to explain that I recently did something on the fringe of trying to avoid a civil war. I did a little project where I typed up something that touched on various aspects of the Prisoner of War issue (I imagine I am practically the only person who considers that an issue, but it’s very important to me and I explain why in a blogpost version of the PDF essay I put together here) The thing is, one batch of email addresses I sent it to were the “contact us” email address or the leadership addresses of six veterans organizations- three that lean a bit or a lot to the left (About Face (Iraq vets against the war), Common Defense (for progressives and liberals in the general vet population) and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (liberal, but probably includes a lot of moderates as well)) and three that lean to the right (Vietnam Veterans of America, Veterans of Foreign Wars and American GI Forum (probably moderate and for Latinos and Latinas)). I focused exclusively on the POW issue but I think it had potential to make some of them more likely to listen to what I have to say on other issues (although I don’t think I got more than 10 page-views of my blog in connection with emailing veterans groups, my effort could have resulted in some of them reading significant parts of my blog). 

The Electoral College and the Election of the President

There’s a ballot initiative on the ballot in Colorado that takes aim at how the Electoral College works. It’s called Proposition 113 and it would do the following: it commits CO to an alliance of states that have taken a similar position and when that alliance represents so much electoral power that it’s Electoral College members could elect the President, CO’s electors will vote in the EC for whichever candidate won the popular vote even if that candidate didn’t win CO.

I don’t like how America places someone in the White House. In 2000 and 2016 that person did not win the popular vote, and look at how many people have been placed on the Supreme Court partly by the two Republicans I am talking about- George W. Bush and Donald Trump. If Trumps wins the EC, he’ll again do so without winning the Popular Vote (although that would be the least of our constitutional problems if he wins  the EC).

At one level, we should simply put in the White House whoever wins the popular vote. But A) there are other problems with the EC and B) I have heard one argument about what Prop. 113 would do that prompted me to vote against it.

First, that argument is that if the EC were abolished and the popular vote placed a candidate in the White House, there would be recounts (possibly recount after recount) in all 50 states after the election. It seems quite possible it might take weeks to stop the recounts after they’ve become excessive- it might be what happened in FL in 2000 but 51+ recounts instead of just one (I am not sure how many others there were, but I’m pretty sure that only one made it to the SCOTUS).

There are 1-2 reforms of the EC that would satisfy me and which would help us avoid that possible nightmare scenario and still have more respect for the intent of the voters.

The first one is not the one I feel strongly about. It’s doing half of what Maine and Nebraska do where there are two EC votes that reflect the majority of the state overall and one vote per Congressional District that goes the way each District goes. I like the second part, about the districts. It could be called proportional representation compared to what happens when ALL the Electoral Votes of a state (with more than one District) go to the same candidate.

The important part is that all the states need to shed the two extra EC votes they get because they have two senators. These two extra Senate-based votes create a small but false and undesirable degree of equality between the big states and the small states. California should have 53 times the power in the EC that Wyoming has (CA has 53 Districts, and WY has one). As it is right now, CA has a little more than 18 times more power in the EC, but it has 69 times the population.

I’ve read some good sources that say Gore actually WON Florida in 2000 when all the votes are counted. But let’s say he lost FL fair and square. Someone did the math and if it weren’t for these two additional votes that every state gets, if all they got were just based on Congressional Districts, he could have lost FL by a landslide and still won the EC. To one extent or another, depending on how you define a small state (I draw the line at them having more than 9 congressional districts) about half of the the small states are reliably conservative, and a minority are reliably liberal, and a few are battleground states, although those numbers could change.

Right now, if these Senate-based votes were eliminated 220 Electoral Votes would be needed to win the election. Although I’m open minded that they may be biased with polling information, I like following the polls and the averages of the polls on the web-site Real Clear Politics, a site that is generally leans to the right. If you strip away two from each of the numbers they use, the total EC votes that Biden would have locked down in the Solid Democrat, Likely Democrat, and Leans Democrat states would be 185. Right now, 10/13/20, Biden is doing very well in WI (8 Votes), MI (14), PA (18) and NV (4). Looking at just those four states, Biden has two instead of just one path to victory (WI could be replaced by NV and Biden could still win; the way things are actually set up, MI, PA and NV wouldn’t be enough).

In general, shedding those Senate-based votes makes it easier for the Dems for the foreseeable future. And even when that ceases to be the case with shifting political trends, it would just be more (small-d) democratic if the EC were without those Senate-based votes.

I don’t feel strongly about the first reform I described (that NE and ME do). And I don’t think that Prop. 113 is horrible. But I think that getting rid of those Senate-based votes is incredibly important. One reason I bring this up is that it also exposes how messed up the Senate is- as i’ve said elsewhere, the Senate needs to be reformed. I think that each senator should get a number of votes equal to the number of Districts in their state, and that number should be used for everything in the Senate, including committee votes.

The Stars and Bars II

Recently great attention has been placed on symbols of the Confederacy in our nation. It almost seems like there is a near consensus that such symbols belong in museums and nowhere else. But Trump, who is still supported to one degree or another by a large minority of the population and might be re-elected, passionately believes that there is nothing wrong with such symbols.

I have named this post “The Stars and Bars II” because I did a post about 11 years ago called “The Stars and Bars.” It’s about how legitimizing the Confederate flag contributed to a woman (whose story I read about in the publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center) becoming a Nazi skinhead.

A lot of people believe that the Confederacy was about independence from tyrannical Washington DC rule instead of being about slavery. But when they considered ending slavery to get military support from Europe and win the war, they decided not to. Slavery was more important to them than independence.

When people invoke states rights in connection with the Confederate cause, what they don’t know or ignore is that the Confederate states were unhappy with those northern states that passed laws interfering with the Fugitive Slave Act and which banned slave-owners from bring slaves with them while inside those states. They were against individual states passing anti-slavery laws.

The Confederacy didn’t believe in freedom. According to the movie “CSA: The Confederate States of America” (which is a fake documentary looking at an alternative history where the South wins), they intended to colonize Latin America if successful.

The idea that the South was oppressed by the North is ridiculous. In two ways their voting population was over-represented in the US government.

First, as I explain towards the bottom of this post, the way the US Senate works is undemocratic to the benefit of the smaller states. I have yet to create a 100% fool-proof argument, but take the number two for two Senators and divide it by the population of Wyoming, the smallest state and do the same thing with California. The tiny percentage of a vote that residents of the former have in the Senate is MUCH bigger than the same for Californians, about 67 times bigger. There is nothing wrong about small states being out-voted by big states, it’s not like living in a small state puts you in a protected class and you need some sort of Affirmative Action. I’m willing to bet that the population of the average Confederate state back then was probably about 1/10 the size of the population of the average Union state (UPDATE 9/4/23 I just found a way to sort of nail this down without a lot of work- the average Confederate state had 5.25 congressional districts and the average Union state (including the border states) had 7.4 congressional districts).

There’s also the 3/5 Compromise, where in terms of allocating US House districts, each slave was counted as 3/5 of a person. I’m sure in some Confederate states before the Civil War, this meant at least an additional House seat.

So, the states that formed the Confederacy had MORE power per non-slave resident than the States that remained in the union. They were not oppressed by the North. Even with their inflated political power, they were often just out-voted. Considering that the Constitution gives every state an additional two votes in the Electoral College based on having two Senators, which creates a small and false degree of equality between the states, that statement applies to the election of Lincoln as well.

They were also, if it’s not obvious, just racist. One example of that is that some Black Union soldiers captured by the Confederacy were killed instead of being held as POWs and more generally Black POWs were treated differently than white POWs.  One of the military installations that Trump wants to keep named after a Confederate general, Fort A.P. Hill, is named after someone who had his men execute Black POWs. According to this (two other things in this post come from there), when Texas seceded, it was explicitly in favor of the idea that the white race is superior.

The Confederacy was all about racism and slavery and had no legitimate claim to being oppressed by the North. The Confederate flag is a symbol of racism and should be removed from anything official and military bases named after Confederate generals should be renamed and statues etc. about the Confederacy should be removed to museums where they belong.

Don't Vote GOP: Three New Poems

(this was originally published 4/27/20 but for some reason it stopped showing up, so I am republishing it now)

Here are three more poems. They are all based on offensive lyrics, I explain that here.

For all the poems, you can click on the "lyrics" label the bottom.

1. Stop the Klan. What you think it's about.
2. Irish Citizen Army. The Irish workers' militia of 1913-1916.
3. Don't Vote SDLP. What's wrong with Northern Ireland's Social Democratic and Labour Party.

“Stop the Ku Klux Klan” based on “Stand Up and Be Counted” by either The Klansmen in the 1980s or the racist assholes who originally wrote it several decades ago. Original lyrics are here.

1. In 2017 or 2018 or 2019 there were reports that caravans of refugees from Central America were traveling through Mexico on their way to the US. Trump used this, probably successfully, to whip up anti-immigrant hatred. These were definitely refugees and they were traveling in caravan for security.
2. I believe that there is a spectrum between democratic and undemocratic and I believe that, politically, the US is closer to the democratic end of the spectrum. But my thoughts about how we can make it more democratic politically are here. I worry greatly that Trump is a fascist, literally, and my thoughts about that are in the middle of a post here.

3. Trump is a racist. See this and this. There’s also his comments on the murder of an anti-fascist by a fascist in Charlottesville in 2017. And there’s this, that I published elsewhere on my blog:

[When asked about David Duke endorsing him, his] response in an interview was:

Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke. OK? I don't know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don't know. I don’t know, did he endorse me or what’s going on, because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you're asking me a question that I'm supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about.

4. The Torah is the main Jewish text.
5. My thoughts about religion are found here, although a lot of those posts are only partly relevant.
6. **58% of this version is me, 42% is the original.

7. I give this poem 3 stars out of 5.

8. UPDATE 6/1/22 I believe there's a spectrum between democratic and undemocratic and I USED to believe we were in the middle but closer to the democratic end of the spectrum. With what the GOP has done in the last couple years I think we might be closer to the UNdemocratic end of the spectrum.

Chorus:
Stand up and be counted, welcome the caravans
Stand up and be counted, and stop the Ku Klux Klan

We are anti-racists and love our democracy true
We always can be counted on, when there's a job to do
We educate our communities day and night, to keep them Klan-free
And proudly display anti-racist bumper-stickers, promoting diversity

Chorus

The Bible’s pretty cool, but so are the Torah and Koran
We believe in gay rights, so fuck the Ku Klux Klan
In search of peace and liberty, with the constitution in hand
We will defeat Trump to save our democratic land

***********

“Irish Citizen Army” based on “Blackshirt and Roses” by Razor’s Edge. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is written from the perspective of an Irish Republican in the 1970s, or 1980s or 1990s in Ireland. The Irish Citizen Army was started in 1913 during a general lock-out (where, in response to labor activism, an employer throws their employees out of the factory, etc.) in Dublin. It was formed to protect workers from attacks by the police.  In 1916, when the Easter Rising (an attempt at getting the British out) took place, while most of the moderate Irish Volunteers failed to participate the (admittedly much smaller) ICA participated fully and James Connolly, the leader of the ICA, was the de facto leader of the uprising. Connolly was a Marxist theoretician and union organizer and considered Ireland’s greatest socialist- there is a train station in Dublin named after him.
2. The Starry Plough is basically the flag of republican socialism, although some non-republican socialists use it. At one point about 10-15 years ago, and maybe still today, the youth wing of the Irish Labour Party used it.
3. Connolly was one of the few European socialists to oppose the nationalism of World War I. (The original refers to WWII)
4. Razor’s Edge were/are British and support(ed) the British and Unionist causes in N. Ireland.
5. **54% of this version is me, 46% is the original.

6. I give this poem 4 stars out of 5.

They created the Starry Plough, an emblem of the Irish working-class
And they spread Marxism, patriotic workers struggling en masse.

(Chorus)
Fuck the British Empire
Ireland still recalls
The Irish Citizen Army
Heroes one and all.

Opposed the nationalist war in Europe, they knew the real enemy.
With the European Working-Class, they were in solidarity.

The flame they lit was not extinguished, still burning in our hearts today.
We're carrying on the fight because the ICA led the way.

(Chorus)

Fuck the British Empire
Ireland still recalls
Connolly and the ICA
Heroes one and all.

************

“Don’t Vote SDLP” based on “Freedom” by Razor’s Edge. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is NOT written from my perspective, but the perspective of  the type of person I probably could have collaborated with politically if I had lived in the Nationalist community of Northern Ireland in the 1970s, 80s or 90s (I’m American). It’s from the perspective of someone who lives in a working-class Nationalist area in the 1990s and is sort of pacifist and a left-wing social-dem and doesn’t like Sinn Fein very much because of the violence and doesn’t like the Social Democratic and Labour Party for the reasons I give here (there are some more thoughts about the SDLP here, while discussing the episode “Rising Star”).
The thing is, the British Labour Party hasn’t ever organized in the North and recently had to be taken to court to allow Northerners to join, but they refuse to let the Party run candidates there (which is more of a good thing than a bad thing). There are multiple tendencies in the BLP when it comes to N. Ireland and I think the dominant one is to support their official sister organization the SDLP. I don’t think they ever called for the IRISH Labour Party to organize there and it wasn’t until tension developed between the ILP and the SDLP in 2001, 2002, and 2003 that the ILP started a transitional process of organizing there that was supposed to result in them running candidates as rivals to those of their official sister party. I did an essay/article/post PARTLY about that here.
So, this person has little or no options for voting (even if the BLP had been running candidates there, this person wouldn’t have voted for them (unless they were comparable to Tony Benn or Ken Livingstone)).
2. The red, white, and blue are the colors of the British flag.
3. The SDLP encouraged their supporters to do little more than vote. They were more or less against marching and probably against rallies as well. It’s true that non-SDLP supporters could have become involved and the inevitable friction with the security forces may have been difficult for stewards to control and a riot could have developed. But they still should have tried it, maybe with double the usual number of stewards. If there weren’t enough good stewards in the SDLP, maybe, in the 1970s and 1980s, they could have acquired the help of members and former members of the Official IRA, whose movement the Provisionals (SF and the IRA) had split from, and which was committed to a relatively non-violent path (I just think it would have been great if they HAD organized marches and I wanted to explain that they could have found a way to do it with a low risk of them turning into riots). The failure to offer mass struggle as an alternative to armed struggle weakened the overall effort to advance the interests of the Nationalist population.
4. The SDLP was socially conservative and although they probably did a better job of attracting Protestants than the Provos did, they were also closer to the Catholic Church.
5. Critics sometimes call the SDLP the Stoop Down Low Party.
6. In the 70s and 80s and probably the 90s as swell, I can imagine SDLP canvassers at election time being uncomfortable when whoever they’re talking with informed them that they’re gay. That homophobia is largely gone now, and I don’t think it was all that hateful in the first place, but they were homophobes.
7. They’re in the Socialist International and today maybe the SI almost deserves them, but with their social conservatism and moderate, almost capitalist, economics, they certainly didn’t belong there in the 1990s and 2000s and probably not in the 70s and 80s.
8. My thoughts about what the Provos did are here.
9. Razor’s Edge were/are British and support(ed) the British and Unionist causes in N. Ireland.
10. **66% of this version is me, 34% is the original.

11. This poem gets 5 stars out of 5.

Sell-out politicians always seem confused
They can’t figure out how to eject the red, white and blue
the only time you matter is on Election Day
so they can grab your vote and then tell you to go pray

(Chorus)
Options, no options
For pacifist social-dems in this community
Options, no options
The Stoops offer no mass struggle opportunities

A community defended by heroes but who then go too far
There are too many problems with their repertoire
But the only time you matter to the Stoops is on Election Day
They really want your vote unless you’re lesbian, bi or gay

Chorus

With their moderate instincts, the community gets left behind
if you think they’re helping us, you must be f*cking blind
the only time you matter is on Election Day
They’re in the International, but they’re pro-life and anti-gay

Some Thoughts About the Republican Party, COVID-19 and Democracy

When it comes to a few voting reforms like vote-by-mail, they claim there is potential for the almost non-existent problem of voting fraud (that they believe is common) to get worse. Apparently there is a little more than almost zero potential for fraud with voting-by-mail, but in at least in some states it is so tiny. There is also a history of mail-in ballots being challenged more often than regular ballots.

READ THIS AS FAR AS WHY VOTE-BY-MAIL MIGHT BE A BAD IDEA.

But there is apparently even less possibility of fraud or challenges with early voting (perhaps no more than voting in person on election day) and the GOP hates that as well.

The thing that vote by mail and early voting do is reduce lines on election day outside polling places in precincts that don’t have enough stations (I just looked it up to be sure and a station is sometimes defined as "A place where one performs a task" and I wasn't sure if "machine" is the right word because I think that sometimes there is no machine involved). So many people in such precincts end up leaving the line because, (and this is more common with working-class people), they have to go to sleep so they can get up and go to work. And if they’re people of color they’re more likely to have a boss who will penalize them for being late for work than if they’re white. (UPDATE 11/5/20 There's also a class dimension as self-employed and professional people often have more control over their schedule than everyone else does and can make arrangements to sleep late the day after the election in case they're in line to vote late at night)

With COVID-19 early voting is also an important option, and one that can be set up pretty easily, easier than setting up vote-by-mail. If there’s early voting about 8 hours a day (everyday and on work days, 12-8 PM or something like that) for 1-2 months before the election, we’ll have plenty of time to vote, we can do it a small number at a time (depending on how big the room is, so we can be six feet apart). If you go there one day a month before election day and there’s a line stretching around the block because of social-distancing, just come back another day.

(For all I know it *MIGHT* be necessary for a county to have greater security (including cameras?) where the ballots are stored, but that would only be for 1-2 months’ and it wouldn’t be a lot of extra security. I haven’t heard of any problems with the accumulation of ballots due to vote-by-mail and/or early voting, although this would be different and MIGHT require new arrangements like extra security)

It’s not absolutely perfect, I was thinking as I typed the paragraph about security, but I think it might be best, especially with COVID-19, if we have both vote-by-mail as available as possible, and also have extensive early voting. We are rapidly approaching a point where it will be too late for Congress to effectively mandate vote-by-mail for everyone in every state (that has to be mandated soon, so states can have all the materials needed printed, which takes a long time) and last I heard, the GOP is totally against that. There might be a massive number of challenges in the event of universal vote-by-mail, which would seriously delay the results, maybe for months.

1847: Three New Poems

Three more poems. These are all based on offensive material, I explain that and my poems in general here.

The rest of the poems are available by clicking on the "lyrics" label at the bottom. There are about 10 pages worth, so click on "older posts."

1. Black 47. About the Irish "Famine."
2. Still Right-Wing. About American politics.
3. 1945. About WWII.

“Black 47” based on “Six Million Lies” by No Remorse. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the so-called “Famine” that Ireland experienced.
2. From elsewhere on my blog, here’s a fairly good summary:

During the Famine, 10-15% of the population died and 10-15% of the population would have died if they hadn’t emigrated. This was concentrated in the South and West of Ireland where there very few settlers- if you ignore the settlers and their descendents, it was probably closer to 15-20% and 15-20% of the population. Why did a potato blight result in something close to genocide? First, the indigenous Catholic population was still recovering from about 1.5 centuries of political and legal disempowerment that occurred because of the Penal Laws which denied them most of the rights enjoyed by most or all Protestants (it varied from right to right). “Catholic Emancipation” was only made about 90% complete about 15 years earlier. Because of this and general poverty, the indigenous population was largely dependent on land owned by land lords and the potato crop. For about 45 years before the Famine and during the Famine, Ireland didn’t have a devolved parliament, they were completely ruled from London. Crucially, during the Famine, MASSIVE amounts of food were being shipped from Ireland to Britain, something that involved seventy-five British Army regiments. …  the deaths only stopped when the blight stopped. … The British were more or less racist towards the Irish at that point in Anglo-Irish history and were more concerned about practicing Laissez-faire economics and feeding the British population than they were concerned about mass starvation among the Irish

3. It was close to genocide.
4. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that a British Prime Minister apologized for British policy during the Famine. I guarantee you they weren’t being honest about it and not apologizing.
5. I’m not sure to what extent the British pushed the idea that the Irish are all alcoholics, but I’m sure they at least sort of did.
6. If you focus on the number of INDIGENOUS Irish who died or emigrated, it was a little less than three million.
7. As far as the American establishment pushing lies about the Famine, see this. As far as I can tell, a lot of Irish-Americans believe that the Irish chose to just eat potatoes.
8. I’m not saying that everyone who supports Northern Ireland being part of the UK also peddle lies about the Famine, but I think that most of them do.
9. During the Famine, people were offered money if they didn’t teach their children Irish (that’s according to a Sinead O’Connor song).
10. The 12 of July is a major holiday for N. Ireland Unionists, and is political and sectarian (it’s the anniversary of a battle in Ireland where a Protestant contender for the British throne beat his Catholic rival).
11. Orange is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry in the Anglo-Irish context.
12. Partition is the division of Ireland.
12. As I prove here only .3% of operations of the Provisional IRA resulted in civilian death. And I like referring to The Troubles as the Second Anglo-Irish War (the first being the War of Independence).
13. This isn’t ABOUT SF. It’s just saying that the cause of Irish freedom is strengthened by SF’s electoral success. It’s not saying SF believes this or did that, except that they will lead Ireland to unity (no member of SF is going to complain about that statement).
14. There is a theory I largely subscribe to, that the Unionists in N. Ireland are actually Irish, but I’m also comfortable with the idea that they can and (in a united Ireland) will develop a British-Irish identity which I’m sure the Irish will be willing to accommodate.
11. **78% of this version is me, 22% is the original. I took the first two lines of the original, combined them, altered them, and then created a completely new 2nd line.
12. No Remorse were British and supported the unionist and/or British cause(s) in N. Ireland.

Did the Irish really prefer potatoes or is it just a British lie?
20% left and 20% died
Genocide by the Brits, we have the proof
Why did they try to cover up the truth?
Scared that they would look like scum that they are
So they pushed the idea that the Irish can’t stay out of bars

Three million of the human race
Because the British Army had an iron grip on the place
They play down the fact that food was shipped across the Irish sea
They may have fooled you, but not me

The worst case of Laissez-faire economics in history
It was also racism and religious bigotry
American media and schools cooperate
With the lies of those who support the North being part of the British state
Well the beautiful Irish language didn't die
Fuck Margaret Thatcher and the 12th of July!

So let's make Ireland British Army free
We’ll make sure there's no return to an Orange society
The partition of Ireland is rotten to the core
Provos fought with courage and honor in the Anglo-Irish War
With Sinn Fein and global solidarity we'll surely win
And the Protestant Unionists will see us as their kin

**************

“Still Right-Wing” based on “Still Occupied” by Razor’s Edge. Original lyrics are here.

1. 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is the address of the White House.
2. Fash is short for fascists.
3. I doubt it’s just a tiny minority of white people who worry about that. I think it might be around 20-30%.
4. “Right-to-work” is, in general, a reference to anti-union government policies. Specifically, “Right-to Work” laws say that someone can’t be required to join a union in order to get a job. This means that people who benefit from a union contract at their job don’t have to pay membership dues, which weakens the union.
6. As far as the racist, homicidal cops, see this.
7. A lot of GOP local and state elections officials pull fucked up shit. Not enough voting machines in certain precincts and few or no opportunities to vote early means long lines and people going home without voting so they can get up and go to work the next morning. There’s what happened in FL in 2000 where they were. WAY to quick to take people off the rolls because they MIGHT have been convicted of something. More recent fight-back against letting ex-cons vote, and creating a poll tax by saying that such people have to pay all the money they owe in connection with their conviction before they can vote again.
8.  In terms of racial equality, the FUTURE looked so bright when Obama was President. Trump took that and turned it on its head. Also, Obama (as a candidate and as President) was not a progressive, but nor was he a Clintonite. He was a liberal, as I non-philosophically define them here.
9. I’m not interested in an alliance with the obnoxious, extreme, sectarian anarchists. I think the moderate anarchists were SLIGHTLY happy with Obama being elected, because he was the first Black President, and as I explain above, he was not a Clintonite. And I think that most Marxists and almost all social-dems were at least sort of happy with him, for the same reasons.
10. **76% of this version is me, 24% is the original. The second-to-last line of both verses is brand new- it wasn't there before.
11. UPDATE 4/1/20 Just in case there's confusion, I'm not saying that everyone to the left of center and  opposed to the GOP is a leftist or more generally a progressive. It might sound like I'm saying that, but I'm not. I JUST CHANGED "WE'LL" IN THE COUNTY CLERK LINE TO "DEMS AND PROGRESSIVES WILL".

With Obama, the future looked so bright,
Finally, a President who wasn’t white.
But then, at 1600 Pennsylvania, Trump moved in,
Even though, the popular vote, he didn’t win.
Our society is being torn apart,
think this is bad but it's just the start.
Instead of health care fash worry that the white race will die
How can so many white people swallow so many lies?

Chorus
It’s still a “right-to-work” nation, workers aren’t free -
The working-class labor movement is on it’s knees
And it's hard, hard to defeat -
the murderous police departments patrolling the Black street!

With GOP County Clerks Dems and progressives will never have a chance to win
Their idea of democracy and fascism are almost akin
Hopefully the white working-class will awake, before it's too late,
And Labor will keep educating them, however much money it takes.
We’re trying to save the labor movement from homicide,
we're for comprehensive diversity and for class pride.
Whether we’re social-dems, Marxists or moderate anarchists
We're never ever giving in to the fucking capitalists!

*************

“1945” based on “Final Attack” by Final War. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the last several months of WWII in Europe.
2. A bridgehead is either a position held to maintain the possession of a bridge at the front, or a position just behind enemy lines.
3. Many of them didn’t do any time because they were executed.
4. The Waffen-SS was the military (as opposed to paramilitary) component of the SS (the very ideological, official, domestic security part of the Nazi state).
5. Combined arms attacks involve more than one type of military unit (i.e. infantry, armor, ground attack aircraft, artillery)
6. The main weapon of a tank is its main gun. Bazookas were an early version of a Rocket-Propelled-Grenade type weapon.
7. Panzers were German tanks.
8. **71% of this poem is me, 29% is the original.
9. UPDATE 4/6/20 I need to say that as far as American servicemen opposed to anti-semitism, realistically it was probably just some moderate-sized minority of them.
10. UPDATE 4/6/20 The chorus is kind of out of whack chronologically (to one ridiculously large degree or another, knowledge of the camps was incredibly limited until the end of the war).

The day is approaching the day of victory
for the Poles, the Jews, and all those, opposed to the Nazis
gonna keep fighting gonna knock em dead
gonna reinforce the front and our bridgeheads

gonna take many prisoners when their lines we overrun
won’t stop till our mission is done
they took over Europe and made Jews wear an arm-band
now we’re gonna smash them with an iron hand

(Chorus)
Oh no, what are the Nazis gonna do?
when we find the concentration camps for the Jews
We’ll put them on trial for war crimes
After they’re convicted, they won’t do any time

we’ve got our sights set on the Waffen-SS
Arms factories, all those Nazis who oppress
we’re on a rampage we’re letting loose
And we’ll only accept unconditional surrender, without a truce

We carry out ambushes and combined arms attacks
they tried to take the world, now they cower at our artillery impacts
Main guns and bazookas are how we destroy Panzer tanks
And when we capture Krauts we love to interrogate their upper ranks

Are Jewish-Americans Oppressed as Jewish-Americans?

I have decided to expand on my relatively detailed assertion that Jewish-Americans aren’t oppressed as Jewish-Americans, and say some other very relevant things.

First, below is what I what I wrote on the subject in another post:

Some would say that Jewish-Americans are oppressed and neither Catholics nor the Irish (in America) are. Are they really OPPRESSED? I have a bad history with this question, but let me just briefly say that even in the last 6 years during which we saw 14 Jewish people killed because they were Jewish, they are not oppressed (my timing could be much better and I might sound insensitive, but A) I am not going post-pone this post any longer, and B) although this doesn’t mean I am above criticism as a Christian ally, I think it’s reasonable for me to point out that a lot of the material on my blog is against anti-Semitism). What about widespread police brutality? Mass incarceration? Disproportionate unemployment? Jim Crow-type laws? A low rate of educational success? Where am I getting this? I’m not going to offer a flurry of sources, statistics or quotes. I doubt anyone will seriously say I’m wrong on the relatively specific points I just made. I have been observing American politics a lot the last 25 years. During that time I have probably read an average of 3000 words a day about America in different articles or books. It’s also relevant that while getting my BA in Ethnic Studies, I don’t think anyone ever said something like “that also happens a lot with Jewish-Americans.”

First, bigotry is not oppression. Someone said to me that when someone spray-paints a Swastika on the home of a Jewish person, that that’s oppression. It’s not. It’s a hate crime. At a certain point a massive rate of hate crimes (dependent on how big the target population is) by itself might approach oppression, especially if it’s attached to a genocidal event. But I’ll say more soon about hate crimes against the Jewish-American community and whether or not the word oppression should be used.

Here’s the thing. Catholics in America are not oppressed. Now, I have experienced anti-Catholic bigotry myself, three times. And let me explain something about Jews, Catholics, and political power in America.

In an average Presidential election year here, Catholics were about 15% of the population. Jews were about 2% of the population. IF, in some bizarre hypothetical political system that I DO NOT ADVOCATE FOR, Presidential election victories were distributed based on figures for religion and population, there should have been about 9 elections won by a Catholic. One should have been won by a Jew. Instead we have had one election where a Catholic won. Also, we have only had two elections where a Catholic running for Vice President won. If it wasn’t for Katherine Harris and the conservatives on the Supreme Court, in 2000 we would have elected a Jew Vice President.

Also, on a slightly different question, about the Supreme Court, there’s further evidence that if we just look at Catholics and Jews, Catholics have got it worse. I am not going to re-do the math I did 1-2 years ago, especially because there are different time periods to look at, but if we look at the last 20 years, about 30% of the Supreme Court has been Jewish and about 40-60% has been Catholic. Yes, the Catholics are over-represented (in the last 20 years Catholics have been about 25% of the population), and I’m slightly serious when I say that I feel the pain of American Protestants. But Jews are even more over-represented (UPDATE 5/20/21 Catholics are represented about twice as much as they should be, and Jewish-Americans are represented about 15 times more than they should be; I'm not saying there's anything seriously wrong with that, I'm just saying that the latter are more over-represented than the former).

This is not because of anti-Catholic bigotry, but according to the Pew Research Center, in 2016 only 19% of Catholic households earned $100,000 or more (the following groups were ahead of Catholics- Muslims, Mormons, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Unitarian Universalist, Presbyterian Church in America, United Method Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Church of Christ, Orthodox Christian, Agnostic, Atheist, Presbyterian Church (USA), and Episcopal Church, Hindu, Jewish, ALL US ADULTS (I think that means that Catholics are below average)). For Jewish Americans, it’s 44%.

There is the fact that in the last 10 years about 15 Jewish-Americans have been killed because they’re Jewish. A similar situation for Catholics would be about 200 Catholics killed because they’re Catholic, and I doubt there has been a single such murder in the last few decades, let alone the last 10 years.

Going back to hate crimes and oppression, between 1969 and 2005 856 Catholic civilians in N. Ireland were killed by the security forces or loyalist paramilitaries (the latter, to one degree or another, with support from the former). A comparable situation for Jewish-Americans in the last 10 years would involve somewhere around 2,000 murders of unarmed Jews because they were Jewish, although that might be off by a few hundred in either direction because there seems to be very little agreement when it comes to conducting a census of Jewish-Americans.

In N. Ireland, there’s also the following facts:

1. Until recently, the British head of State couldn’t be married to a Catholic- that was changed recently, but they still can’t be a Catholic themselves (I realize that in recent decades and maybe for around 150 years, the monarchy has been very powerless, but it's symbolic, I believe that it encourages anti-Catholic bigotry in N. Ireland, and imagine if the Head of State and Head of Government  in this country were separate and there was a similar law about Jews).
2. Between 1975 and 1998, with practically zero influence on law and policy beyond local government, they were ruled by a state they quite reasonably saw as both foreign and hostile.
3. In 1971 Catholics were twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestants and in 1988 they were TWO AND A HALF times more likely to be unemployed as Protestants.
4. Some would say that the comparison is flawed because even just the spray-painting of a swastika on a Jewish home is a very serious hate crime since it is connected to the Holocaust. Consider the following, which I have written elsewhere on this blog:

Although this is roughly equivalent to what Hitler did with the work camps in the early years of the Holocaust, Cromwell (in the 1600s) sent tens of thousands of Irish people to the Caribbean as some kind of cross between indentured servants and slaves. They had no choice and worked under slave-like conditions until they earned their freedom or died (many or MOST died) (they usually lasted about 3-7 years). During the Famine, 10-15% of the population died and 10-15% of the population would have died if they hadn’t emigrated. This was concentrated in the South and West of Ireland where there very few settlers- if you ignore the settlers and their descendents, it was probably closer to 15-20% and 15-20% of the population. Why did a potato blight result in something close to genocide? First, the indigenous Catholic population was still recovering from about 1.5 centuries of political and legal disempowerment that occurred because of the Penal Laws which denied them most of the rights enjoyed by most or all Protestants (it varied from right to right). “Catholic Emancipation” was only made about 90% complete about 15 years earlier. Because of this and general poverty, the indigenous population was largely dependent on land owned by land lords and the potato crop. For about 45 years before the Famine and during the Famine, Ireland didn’t have a devolved parliament, they were completely ruled from London. Crucially, during the Famine, MASSIVE amounts of food were being shipped from Ireland to Britain, something that involved seventy-five British Army regiments. Now, as I have pointed out elsewhere, it’s not like the British were rounding up the Irish with the goal of extermination. But the deaths only stopped when the blight stopped. And the facts are the facts as far as how many people died or had to emigrate to avoid dying.

And…

What happened in the Holocaust, is not much worse than what happened to the Irish. On the other hand, what the Nazis wanted to do is worse than what the British wanted, IF the British had wanted what happened to the Irish to happen. But there are two more things to consider: A) The British were more or less racist towards the Irish at that point in Anglo-Irish history and were more concerned about practicing Laissez-faire economics and feeding the British population than they were concerned about mass starvation among the Irish, and B) keeping Jews in concentration camps (not DEATH camps) or ghettos with little or no food or medicine was not terribly different from what the British did disempowering and impoverishing the Irish and taking food, at the barrel of a gun, out of Ireland while there was a potato blight.

Tony Blair was the first British Prime Minister to apologize for British policy during the Famine.

5. It might not be a bad idea to read this, about how Catholics were treated in N. Ireland between 1920 and 1972.

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UPDATE 3/1120 

Consider this. Although it’s true that America, in terms of immigration policy, opened its door to the Irish during the Famine, there was incredible nativism and anti-Catholic bigotry at the same time. And, although the British may have been much less than a fully fledged democracy (today, the monarchy, as far as I’m concerned has got so little power in practice that it almost doesn’t matter, but I think that during the Famine, the monarchy may have been more powerful than it is today, and I’m pretty sure that the un-elected and elitist House of Lords had more power than it does today) and was an imperialist power and was occupying a foreign nation where it’s policies were resulting in something close to genocide, no country in the world militarily took on the UK. America took on Nazi Germany, but not the UK during the Famine. Back then the US was, admittedly, perhaps not as strong militarily as the UK, but they could have assembled a coalition with some European nations, probably some of the Catholic ones, and landed troops in Ireland to kick the British out and stop the shipment of food out of Ireland. (UPDATE 3/12/20 Some would say it was a different USA back then, but has any American President ever apologized for the failure of the US to do something? In some bizarre alternate history where the US sat out WWII and Nazi Germany was defeated anyway and there were a whole bunch of Holocaust survivors, the US would have at some point between then and now apologized for their inaction)

And although Catholics in N. Ireland went through a nightmare 1969 to 1998 or 2005, the US banned Gerry Adams for the first 10 years he became President of a party getting 40% of the Nationalist vote and probably about 60% of the vote from the poorest half of the Nationalist community (go here and type "SDLP" and "Ireland" in the first field and "middle-class" in the second field) (remember what I wrote about unemployment, and see this). Ex-IRA members who fled to America and tried to start a new life were deported or extradited back to the UK (see this and the middle third of this). It's not like the US didn't have a relationship with the British, they were best friends. I doubt that anti-Catholic bigotry was more than a very small part of it, and Clinton (in contrast to Reagan of the Reagan and Thatcher friendship) played a slightly positive role in the Peace Process (did I just say something nice about Clinton? Someone please shoot me), but still... (the update that is attached to the paragraph above was, for a few minutes or hours, here, but that was a mistake)

(Some would point to Catholics on the Supreme Court as evidence that I am greatly exaggerating anti-Catholic bigotry in this country. But, bearing in mind that the vast majority of such Justices in the last 20 years are conservative and the Dems have a better history (in the last 100 years) of nominating Catholics for President or VP and electing them and admiring them, I think it's similar to anti-Semitic Christian Zionists putting Jews in the spotlight- it's harder for supporters of the Palestinians to attack Jewish supporters of Israel and it's easier for conservative Catholics than it is for conservative WASPs to counter-attack when liberals and leftists call them bigots (UPDATE 5/28/21 I have gotten the impression that evangelicals are a huge part of the GOP and I get the impression that a LOT of them, maybe a majority, don't think that Catholics are Christians))

(also see what I write about the Left and N. Ireland here, first reading what was done or not done starting about half-way down with the sentence "Going back to how much was done...." and then also read, a little further down, the section that starts with "5) The second large chunk....")

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Jewish-Americans in the last decade don’t know what oppression is. Neither do Catholic Americans. Although, looking at the former, the rate of hate crimes is, I'm sure, much worse than with the latter, it doesn't approach, by itself, oppression, and look at the surplus of power of the former on the Supreme Court and the fact that when it comes to the White House Jews have little to complain about, unlike Catholics.

CATHOLICS IN AMERICA ARE NOT OPPRESSED AS CATHOLICS. BIGOTRY IS NOT OPPRESSION. AND JEWISH-AMERICANS ARE NOT OPPRESSED AS JEWISH-AMERICANS.

 

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There's a relevant article here.

Anti-Zionism Is No More Anti-Semitic Than Irish Republicanism Is Anti-Protestant

I have always been a supporter of the Palestinians. Well, in Junior High, to whatever tiny degree I was political and politically educated, I guess you could say I was a neo-conservative and I drew Israeli flags on my my notebooks, etc. But since I started becoming more educated and progressive and active, in High School, I have been a supporter of the Palestinians. On this blog, as I simultaneously go to great lengths to oppose anti-Semitism (the best examples are here and here, but all my posts that are partly or totally about anti-semitism are here), I have also referred to Israeli Apartheid, as a way to describe how the Jewish State treats it’s Palestinian citizens and, more so, how it treats the Palestinians in the West Bank (I haven’t said much about Gaza but it is horrible what is happening there and it also involves the fact that the Palestinians are stateless and there is bigotry towards Arabs). But I have not really said much critical about Zionism.

In this post I will argue that Zionism was not justified, or a good idea, and has been a disaster., and that a one state solution is a better idea than a two state solution.

UPDATE 10/1/23 The next paragraph is a response to something I read from a fairly good source of information- the idea that critics of Israel, if they aren't anti-Semitic, must recognize the Jewish population's right to self-determination.

The Jewish people in general don’t have a right to self-determination. They are not a nation. Religious groups don't have a right to self-determination (Catholics globally and in Ireland don't). In America (and I think social scientists and/or Jews in other countries would agree) being Jewish is a religious and/or ethnic identity and ethnic groups don't have a right to self-determination (Irish-Americans don't have a right to self-determination). Even with a large concentration in Israel, Jews are mostly a diaspora, and that was even more true in 1948. The Irish diaspora does not have a right to self-determination. The Irish on that island do, but not the diaspora. Since many people use the term “bi-national” when describing a one state solution to the conflict, I use the term that way twice in this post. Some would say I’m saying that the Jews are a nation. On one hand, the Jewish people of ISRAEL might be a nation, but some people including some Irish republicans would say that N. Ireland Unionists are a nation, and IF they have a right to national self-determination, as a settler population, it is inferior to that of the indigenous Irish (although this is complicated because there are some Unionists who are Catholic and some of those are technically indigenous, it is a lot more accurate to say Unionists are an ethnic group that could be called British-Irish) (IF European-Americans have a right to self-determination, it is trumped by that of American Indians). So, the Jewish-Israeli population might have a right to self-determination, but it is trumped by the right to self-determination of the 100% indigenous population of Palestinians (almost the entire Jewish-Israeli ethnic group are settlers or the descendants of settlers). IF (and it might be a huge if) anyone says that the Jews are a race and therefore they have a right to self-determination, here's my response: A) No, races don't have a right to self-determination (does the white race have a right to self-determination?); B) The Nazis certainly thought Jews were a race, and C) are such hypothetical supporters of Israel saying that Israel is a racial state?

The Jewish population dispersed from the Holy Land almost two millenia ago. Yes, some remained, but the idea that they could reserve the entire area for all the descendants (two millennia later) of those who left is ridiculous. MANY Irish Catholics left Ireland and although some of their descendants can become Irish citizens, the VAST majority cannot. And that includes the descendants of that VAST majority of the emigres who left as result of British and Unionist policy in Ireland. Let me focus on the area currently called Northern Ireland. For centuries there’s always been a large minority of the population that identify as Catholic and/or Irish. No one says that all the descendants of the emigres can come back.

Some would point to the Holocaust as a relevant difference, and that’s not totally irrelevant. I’m not saying I deserve an award from the Anti-Defamation League for this, but there is a fair amount of material on my blog about the Holocaust, here. Although I have mixed feelings about criminalizing Holocaust Denial because I am opposed to censorship, I believe an argument can be made that Holocaust Denial breaches international law on genocide, and I don’t oppose criminalizing it. At least half, maybe 2/3, of Europe’s Jewish population was killed intentionally and efficiently by a regime that meant to exterminate the entire population and that fought to the death and was only defeated after a MASSIVE military effort that included what you might say were at the time three of the world’s super-powers (the US, the USSR, and the UK). As I have written elsewhere, genocide is the cultural equivalent of a species going extinct. And of course there is the background of widespread global anti-Semitism before Nazi Germany, and the refusal of most, maybe all countries to take in more than a handful of refugees during the Nazi era in Germany.

On the other hand, here’s what the Irish went through that comes sort of close. Although this is roughly equivalent to what Hitler did with the work camps in the early years of the Holocaust, Cromwell (in the 1600s) sent tens of thousands of Irish people to the Caribbean as some kind of cross between indentured servants and slaves. They had no choice and worked under slave-like conditions until they earned their freedom or died (many or MOST died) (they usually lasted about 3-7 years). During the Famine, 10-15% of the population died and 10-15% of the population would have died if they hadn’t emigrated. This was concentrated in the South and West of Ireland where there very few settlers- if you ignore the settlers and their descendents, it was probably closer to 15-20% and 15-20% of the population. Why did a potato blight result in something close to genocide? First, the indigenous Catholic population was still recovering from about 1.5 centuries of political and legal disempowerment that occurred because of the Penal Laws which denied them most of the rights enjoyed by most or all Protestants (it varied from right to right). “Catholic Emancipation” was only made about 90% complete about 15 years earlier. Because of this and general poverty, the indigenous population was largely dependent on land owned by land lords and the potato crop. For about 45 years before the Famine and during the Famine, Ireland didn’t have a devolved parliament, they were completely ruled from London. Crucially, during the Famine, MASSIVE amounts of food were being shipped from Ireland to Britain, something that involved seventy-five British Army regiments. Now, as I have pointed out elsewhere, it’s not like the British were rounding up the Irish with the goal of extermination. But the deaths only stopped when the blight stopped. And the facts are the facts as far as how many people died or had to emigrate to avoid dying. There’s much more, but that’s the most serious and relevant stuff.

What happened in the Holocaust, is not much worse than what happened to the Irish. On the other hand, what the Nazis wanted to do is worse than what the British wanted, IF the British had wanted what happened to the Irish to happen. But there are two more things to consider: A) The British were more or less racist towards the Irish at that point in Anglo-Irish history and were more concerned about practicing Laissez-faire economics and feeding the British population than they were concerned about mass starvation among the Irish, and B) keeping Jews in concentration camps (not DEATH camps) or ghettos with little or no food or medicine was not terribly different from what the British did disempowering and impoverishing the Irish and taking food, at the barrel of a gun, out of Ireland while there was a potato blight.

On one hand, you could sort of compare Zionism with the 1800s immigration of Irish to America and what happened to the indigenous population of this country during that century. But the Irish population didn’t rally to that to quite the same degree that the Jewish population rallied to Zionism (I would estimate that in an average year of the last 8 decades, about 80% of Jewish people were Zionists, and I think that about 35-44% of the world's Jewish population live there, and many others spend some time there; there isn't a comparably solid ideology about the Irish emigrating to America, although probably 60% of the diaspora live here). And I am not happy about what Europeans and European-Americans have done here in relation to the indigenous population, and I have done some activism about that. My activism on the issue reflects the fact that I got an Ethnic Studies degree with a primary focus on American Indian Studies. And in both cases, I’m not saying anyone needs to get on a boat and go back home. But the white population here and the Jewish population in what used to be called Palestine, need to transform their relationship with the Indians and the Arabs, respectively.

You could also sort of compare it to what the British did settling the Irish province of Ulster, 2/3 of which makes up N. Ireland (although it was not in response to mass suffering let alone genocide). I’m not real familiar with that, but I guarantee you that centuries ago the Catholic population was treated perhaps worse than it was the first 80 years after N. Ireland was created, and there’s some information about that here, here, and here. We are talking about a colonial effort, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone when I make that comparison on this blog.

I’ll return to the N. Ireland comparison soon, but let me say a few more things first. Responding to the Holocaust by founding a Jewish State in the Holy Land was not a great idea. After the war, those Jews who just couldn’t stay in Europe would have found safety in America, or probably SOME European countries like the UK, Ireland (although they were neutral, the war-time Prime Minister had a fairly good record of opposing anti-Semitism and the 1937 Constitution explicitly recognized the Jewish religion as part of the Irish nation), Denmark (whose population went further than any other to save the Jewish population from the Nazis), just to mention a few solid examples. In terms of safety, founding the Jewish State was, at least in hind-sight not that helpful in reducing anti-Semitism and the Jewish population there has only been relatively safe because of A) a ridiculously skilled or ridiculously lucky military, B) MASSIVE military support from the US, and C) in the last 4-5 decades, the possession of nuclear weapons. As far as anti-Semitism world-wide, the fairly predictable effect of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians under its rule has been to just make anti-Semitism more popular than it was shortly after WWII.

Also, I’d say the Jewish religion isn’t as connected to the land once known as Palestine as the Christian religion is. What I call the Old Testament begins a long way from Jerusalem. And then there was 400-500 years in Egypt. Although the early history of the Jews is part of the Bible, Christianity is INCREDIBLY defined by the birth of Christ, his life, his death, and if you believe people like me, his resurrection, and then his ascendence into heaven. It all took place in the area once known as Palestine. And yet, I think the Crusades by European Christians were reactionary.

In Ireland, the goal of republicans and nationalists could be called a “one state solution.” They want Ireland united. Some socialists and others predict that if Sinn Fein got close to its goal, the actual result would be a repartitioning of N. Ireland. I think that’s unlikely and crucially, SF would not accept that. Also, what they want is a secular state of all religions and you MIGHT also use the term bi-national. There is a theory I largely subscribe to, that the Unionists in N. Ireland are actually Irish, but I’m also comfortable with the idea that they can and (in a united Ireland) will develop a British-Irish identity which I’m sure the Irish will be willing to accommodate. Below I address the idea that the South of Ireland is today based on religion and/or ethnicity (it’s diverse enough that ethnicity is the right word).

I don’t know when I started to drift towards supporting a one state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But with settlements and with the humanitarian disaster in Gaza and with Trump’s “peace” plan, I am thinking that the two state solution is dead. There’s also the fact that MANY West Bank Palestinians (not to mention many of those in Gaza) would like to experience the relative democracy that Israelis enjoy and certainly most of them would like to enjoy the relative prosperity most Israelis enjoy. MANY people in the West Bank are not happy with the Palestinian Authority and I imagine that when it comes to a democratic society a small or large minority of people in Gaza are not happy with Hamas. A recent poll described and analyzed in an article here found that about 2/3 of Palestinians have given up on the two state solution.

(I should explain something about one of the polls results- that 84% want to withdraw recognition of Israel. It might be a large minority of that 84% want to destroy Israel. There must be GREAT anger towards Israel in Gaza considering the humanitarian disaster, the complete lack of state-hood and the resources for state-hood, and the periodic, brutal and short-term invasions by the Israeli military in the last 15 years. But it might also be a flawed response to calls for the PLO to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, something that will make it easier for Israel to treat it’s Palestinian population as second-class citizens, and it might be inspired by a desire to see Israel destroyed in the sense that it is replaced by a secular, democratic, bi-national state including the West Bank and Gaza. I mean, in the same poll 78% want to stage NON-VIOLENT protests against Trump’s plan, suggesting that they aren’t out for Jewish blood)

There’s also a poll saying that 30% of Israelis want a federation with Palestine, which might indicate support for a one state solution, although in that article Juan Cole is pessimistic that it’s that positive.

Although it’s easier said than done, a one state solution would solve the conflict better than a two state solution would. It would turn Israel into a fully fledged democracy and the odds are that social conservatism would be weakened in both the Palestinian and Jewish populations, and even if Israelis see some small decline in their lifestyle as part of a redistribution of wealth, hopefully it would be negated by the creation of a social democracy- Israel, in a slightly warped way, used to be a social democracy, and Fatah, the dominant part of the PLO, has been for decades a Jr. or (today) a full member of the Socialist International (sure, the SI isn’t as socialist as it used to be, but still…). Even if Jew-hatred continued in Iran and they got a nuke (I’m saying IF to both), if the Jewish and Palestinian populations were more integrated and the Palestinians were happy with the new state, I doubt a WMD or conventional attack would take place. Some of the money currently spent on destructive military activities would be funneled to things like health care and education and the environment.

I have tried to find out exactly what contributes to calling Israel The Jewish State. I spent hours in the library. Actually I didn’t but I am really good at using Google Advanced Search and identifying what sites are good sources for this or that topic. I couldn’t find hardly anything except for stuff about the recent Nation-State law which is both horrible and fairly vague (there's also a ton of stuff on a related question here). I believe that some of what contributes to use of the phrase Jewish State can be retained in a one state solution. The Jewish religion and culture can be protected along with Islam, Christianity, Druze, and the various other cultures like that of the Arabs. Equality legislation can be created and enforced.

Immigration policy would probably have to change in two ways. Those who fled or were expelled from Palestine as a result of the creation of Israel (and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza), and their descendants will have to be allowed back. We’re talking about people whose parents or grandparents left, not people whose ancient ancestors left. Jewish immigration might have to be curbed a little compared to the current policy and hopefully Jewish leaders in the new state won’t travel the globe unnecessarily encouraging Jewish immigration. It should remain a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution. If you doubt that happens or think it will cease when the conflict there is resolved, think again. Fascism is on the rise throughout the world, including in Europe, and although it’s possible they’re not all as anti-Semitic as Hitler was, it’s still a problem. Although, or perhaps because, it’s an unbelievable story, read here about how a Jewish-American had few options but to immigrate to Israel to avoid being killed by Nazi Skinheads partly because he’s Jewish (even before the Internet, Nazi skinheads networked pretty well and Daly might have had trouble avoiding them by simply moving somewhere else in America, and I'm pretty sure he decided to immigrate around 1995) (I read elsewhere that on one hand he became a Likud activist but on the other hand he did work supporting Ethiopian Jews facing racism)). The new state could use diplomacy, economic power, and when needed their scaled down but probably still efficient foreign intelligence agency and military to help those Jews in the world who are experiencing persecution. And their diplomacy will be more respected than it is now.

It might be a good idea to initially have some kind of power-sharing set up like they have in N. Ireland. Not comparable to the one in Lebanon which is stupid, but like the one in N. Ireland. See this and this. There might be some relevant ideas here, in a peace plan proposal for N. Ireland I developed (that’s right, the UN Secretary General DID call me on the phone to discuss it- in my wildest dreams). (UPDATE 4/2/20 As far as the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, that can be done in some way that resembles what's done in N. Ireland with the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. What was difficult for me until now was what to do about a Head of State? I just figured it out. They could use what's called in Britain and Ireland "Alternative Vote" (what's called "Instant Run-Off Voting" in America). In the UK/RoI context it's proportional representation (with Single Transferable Vote) with just one seat being filled. They could use that, but with an elevated threshold, like 66% instead of 50%+1. That way the top parties (I don't think there should be a limit, but I imagine most of the smallest ones won't bother) will probably nominate moderates who can attract a lot of votes, and the winner will definitely be someone a large majority of the voters will be more or less happy with. And it might be best to put a lot of the power over the military and foreign policy in the President's hands, at least kind of like they do in France (also, one more idea- Constitutional Amendments should definitely require what in Northern Ireland they call "cross-community support") (It might also be a good idea if the Interior Ministry is formally or informally reserved for a MP who designates themselves as "Other" and/or it requires "cross-community support;" informally it's reserved for an "Other" in N. Ireland) (I'll be honest, I don't know what happens with the French President and the Defense and Foreign Ministries, but I would suggest that those ministers in a future WhateverIt'llBeCalled be appointed by the President and require confirmation by the Parliament with "cross"community support"))

A one state solution might avoid an Israeli Civil War, although it might also unavoidably be preceded by one. When the government pulled settlers out of Gaza, there was talk of civil war. To one very large degree or another, settlers in the West Bank wouldn’t have to leave.

Let me say a little more about N. Ireland and a one state solution. Republicans and especially the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party in the North don’t want the Protestants to leave (although the SDLP is closer to the Catholic Church than SF is, they’ve overall done a better job of attracting Protestants). They have worked with the Unionists to sustain the Peace Process and create a new society in N. Ireland and take steps towards a United Ireland. I believe that SF compromised more than they should have had to in terms of agreeing that Ireland will only be united when a majority in N. Ireland want that, but for the most part I support the GFA and the steps republicans have taken to make the Peace Process work. An example of this is senior SF leaders attending various events that are MUCH more Protestant and/or Unionist than Catholic and/or Nationalist, if not totally Protestant/Unionist. At least once in the last twenty years organizers of the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Belfast printed their materials in English, Irish, Chinese, and Ulster-Scots (a very, very minor language associated with Protestants and Unionists). Although SF believes that there should be separate legislation for promoting the Irish language in N. Ireland, they support something similar for Ulster-Scots. SF has practically always been willing to work with Unionists. The recent three year crisis in the Peace Process which was started with SF withdrawing from the Assembly’s Executive, was triggered largely by a financial scandal involving the First Minister (a Unionist) and involved  Unionist opposition to an Irish language act and same-sex marriage, a sectarian policy decision by a Unionist minister, and Unionist talk about how much anti-Protestant bigotry there is in N. Ireland (seriously, very little, and if you think I’m downplaying it because I hate them, too, see this (especially the notes BELOW the poem) and/or look at the survey results for “Equality” and for “Contact and Mixing” here or read this about sectarianism in the first 50 years of N. Ireland).

Lastly, here is my response to the idea that the Republic of Ireland (the South) is comparable to Israel.

After the War of Independence in Ireland, in 1920-1925 the South became what was called a “Free State.” Its independence from the UK was limited. For example, members of Parliament had to swear an oath to Queen. The 1937 Constitution created the position of President and the first President was a Protestant. Presidential terms are normally seven years and someone can serve two terms. In the 1970s there was another Protestant President for about 2 years before he died. So, out of 9 Presidents, two were Protestant. As far as the 1937 Constitution and Catholicism, it’s true that early drafts emphasized Catholicism and the Catholic Church, but there was GREAT opposition to that. The final draft of the relevant section recognized the existence of the main Protestant churches in Ireland, as well as the Jewish religion, and it recognized “the special position” of the Roman Catholic Church “as the guardian of the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens.” This special place for the Catholic Church was done away with in 1972. The ban on divorce was done away with in 1995. There were of course homophobic laws (only in 1993 was homosexuality decriminalized) and the constitution had to be amended in 2015 to allow for gay marriage (there wasn’t anything in the document about “a man and a woman,” but still, only in 2015 was it amended to solidly legalize gay marriage in a country where a law could be more easily overturned by politicians if the country drifted to the right) and abortion is 99% illegal there. But there is plenty of homophobia and pro-life nonsense among Protestants, Jews, Muslims, etc. (also, although the Catholic Church is in two ways sexist, that can be exaggerated, and in recent decades, FREQUENTLY the Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) has been a woman and between 1990 and 2011 the slightly powerful position of President of Ireland was held by women, one of whom went on to become the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights)

Is Ireland defined by ethnicity? Until about 20 years ago the South was almost literally 100% white, and there weren’t many non-Irish white people (in the last 20 years there has been bigotry that sort of resembles racism towards, for example, Poles). In 2004 there was an Amendment to the constitution that eliminated birthright citizenship for people born to parents who are not both citizens of Ireland. But if one parent is a citizen, they get citizenship. Also, although naturalization has been restricted, it’s still possible and it’s still fairly easy for citizens of the European Community (although that could be interpreted as racist, I don’t think they had much of a choice as a member of the EU). First, the parties in Ireland I primarily support (SF and Irish Labour) opposed the citizenship Amendment as racist (and also as being in conflict with the Good Friday Agreement). Second, although I couldn’t have said this until recently, the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland for the last few years was a man named Leo Varadkar, whose father is Indian. Also, he’s an openly gay man. I don’t like him or his party (Fine Gael, who are sort of socially liberal but sort of pro-British and in love with capitalism). According to wikipedia, he was a government minister between 2011 and 2017 when he became Taoiseach. Between 2007 and 2011, when FG were in Opposition, he was a  Spokesperson (shadow minister?). The Irish language is recognized by the Constitution as the first official language and English is recognized as the second. A lot is done to promote the former, but practically everyone practically always speak the latter and everything official is available in both languages. The British came very close to stamping out the Irish language (and they WERE trying to).

The South is not comparable to the Jewish State. And SF doesn’t want a United Ireland to be any more Catholic or based on ethnicity than the South is now. The second half of this (starting with the sentence “A lot of people…”) talks about the former, and most of this deals with the latter.

In conclusion, Zionism was not justified, or a good idea, and has been a disaster. That doesn’t mean Jews need to leave. But they do need to transform their relationship with the Palestinians, and I believe that is best achieved through the creation of a truly democratic, secular, bi-national state.