Category: propaganda

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Trying to make sense of these complex issues isn’t easy. It’s something most progressive Jews struggle with constantly. This is very much a personal piece, based on grappling with this situation since I was a small child. I don’t claim that this post speaks for anyone other than myself.

To complicate things, the words “zionism” and “antisemitism” have wildly different meanings to different people. I define zionism as the tenet that Jews, like other ethnic and cultural groups around the world, have the right to a homeland of our own.

The version of zionism I was raised with was an idealistic extrapolation of this principle that embraced the social experiments in Israel, such as intentional communities (notably the kibbutz and the moshav), women’s equality extending even to compulsary military service, and the commitment to agriculture and reforestation that would “make the desert bloom” as it had in biblical times. This happy, upbeat vision even had a soundtrack: happy, upbeat Israeli songs in Modern Hebrew such as “Tzena, Tzena,” popularized here in the US by the politically progressive quartet The Weavers in 1951.

But it was also rooted in the shameful slogan, “a land with no people for a people with no land”: a racist lie that ignored the thousands of years of Palestinian history dating back at least as far as the Old Testament battles with the Philistines, a lie that was used to justify the Naqba (also spelled Nakba)—the expulsion of tens of thousands of Palestinians from what is now Israel—and the continuing oppression of Palestinians both within the Green Line that marked Israel’s 1948 borders and in the West Bank and Gaza, which are still majority-Palestinian but have been under Israel’s control since the 1967 war.

Another myth underpinning the idealistic version of zionism is the idea that Israel, the lone democracy and only non-Muslim country in the region, was our democratic outpost, the only place championing human rights in a region that was openly hostile to Jews and to Israel: the little David surrounded by heavily armed Arab Goliaths who wanted to drive Israel into the sea.

The human rights champion part would be great if it were true. But Israel’s society is stratified. In 1986, when we first visited, there was still a clear prejudice in favor of Jews of Eastern European origin or born in Israel or Palestine; Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal were second-class citizens, third class for those from Turkey, Iran, and the Arab countries, fourth class for those from Africa—and the non-Jewish Arab populations, whether Muslim, Christian, or Druze, were at the very bottom.

The first two classes had integrated by the time we returned in 2014, but the rest of the stratification remained. Discrimination against Arabs and Palestinians remains rampant. From roadside checkpoints to destruction of their villages and orchards, long imprisonments, and more, Israel has fomented oppressive conditions for the populations under its heel.

This certainly didn’t start under Netanyahu, but he has made it much worse, culminating in the genocide of the Gaza war and its continuing aftermath.

Another strain of zionism is the post-Holocaust push for a Jewish homeland so there would always be a refuge for Jews, historically marginalized, ostracized, expelled, and murdered for more than a thousand years—a way of giving teeth to the “Never again” slogan that sprouted as the truth of those awful years started to come out. It was that experience that gave wings to the dream of a Jewish state.

The movie “Israelism” is a really good analysis of how we Jews in the US were raised to believe we were doing good for the world in our zionism—how good a job the propagandists for Israel did at inculcating these messages and beliefs across US Jewish society—even as our heroes from David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weitzmann to Golda Meir secretly embraced ethnic cleansing and driving the Palestinians out.

*                                   *                                   *

Antisemitism is prejudice against Jews. It’s an odd choice of word, because Arabs are also Semitic peoples. For progressive Jews, it is something completely separate from criticism of Israel or sympathy to the Palestinian cause. I claim a right to criticize Israel, just as I criticize the government of my own country (especially in its brutal and disgusting current incarnation). In fact, I’ve criticized and protested against every US president since Nixon, who was elected when I was eleven—yes, even Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden. They all did things I thought were wrong, and I wasn’t shy about writing letters or showing up for—or even organizing—demonstrations or lobbying my elected officials to change those policies.

But in the right-wing Jewish world, any criticism of the Israeli government, even the current genocidal one that by comparison makes even the horribly cruel Stephen Miller look relatively tame, is labeled antisemitism. Ditto any endorsement of the Palestinian cause. Somehow, these people can’t envision a world that has room for both Jewish and Palestinian homelands.

These would-be censors have gone so far as to add a rider to a military spending bill protecting Israel from boycotts. This passed the US House last September but, thankfully, as far as I can tell, has not been taken up in the Senate. We’ve also seen the punishment of pro-Palestinian students such as Lebanese Mahmoud Khalil and Turkish Rumeysa Ozturk, imprisoned and deported (Khalil) or threatened with deportation (Ozturk) over their criticism of Israel.

This ridiculous conflation of opposing the Israeli government with hating Jews goes back decades. In the 80s, I was in a group called New Jewish Agenda that advocated a two-state solution. For this, we were ostracized and marginalized within the mainstream Jewish community. We did not get speaking opportunities at synagogues. I am amazed to watch Jewish Voice for Peace emerge from similar marginalization in recent years to become the main US Jewish voice for Palestinian rights. I’ve been thrilled to see integrated Israeli-Palestinian peace groups such as Combatants for Peace and Standing Together get those synagogue speaking opportunities in the last 20 years or so.

And yet that right-wing narrative is so embedded in mainstream Jewish institutions that I know many people who are in pretty much basic agreement with me on so many other issues but can’t overcome their own Islamophobia or anti-Arab bias. They still see any criticism of Israel, especially from non-Jews, as antisemitism. They call NYC Mayor Sohran Mamdani, who constantly makes pro-Jewish statements and has Jewish advisors, an antisemite even as they paint their signs for the next No Kings march—because Mamdani has accurately called out the Netanyahu government’s war crimes, protection of anti-Arab extremists, and oppression of its own Palestinian population.

In fact, this post was inspired by a conversation on Facebook that started with me praising Mamdani for his comment in response to having higher poll ratings than Netanyahu among NYC Jews: “My focus is on delivering for each and every New Yorker, and I’m proud to be the mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population in the country” and pointing out that he has made many pro-Jewish statements in his time campaigning for and serving as Mayor.

That generated two comments from this camp. “I am not at all impressed with him. His stance on Israel and Jews is dangerous and deplorable.” and, in response, “I agree. Look, he’s entitled to his opinion about the Middle East. But keep it to yourself, Zohran. Your job is to make NYC a more liveable city. Focus on that and you’ll get great support. Stop talking about Bibi (who I dislike, too, but for different reasons).”

My immediate response was:

I have actively looked into a bunch of accusations that claim Mamdani is antisemitic. If I could find any, I’d immediately stop supporting him. However, what I find each time are the ACCUSATIONS of antisemitism rather than any actual speech or action that is against Jews. He has been loud and consistent in condemning Netanyahu and Israel’s present government, yes. But that’s not antisemitism. It is condemning genocidal, brutal attacks on Palestinians and Lebanese and claiming to do so in the name of all Jews. Well, I am Jewish and I condemn Netanyahu and his genocide. Just as I speak out as a citizen of the US against the brutal policies of this government and its insistence that the government only has to represent right-wing so-called able-bodied, cis, straight, mostly male Christian Nationalists—who are not Christian, if you read Christ’s words—so I speak out against what is happening in my name over there.
What’s even worse is the way right-wing Jews insist on conflating criticism of Israeli policies with hating Jews. IMHO, that leads directly to more antisemitism, because the haters say, “look, the Jews are telling us that all Jews support Israel’s government and that government represents all Jews. THAT leads to wildly negative outcomes. Ignorant people will ingest that sick messaging and then commit pogroms—just as ignorant people in the US right have attacked immigrants, trans people, and others who got on this administration’s bad side.
This post is a longer response.

 

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Today should have been the joyous 250th anniversary of the world’s first modern-state democracy. (Yes, I know, the structure borrowed heavily from the  Haudenosaunee Confederacy.) Instead, it feels all-too-much like a family gathering at the bedside of someone on life support, someone who may not make it too much longer.

Democracy has taken such a beating in the year and a half since an open fascist, racist, sexist, anti-planet, convicted criminal, self-dealing monster—the greediest and cruelest president in history, a man who has used his office not for good but for personal enrichment and war against his perceived enemies that this anniversary feels like a deathbed watch. He so embodies all the reasons the Colonies left the paternalistic mix of oppression and protection provided by King George that Andy Borowitz wrote this updated Declaration of Independence. Here are the first three of his long list of grivances:

  • He has engaged in corrupt schemes to profit from his office, plunder the Treasury, and steal from the taxpayers.
  • He has desecrated the People’s House and the nation’s capital.
  • He has perverted the Department of Justice to take revenge on his perceived enemies.

But the patient—our democracy—while bleeding profusely and crying out in pain, is not dead. We are in charge of the miracle cure, and it’s called nonviolent resistance.

And this powerful and honorable tradition, which has brought down many governments and reformed many others, goes back thousands of years. The earliest documentation I know of is from Exodus 1:1-19, which tells the story of how the midwives Shifra and Puah disobeyed Pharaoh’s command to kill the Hebrew male babies, telling him that the women gave birth so fast, they couldn’t get there in time. Which is why, today, I chose to wear a t-shirt that proclaims, “Resisting Tyrants Since Pharaoh,” even though the protest march I planned to wear it to was canceled due to an extreme heat advisory.

In recent days, we’ve seen the impact of nonviolent resistance. We’ve seen the impact of mass protests like No Kings in the slow and grudging willingness to resist at least a few of T’s irrational and unconstitutional demands from both the Supreme Court and the Republican majorities in Congress—both of whom could have easily reined in T’s authoritarianism and attacks on democracy just by holding to the settled body of law, as they were more willing to do during his first term. It’s too little and too late, but it’s a sign that the voices of ordinary citizens are being heard even when those in power claim to ignore them.

We’ve also seen the impact of courageous individual actions taken at great personal risk, such as USAF Major Jason Watson, who has 23 honors and decorations in his long military career and was arrested on July 1, in uniform, for holding a sign saying “Impeach Convict Remove” on the steps of the US Capitol. His action could not only cost him his job (three years before retirement). He could also serve considerable prison time and forfeit his retirement pay. Fully aware of the consequences, he carried out the action anyway, in the long tradition of people like Daniel Ellsberg (who leaked the Pentagon Papers, vastly strengthening the peace movement during the Vietnam war) and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Also this week, we’ve had prosecutor Jack Smith finally talking about the cases against T that would have almost certainly resulted in another round of convictions had they been allowed to go to trial. Smith says openly and directly that he “will not be intimidated.” But if the treatment of James Comey, Leticia James, Mark Kelly, and others is any clue, it’s a pretty safe bet that he will be harassed in some powerful way by government stooges who act as if the First Amendment only applies to Trumpistas. The first link is to the video, the second, to a written summary.

These brave actions are perhaps even more important than the mass demonstrations—because they show raw courage and a willingness to sacrifice everything for what’s right. Many have died for these principles, both here in the US and elsewhere. To name four prominent non-US examples: Alexei Navalny in Russia, Salvador Allende in Chile,  Steve Biko in South Africa, Gandhi in India.

This is even more remarkable considering the level of repression this government has engaged in, including:

Yet, we persist. Millions of people in the US have participated in at least one No Kings march or at least one mass organizing call by a broad coalition of progressive groups (among them Public Citizen, MoveOn, Movement Voter Project, 50501, and several others) spearheaded by the Working Families Party. Voting turnouts are high, and many “safe Republican”seats have been switched. Numerous administration policies have been overturned or cancelled under public pressure, though not without doing substantial damage first. Activists from many groups have trained other activists in peaceful protest, nonviolent civil disobedience, finding levers to encourage noncooperation among the officials carrying out these brutal policies, and so much more.

And we have not only inspiration, such as the photos of protests around the country Robert Hubbell publishes daily in his Today’s Edition newsletter (usually a mix of sidewalk and park protests alongside “bridge brigades”displaying banners and signs from highway overpasses.

We also have road maps, such as…

  • An amazing list of 346 nonviolent tactics, the first 198 compiled by Gene Sharp in the pre-Internet, pre-Covid era, and another 148 compiled by Michael Beer of Nonviolence International. Personal note: I’ve been a fan of this list for years and have cited it several times. Two weeks ago, I got to meet Michael, chat with him as we hiked our neighborhood mountain, and have dinner with several others as we hosted a gathering for a mutual friend who was in from California. He told me he could have expanded the list again with many more tactics, but he wasn’t able to keep up with them.
  • The work of Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, especially Why Civil Resistance Works (Columbia University Press, 2011). This scholarly study compares the success of violent versus nonviolent struggles and provides evidence to explain why nonviolent ones have both a higher success record and, usually, more lasting effects. The above link takes you to the book’s page on Bookshop.org, where your purchase supports the independent bookstore of your choice, instead of the billionaire who continues to be one of T’s most prominent enablers in the second term. I believe in using our economic power to help accomplish our goals, so I avoid shopping at the world’s largest online store, just as I do most of my searching and much of my web browsing on Ecosia.org, a nonprofit which plants a tree for every search (and I think another tree for every tab opened on its browser).
  •  Chronicles of the current struggle, the history of resistance, and of people you may not have heard of but whose contributions matter. A few among dozens: Waging Nonviolence, Choose Democracy, Black Lives Matter, Rebecca Solnit, Heather Delaney Reese, Heather Cox Richardson, Jessica Craven, especially her Sunday Extra Extra good news roundup, the aforementioned Robert Hubbell (link is above), Black History Stories, A Mighty Girl (feminist history), Josh Helfgott (LGBT and political news), Moments from the Past (Black and general history)…
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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, language, Mindset, Peace and War, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , ,

This post started on Facebook, as a response to replies to this article by an Israeli expat living in the US who’s an expert on genocide, which I posted on April 22. There’s a spirited discussion going on at that post, which you can read by clicking on this sentence. Be sure to read the replies to the comments, and the replies to the replies—and to make sure that you’re viewing either “all comments” or “newest” and not “most relevant,” which will block some of the responses.

What follows is a response to Richard, who defends Zionism as providing a safe haven for Jews in a world that never had one before, a place where Jews can seek refuge from the pogroms of their particular generation—and to Robert, the person he was responding to, who posted that trauma often begets trauma, unless there is a deliberate effort to “alchemize” it into something positive, and who criticizes Zionism as “designed by colonialist and brutally implemented, and is now more ruthless than ever.” It’s posted there as a reply to Robert

This post is a substantial expansion of what I wrote—with considerable updating here but not in the original response, including several links to back up my claims:

Robert, Zionism had two impulses: One was protection against antisemitic violence, as Richard so eloquently describes in his response to you. The other was the one we progressives were hoodwinked into believing: that this was the chance to create a utopia, a place where women and men were equal, a place to recover a desert “land with no people for a people with no land”—(as I was told at the yeshivas [Jewish day schools] I attended as an elementary school student and again in the meetings of the Jewish Student Union at my secular city-wide high school), a semi-socialist endeavor based on cooperation.

It’s a bit hard to find, but the movie, “Israelism,” has an excellent analysis of how that idealism didn’t match the reality on the ground. Something I don’t remember if the movie addresses is the way the land itself was colonized. In my childhood, we were always sending money to the Jewish National Fund to plant trees in Israel. But just as we didn’t know about the Palestinians forced into exile, we also didn’t know that JNF was ripping out native species to plant non-native pine forests that have not been kind to the ecosystem—and of course, the Israeli government frequently bulldozes Palestinian olive trees in retaliation for perceived injuries, while Israel also often narrows the land of the local Palestnians so the settlers end up harvesting stolen oil.

The racist plans of Golda and Ben-Gurion [Perplexity.ai search for “statements against arabs from David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir made before 1967”, conducted April 24, 2026) were not in the open, and neither was the reality that, ahem, this was NOT “a land with no people.” It was a land whose people had largely been kicked out in 1948. So you had the yin and the yang, protection from evil and creation of good. But the creation of good was largely built on a lie and certainly doesn’t match the cruelty of today’s Israeli government agains tthe people their parents and grandparents threw off their land. Yes, Palestinians within the Green Line can vote and even have representation in the Knesset. But they have been actively discriminated against the whole time, just as Blacks in the US have been. Housing and job opportunities are not equal. Open racism is common.

Richard, I’ve been to Israel twice, in 1986 and again in 2014. Both times, Dina and I have sat and talked with Palestinians—and on the first trip, we interviewed several leaders of different organizations within the Israeli peace movement. We stayed part of the time with a Palestinian family in the Galilee, part of the time with my right-wing settler relatives, and even in an Arab-owned hotel in East Jerusalem. And we visited the ultrareligious Yiddish-speaking branch of my family that had fled to Israel to escape the Holocaust. On the first trip, we stayed in a traditional kibbutz, and on the second trip, a kibbutz for people in the Transcendental Meditation world. My right-wing Orthodox sister made Aliyah [moved to Israel] with her husband and three of their four grown children, who have all had kids born in Israel.

So I have sat down and broken bread with people on all sides of the spectrum—including a man who was ten years old in 1948 when the soldiers told his family they’d be back in their homes in two weeks. That was not a planned encounter; he was conducting a one-person Occupy movement at the one surviving building (the Orthodox church) in his childhood village WITHIN the Green Line, which the Israelis had bulldozed and turned into a national park that he now had to pay to enter.

That interview was conducted in Hebrew and translated for us by our host, a Dutch Holocaust refugee. He and his fellow refugee wife were two of the three Jews in a Druze village (the third was an elderly woman we didn’t get to meet, the last of her line, whose family managed to stay during the Babylonian Exile of 70 A.D. when the Jews were thrown out of present-day Israel). He also took us around to meet a bunch of his neighbors. And this couple were also the custodians of the actual carob tree that sustained Shimon Bar Yochai when he was hiding out from the Romans in a cave, 2000 years ago.

To me, if Zionsm is to remain viable, it MUST “alchemize” into something far more humane—something that would bring reality to the Koolaid we collectively swallowed as the utopian vision that didn’t exist was spooned out to us through a wall of lies, false promises, and exceptionalism. In its current form, not only is it attacking others, it also makes Jews LESS safe around the world. This is in part because conservative elements of the Jewish community insist on conflating antizionism with antisemitism—a conflation that I utterly resist and abhor. This division within the Jewish community is not new. It goes back at least as far as the founding of modern Israel in 1948.

But most Jews who get interviewed on national newscasts—politicians and college presidents, assorted right-wing pundits—claim that any criticism of Israel is antisemitism, and punish anti-Zionists (Palestinians especially, but also groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace). At the same time, the current US government has weaponized false claims of antisemitism to extort money from universities and attempt to control college curricula and suppress student activities—while, ironically, waving a banner of free expression.

These actions from the government and from right-leaning Jewish officials give the real enemies of Jews something to cling to and organize around, and creates a climate where hate crimes against Jews are somehow seen as forgivable because those who attack Jews just because they’re Jews can claim that Jews themselves have said that Jews must support the Israeli government’s vicious actions. We Jews are stereotyped as suppoters of an evil empire, and thus fair game for whatever mayhem comes our way. Thus, they claim they’re just opposing the racist and brutal incarnation of Zionism as conducted by the Netanyahu government.

Netanyahu has given advocates of peace and human rights real things to worry about (e.g., the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and looking the other way when Israeli settlers attack Palestinian civilians in the West Bank or within the Green Line)—never mind that a huge percentage of Jews both in Israel (which has had a massive peace movement for decades, though it had to rebuild after the Hamas attack on Israel of October 7, 2023) and in the Diaspora.

It’s important to note that many of these right-wing ideologues spouting this nonsense identify as so-called Christian Nationalists (not Christian at all, if you read Christ’s teachings, as I have). And many have a public history of antisemitism themselves. Here are some of the president’s anti-Jewish remarks and actions. And here are more of them (slight overlap) along with notes on antisemitism from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., FBI Director Kash Patel, and several other appointees.

I condemn the violence on all sides, including the violence of lies that demonize either people.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

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 From today’s NY Times email newsletter, “The Morning”:

President Trump does not seem interested in de-escalating anything in Minneapolis. This week, he said that one justification for the shooting of Renee Good might have been that she had been “disrespectful” to officers. Being disrespectful is a form of speech, though — one protected by the Constitution.

With Trump, it’s always a clue that if he accuses someone of bad behavior, he is doing/has done it himself. This is on the same day that news broke about Trump giving the finger and two F-bombs to a Ford employee who called him out as a “pedophile protector”—which the Times mentioned in that same newsletter. The link above is to The Guardian, because the Times uses paywalls.

But Trump showing the emotional maturity of a two-year-old yesterday is just the latest in a lifetime flinging insults at individuals, groups, and whole countries. This is what he said about racism in 1989  (followed by the response decades later by a Black commentator whose offer to Trump to tour Baltimore after Trump disparaged that city was declined). 1989 was also the year he ran a full-page ad in all four of NYC’s daily newspapers calling for the death penalty for five Black youths falsely convicted of rape and later exonerated.

And ever since he rode that golden escalator to announce his candidacy in 2015, it’s been a nonstop barrage. He mocked a reporter’s physical disability. He called Africa, Haaiti, and El Salvador “shithole countries” and called for increased immigration from Norway (a White-predominant country) in 2018 and—just a month ago, on December 9, 2025—not only admitted the comment (which he’d denied at the time) but bragged about it and added Somalia to the list. For years, his racism led him to deny that Obama was born in the US. If that lie were true, Obama would have been ineligible to serve as President. He repeatedly attacks and insults his opponents—Biden and Harris, of course—but even former loyalists that he drove away, including then-Vice President Mike Pence and one of his biggest loyalists in Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene. And his history of insulting and objectifying women—individuals as well as women as a class—is just as bad as his racism and ableism.

Worst of all, the vile xenophobic anti-immigrant rhetoric of his first campaign and term has not just increased. It has morphed into something truly evil: a war against immigrants that empowers a poorly trained, poorly vetted goon squad army of ICE and CBP agents to rain terror down on immigrant neighborhoods, whose residents are snatched from cars, homes, workplaces, and even their immigration court hearings—with zero due process and extreme violence—and sent to far-away gulags in the US and in countries where these victims have no connection. The conservative Cato Institute lists a multipronged attack on immigrants and citizens, from revoking legal status of people who came here legally to multiple attacks on the Constitution and due process. This is unlike anything in US history. It’s even more extreme than the detention of Japanese immigrants and descendants during World War II—for which the US has apologized and made reparations. Many US citizens have been caught in these sweeps and illegally detained. And much of what ICE is doing is a wildly illegal expansion of the powers they are chartered with. They are not supposed to take a police role other than in matters of illegal immigration (as I document in the Appendix, below). And they are not supposed to shoot people. Yet, Time Magazine reports today that  “Immigration agents have fired at or into civilian vehicles in at least 13 instances since July.” That would include the two people shot since the murder of Renee Nicole Good last week, in Portland, Oregon. At least four of those were fatal. Add to that the 32 people who died in ICE custody in the past year.

Trump’s hypocrisy takes many other forms, too. Examples:

  1. He’s praising protesters in the streets of Tehran even as he decries them in any state that voted for Kamala Harris.
  2. Killing more than 100 Venezuelan sailors (95 as of November when this article was written), then invading the country and kidnapping its (admittedly thuggish) leader on the pretext of interdicting drugs, but pardoning the biggest drug dealer of them all, former President Hernandez of Honduras. Of course, we all know and he hasn’t tried to hide that it’s really about the oil.
  3. Claiming to be a law-and-order president but inciting the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol and then pardoning even those rioters who physically attacked police officers.

Please let your Representative and two Senators in the US Congress know that you find this unacceptable and you want them to withhold funding from ICE until it starts obeying all relevant laws on search and seizure, delineation of responsibility, due process, and use of force. If they balk at that, defund the agency at least until Minnesota is allowed to fully participate in the investigation of Good’s murder—and then keep pressing for more accountability. And please share this post widely.

 

Appendix: Perplexity.AI Report on what ICE is and is Not Allowed to Do

I asked Perplexity, the AI engine I tend to use for serious research and factchecking, “In what situations is US Immigration and Customs Enforcement allowed or not allowed to act as local police do?” Because both AI and traditional search engines may or may not return the same results for the same search, and because AI results are not written by a human and therefore not subject to copyright, I’m copying the entire answer. Drawing on ten different sources including the BBC, the Massachusetts state government website, and the ACLU, it is quite illuminating:

 is a federal civil immigration agency, not a general police force, so it can enforce federal immigration and certain federal criminal laws but cannot simply “act like” local police enforcing state or local law. Its actions are further limited by the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and by how much local police choose or are allowed (under state law) to cooperate.?

What ICE is allowed to do

  • Enforce federal immigration law. ICE can stop, detain, and arrest people it has probable cause to believe are removable (deportable) from the U.S., and can place them in immigration detention and initiate deportation cases.?

  • Enforce certain federal crimes. ICE can investigate and bring cases involving immigration-related crimes like human trafficking, document fraud, and smuggling under federal criminal statutes.?

  • Make public?space arrests with probable cause. In public places, ICE may arrest someone if agents have probable cause the person is removable and likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained; they may also execute valid arrest warrants in public.?

  • Enter homes with judicial warrants or consent. ICE may enter a private home only with the occupant’s voluntary consent or a judicial warrant signed by a judge; an internal ICE “administrative” warrant alone does not authorize entry into a private residence.?

  • Conduct raids and surveillance within legal limits. ICE can conduct operations at homes, workplaces, and in communities and can use data collection and digital surveillance tools, subject to constitutional limits on searches and seizures.?

  • Request help from local law enforcement. ICE can ask local agencies to notify them when someone is being released or to hold a person briefly through “detainers,” and can enter formal agreements (287(g)) that deputize some local officers to perform limited immigration functions.?

What ICE is not allowed to do

  • Cannot enforce state or local non?immigration laws. ICE does not have authority to enforce purely state or local offenses (like routine traffic violations or most state criminal laws) unless a separate federal authority applies.?

  • Cannot enter homes using only an ICE form. An ICE administrative warrant (Form I?200/I?205) does not let agents force their way into a private home; without consent or a judicial warrant, they must stay outside or in common/public areas.?

  • Cannot force local police to act as immigration officers. Local agencies cannot be compelled to carry out civil immigration enforcement; they decide whether to cooperate, and many jurisdictions legally limit that cooperation.?

  • Cannot use detainers as binding orders. ICE detainers are requests, not mandatory orders; local agencies may violate state law or the Constitution if they hold someone past their release time without proper legal authority.?

  • Must comply with the Constitution. ICE arrests, searches, and detention are constrained by the Fourth Amendment and due process requirements, just like other law enforcement; unconstitutional stops, searches, or holds can lead to liability.?

How ICE differs from local police

  • Scope of authority. Local police are generalists enforcing broad state and local criminal laws within a limited geographic area, while ICE has a narrow subject?matter focus (immigration and related federal crimes) but nationwide reach.?

  • Civil versus criminal. Much of what ICE does is civil (removal/deportation) rather than criminal prosecution, so ICE can detain someone for immigration violations even when no crime is charged, which is different from typical local policing.?

  • Limits on cooperating with ICE. Many cities and states have “sanctuary” or similar policies that allow cooperation on serious criminal matters but forbid or restrict participation in routine civil immigration enforcement.?

When ICE and local police can overlap

  • Joint operations on crime. Local police may work with ICE when investigating federal crimes (for example, human trafficking or gang cases) where immigration issues also arise.?

  • 287(g) agreements. Under 287(g) “jail?enforcement” agreements, certain local jail officers are trained and authorized to perform specific immigration tasks (like issuing charging documents or detainers) under ICE supervision, but they still must follow constitutional and state?law limits.?

  • Information sharing and notifications. Where allowed by state and local law, police may share booking information or give ICE notice of a person’s release, even if they cannot legally hold the person longer just because ICE asked.?

Situations where ICE is more restricted than local police

  • Protected or sensitive areas (policy?based). For years, ICE policies limited enforcement in places like schools, hospitals, and churches, though recent DHS actions have rescinded some of those “sensitive location” protections; policy can be more restrictive than what the Constitution alone requires.?

  • Entering private spaces. Local police with state?court warrants for state crimes may enter a home to arrest a suspect; ICE, by contrast, often relies on administrative warrants that do not permit entering a home without consent, so ICE’s ability to mimic a home arrest by local police is more limited.?

If you want, a follow?up can focus specifically on how these rules work in Massachusetts and what they mean for day?to?day interactions with ICE.

 
 
 
 

 

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Activism, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, General Commentary, Gratitude, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, language, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, media-general, Mindset, People Helping People, poverty, propaganda, Psychology, Publishing, Science, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side, Technology Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

“We have built the safest civilisation in human history while convincing ourselves that we live in the most dangerous. Billions of people experienced measurable improvements in health, safety, and material conditions in 2025. That progress didn’t make the news. But it happened anyway, one vaccine, one school meal, one kilowatt-hour at a time.”
—Angus Hervey, Fix the News

From Fix the News, one of several good-news publications I receive—and one that skews toward science-based progress. This one does start with a depressing summary of the news we’ve all heard—but then moves into a long series of victories that most of us didn’t even now about. It pauses to excoriate mass media for amplifying the negative and superficial (e.g., celebrities) while ignoring unsexy but vital stories such as the amazing ocean treaties and the actual elimination of rampant fatal diseases, country by country. And then it finishes with another long list of victories for humanity and the other creatures we share this amazing planet with.

You won’t be sorry to spend ten minutes with this. https://fixthenews.com/p/the-telemetry?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=4861955&post_id=182468358&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=sl4r&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, censorship, Ethics: General, General Commentary, language, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

I’m still on Facebook—but I took it off my phone. I also removed Proton and Signal, as well as fingerprint logon from both my phone and computer. Any guesses about why?

Here’s the sad and scary reason: I can no longer trust my government.

The Constitution is supposed to protect US residents against unreasonable searches and seizures. It’s right there in the Fourth Amendment. But the current government is violating that every day. US citizens are being dragged out of cars, homes and workplaces. Immigrants who followed all the rules and have the right to be here are being torn from their families. And of course, those who are here without papers—the vast majority of whom have done nothing wrong and who in many cases have been productive and contributing members of our community for decades are being thrown into gulags under extremely cruel conditions.

All of this is immoral—but it’s happening. This man calls himself a Christian, but his actions show either total unfamiliarity or total nonalignment with the words of Christ. Christ was about welcoming the stranger, helping the needy, breaking down barriers across cultures. Just think about the Good Samaritan parable, embracing the goodness of a member of a despised ethnic group or the—“he who is without sin” invitation that bought an adulteress the ability to continue living.

I’m someone who has always had a low need for privacy and a high transparency level. I strongly suspected in the 1970s when my housemate worked for an anarchist newspaper and I was doing safe energy organizing that our phone was tapped. We were low on the totem pole, so they didn’t waste a good quality tap on us. Our phone made all sorts of noises that our friends’ phones didn’t. I had two responses: One was to be sure I didn’t discuss anything confidential over the phone, including who might be planning what activities. This was easy, because I wasn’t part of a terrorist cell and wasn’t doing anything that would be a problem if the government knew about it. But still, I was careful not to mention people’s names over the phone.

My second response was to tell them I knew:  Every once in a while, I’d say something like “Hey, government agents, you must be bored. Go get a pencil. I’m going to give you my recipe for three-minute chocolate mousse.” (The secret is to use ricotta cheese instead of eggs, by the way).

But times are different now. Instead of governing, our government is trying to crush dissent. And they have tools like AI-powered social media scraping that they haven’t had before. I have been a frequent public critic of Trump and Netanyahu, and an occasional public critic of some of Trump’s other friends, like Bolsonaro and Putin. While unlikely, it’s not beyond possibility that I’ve been put on some kind of extra-screening list, and that the government might try to get into my devices even without the judicial warrant they’re supposed to obtain. Low probability, but certainly not impossible.

And just as I didn’t name names over the phone fifty years ago, I no longer tag my comrades in Facebook or show recognizable faces when I’m writing about protests unless I’ve gotten permission.

I deeply resent that all this precaution feels necessary now. We are supposed to be a democracy. Yet, it was exactly this kind of outspoken public speech that led to several high-profile arrests of Muslim foreign students in the first few weeks of the Trump II administration—including Rumeysa Ozturk in my own state of Massachusetts. Yes, I was born here. Yes, I am White. But the thing about fascism is it starts with the most marginalized and spreads to the mainstream population. And even if it wasn’t spreading, it is not okay to yank people off the street and throw them in a hell-hole for exercising their First Amendment rights. Among other things, my phone-cleaning is an act of solidarity.

Meanwhile, the president of the United States has overseen the murder of at least 69 Venezuelan and Colombian civilians for no viable cause, in multiple attacks (as of November 7). He claims they are drug runners, but evidence points to most of them being fishermen. And even if they are running drugs, you deal with that by stopping and searching the ship and seizing it if it’s true, then making arrests and turning to the courts. Not by blowing them off the face of the Earth.

He has called for execution by hanging of six courageous US military veterans in Congress who made a video reminding soldiers that they are not under obligation to follow illegal orders (such as deploying against US civilians)—and in fact are obligated NOT to follow those orders, because the allegiance they swore is to the constitution, not to any thin-skinned power-mad multiple-felon would-be dictator.

He has pressured numerous companies to make settlements that have been labeled extortion or profiteering, illegally using the presidency for personal and family and corporate financial gain, in direct disregard of the Constitution.

And oh yes, he has used the Justice Department to go after his political enemies, rather than actual criminals, wasting millions of our tax dollars for personal vendettas.

At the moment, I’m halfway through a flight from Asia to New York. If they want to look at my social media, they will have to look a little harder, because my phone and computer will be off and I will not turn them on for an agent who doesn’t have proper authorization.

I recognize that this only makes things inconvenient for them. They could easily use their own device to check my social media. They could somewhat less easily impound my devices. I also recognize that the odds are highest that they will ask me where I went and what I purchased—then simply say, as usual, “welcome back,” and wave me through.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, I will have cleared immigration control without incident and be settling down to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. But if they do try to poke into my business, I will at least slow the machinery of oppression down a bit.

POSTSCRIPT: Compared with an hour-long wait in Saigon, the passport control line at JFK Airport was only ten minutes long, we were waved through without any questions, and I’ve reinstalled FB on my phone until the next time I leave the country.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

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Remember when this administration came into power in January and immediately declared war on government waste, fraud, and abuse? Remember Elon Musk and his inexperienced DOGE sidekicks freezing government programs, firing tens of thousands of workers who turned out to be essential, literally closing the doors of some agencies (in a process that even Fox News called “frenetic and error-riddled”), and, oh yeah, stealing our personal records for unknown purposes, in direct contravention of privacy laws?

Oddly enough (sarcasm), DOGE didn’t find much actual waste, fraud, or abuse. But they sure caused a lot of it—$21.7 bn in waste, fraudulent claims of $115 bn in savings, but a real number more like $2 bn (1/10 of what their shenanginas cost us taxpayers)—and abuse of tens of thousands of hard-working civil servants who suddenly found themselves the targets of partisan witch-hunts, along with the millions of US citizens who depend on those folks. And, as Senator Richard Blumentahl (D-CT) notes, not only would DOGE’s waste have more than funded a number of programs they cut, there’s also corruption involved: “Musk and his companies were able to avoid at least $2.37 billion in potential liability due to federal investigations or other regulatory actions.” (We could have a much longer post about the hundreds of instances of corruption in this administration generally—but I’ll save them for another blog post down the road. This example, though, is directly relevant. Avoiding prosecution is likely a big part of why Musk took the job in the first place.)

But if this administration is really concerned about waste, fraud, and abuse, please explain why we’ve experienced—a few among hundreds of examples ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of billions, with a b:

Using the lower numbers where there’s a range, just these few examples total $321,003,090,800. By comparison, the state budget passed in July here in my own state of Massachusetts was $61 bn.

In short, do not believe anyone in the administration who says anything they do is about cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. They are committing waste, fraud, and abuse—massively. Isn’t it time we held them to account?Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, censorship, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Media Ethics, media-general, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , ,

Are you as appalled as I am about the blatant suppression of dissenting voices in mainstream media lately? They’re even going after the court jesters—first Colbert, now Kimmel, and there will be others.

But we can express our displeasure. Here’s the letter I wrote to Disney, parent company of ABC (if you want to write your own letter, the address is responsibility@twdc.com).

Subject: Your removal of Kimmel was completely unjustified

Body:
I read the transcript of what Jimmy Kimmel said. I didn’t see any glorying in violence or in Kirk’s murder. What I read was the notation that “MAGA people” were “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” (Source: USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/entertainment/tv/2025/09/17/jimmy-kimmel-show-photos/86209850007/)

The only part of that statement that is even an opinion is the word “desperately.” The rest is a statement of facts. See, for instance, Donald Trump calling it “radical left political violence” (https://time.com/7316299/charlie-kirk-shot-death-donald-trump-speech-transcript-political-violence/). In that same speech, Trump noted several instances of political violence against right-wingers—but he didn’t criticize the murder of MN lawmaker Melissa Hortman or numerous other attacks on liberals and progressives in that speech—see https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/09/11/donald-trump-charlie-kirk-melissa-hortman/86089962007/: “Hortman was not mentioned in Trump’s Sept. 10 address touching on several recent instances of political violence, including his own survived assassination attempt and the shooting Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana in 2017. He did not mention other attacks on Democrats including an arson attack at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s house, a kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and an assault on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband in their home.”)

See also this article that cites SEVEN right-wing pundits blaming Democrats or the radical left for Kirk’s death: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/09/11/donald-trump-charlie-kirk-melissa-hortman/86089962007/

In short, Kimmel was forced out not for hate speech, but for reporting on a double standard that exists and is easily verifiable. Shame on you!

My wife and I were getting tired of Netflix and were planning to try Hulu. Guess what: you will not get a subscription from us. Nor will you be getting any admission fees at Disney properties. We will make other choices and do business with companies that do not try to suppress dissenters just to curry favor with a would-be dictator.

I have written four books on business ethics as a success principle. Your lack of ethics in this matter will not endear you to the millions of Americans who care about the business practices of companies they deal with.

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Most of these are singable songs that can be used at rallies, though I snuck in a few harder to learn ones that tell really inspiring stories, marked with *, as well as some in other languages. Vaguely sorted but many of these songs could be in multiple categories. Authors’ names included where I have them. These are living songs. You will find versions with different lyrics, verses in different order as they evolve—adapted for new causes or new definitions or new sensibilities. You’ll also find some older works that don’t reflect the nth degree of what’s currently considered politically correct. They were important songs in their time, and part of what I’m trying to do is provide a sense of movement history. You’ll also find some musings about what a particular song means to me, sometimes with a memory thrown in. Enjoy!

 

The Strength of Ordinary People who “Activize” and Resist

Tyrants Always Fall (Nerissa Nields). When I got depressed during the first DT term, I often turned to this song for comfort. Western Mass folks will recognize the Northampton scenery, as The Nields are local and filmed their video downtown.

Something Inside So Strong (Labi Siffre). The Black Gay British man who wrote it was shocked by a video of South African police shooting into a crowd of anti-apartheid demonstrators—and also drew on his own background growing up gay and marginalized. It’s been widely adapted in the movements both to end apartheid and to gain LGBTQ rights. The couplet “The more you refuse to hear my voice/ The louder I will sing” is the earworm that’s been in my head a lot lately—and what inspired me to compile this resource.

*Denmark, 1943 (Fred Small) documents the incredible night when the people of Denmark rose up to smuggle almost the country’s entire Jewish population to safety in Sweden, just before the Nazis planned to swoop in to arrest and deport them. It has a singable chorus but I wouldn’t try to teach it to crowd that’s never heard it.

Never Turning Back (Pat Humphries). A great zipper song, easy to teach and lead.

Power to the People: We Rise (Laurie Woodward Garcia). Released in June, 2025, this song draws lyrics, energy, and photos from many struggles, including many from 2020 to the present.

If I Had a Hammer (Pete Seeger and Lee Hays). The original lyrics had “All of my brothers.” Decades ago, activist Libby Frank asked Pete at one of his concerts, “Why only brothers?” So Pete discussed it with Lee and they came back with “my brothers and my sisters.” In this version, Emma’s Revolution changed it to the more gender-inclusive “all of the resisters.” We still need to come up with something that has love not just for the resisters but for everyone, without reintroducing the gender binary. Got an idea?

Song of the Soul (Cris Williamson). An anthem of the women’s and lesbian movements, but I put it here because it’s also applicable generally.

Swimming to the Other Side (Pat Humphries). Like Song of the Soul, a song of spiritual renewal.

How Could Anyone Ever Tell You (Libby Roderick). I always thought of this as an LGBTQ community song. Turns out it’s been used in dozens of social movements. You’ll find a long list at the link, as well as several different recordings.

Rebecca Jones (Bob Blue). An ordinary mom steps into her greatness and gives a speech that inspires peace workers. I don’t know if this is based on one real person and one real incident, but I’ve met dozens and there have been tens of thousands of ordinary people who created massive social change, from 11-year-old Malala Yousafzai and 15-year-old Greta Thunberg (ages at the times they became activists) to Doris “Granny D” Haddock and Frances Crowe, both still activists on their hundredth birthdays. Despite dying at age 57, Bob was a prolific songwriter who left behind dozens of great songs. He’s probably best known for the feminist song “The Ballad of Erica Levine,” sung here by Kim Wallach. I’ve heard that one at several feminist weddings.

We’re Still Here (Holly Near). An upbeat, almost vaudevillian celebration of the resistance’s resilience and power.

What’s Going On (Marvin Gaye). That link is to an “official” video, released in 2019 (35 years after Gaye’s death) that includes images and sounds of protests and repression. If you would rather have it straight up, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-kA3UtBj4M

 

LGBTQ

Singing For Our Lives (Holly Near). I love this video because not only do we have Holly’s beautiful rendition as it had evolved by 2004, but hugely inspiring footage of the massive march for women’s reproductive rights where she performed it. And some new lyrics put up at the end of the video. Holly literally wrote this song while carpooling to San Francisco to protest the murder of San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Harvey Milk—one of the first openly gay politicians in the US—and Mayor George Moscone by a right-wing homophobe. The driver, Holly herself, and a few others discuss the song’s origins and power in this short video.

*Scott and Jamie (Fred Small). Another true-story ballad from I Will Stand Fast (the same album as Denmark, 1943). How, in the 1980s, a gay male couple provided a loving, nonjudgmental home for two abused brothers only to have them ripped away by a homophobic government. Glad we have made big progress on this issue, at least.

*My Name is Joanna (Flight or Visibility). Misgendered once too often, my nonbinary younger child, a professional musician and music educator who also runs a school for social justice, wrote this after an encounter with a particularly clueless server in a cafe. Language warning: One f-bomb in the last line.

*When I Was a Boy (Dar Williams). A gender-bending song from the early 1980s that amazingly enough, I discovered because my local commercial FM rock station played it regularly! I very much identify with this song, especially the ending.

Thank You Anita (Charlie King). Released back in 1979, King counters Florida orange juice spokesperson Anita Bryant’s very public homophobia by saying she united people who hadn’t worked together before but now were joining forces to oppose her bigotry.

 

Peace

Oh What a Grand and Glorious Feeling (I think this is traditional, but it could have been written by Earl Robinson, who I learned it from at a house concert around 1978. Since then, I’ve taught it at many sing-alongs and rallies. I didn’t find a recording, just the lyrics, but the tune is the same as Oh How Lovely Is the Evening.)

Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream (Ed McCurdy). My folk-music-loving 4th grade teacher taught us this song and many other great ones!

*The Hammer Has to Fall (Charlie King). This song actually changed the way I felt about property-destruction civil disobedience that resulted in long prison terms. I used to resent the Ploughshare 8 for removing themselves from activism for decades. This song humanized them for me and touched my soul deeply.

Imagine (John Lennon). I could have put this in the general resilience category, or made a new section on visioning. But I’m putting it here because of the second verse that contains both “Nothing to kill or die for” and “Living life in peace.”

 

Safe Energy/No Nukes

Acres of Clams (Charlie King). Theme song of the Clamshell Alliance’s 1977 Seabrook occupation (one of my proudest moments in 55 years of activism).

We Almost Lost Detroit (Gil Scott-Heron). You may have never heard of the 1966 accident at the Enrico Fermi nuclear plant in Michigan, or the one at Browns Ferry in Alabama in 1975—or dozens of other near-calamities. Gill Scott-Heron helps us remember Fermi. By the way, I am convinced that the reason we DID hear about Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima while most of us have not heard of more than 100 other serious nuclear accidents was because of the safe energy movement, which inspired the movie, The China Syndrome, that came out right before the TMI accident. Lyrics.

 

US Civil Rights Movement

Oh, Freedom (traditional). I love Odetta’s version but could only find it as part of her Freedom Trilogy, so I went with Harry Belafonte’s.

I Ain’t Scared of Your Jail ‘Cause I Want My Freedom. From Pete Seeger’s 1963 Carnegie Hall concert, one of my favorite albums ever. More of this is telling the story than singing the very short song. But only Pete’s own recording turned up in a search.

We Shall Overcome (many authors over multiple generations). The anthem of the Civil Rights movement, carried over to many struggles since—in part, because it’s a “zipper song” where it’s easy to add new verses. Great article on the history of the song from Encyclopedia Britanica.

Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around (adaptation of a traditional Black gospel song). This performance by civil rights activists the Freedom Singers doesn’t have a date, but according to this university curriculum citation, it can’t be older than 1962 or newer than 1980. My guess is sometime between 1962-65. I think I first heard it at a community rally in Atlanta when I lived there briefly in 1976, during a college internship at a socialist community newspaper.

 

Immigration and Immigration Justice

Yes I Am (American) (Malini D. Sur, MD). This 2010 song joins Brown, Black, Yellow, and Red people through the common experience of coming from someplace else—even if it was 10,000 years ago across the Bering Strait.

Mexican Chef (Xenia Rubinos) celebrates the jobs immigrants, especially Latines, do for people in the US and how our society would grind to a halt without them. I could do without the fake-sexy dance moves, though.

Where You Go (I Will Go) (Shoshana Jedwab). Based on the Old Testament Book of Ruth, one of the earliest voluntary migration stories we have. The Old Testament contains many migration stories across many centuries: Adam and Eve leaving the Garden, Abraham leaving Iraq and later experiencing several temporary migrations, Hagar and Ishmael forced into the desert, climate refugees Jacob and his adult children seeing refuge in Egypt, where he reunites with Joseph, the son he’d been told had been killed, Moses and later Joshua leading the Israelites out of slavery…I’d say these migration stories contain a lot of the power in those texts.

Deportee (Woody Guthrie, words; Martin Hoffman. music). The ugliness of US immigration policy is nothing new; this song was written following the death of a plane full of migrants in 1948. Judy Collins’ voice is achingly beautiful.

Using the same melody and parallelling the lyrics, Yosl Kurland ties together the tragedy of the Ashkenazi (Northern European) Jews aboard the St. Louis—which was refused entry by several countries including the US, and most of whose passengers were killed in the Holocaust after being sent back to the country they’d sailed from—and the modern tragedies of refuges from the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Latin America still being turned away or imprisoned or abandoned, in a powerful 2017 update called Refugee.

Leaving Mother Russia (Robbie Solomon). A song written for Natan Sharansky in the 1970s, when he was imprisoned for Jewish rights activism by the USSR.

*Revelación (Genie Santiago). Bilingual English/Spanish rap with lots of images of protests and of people trying to cross the border. Like so many immigration songs, this could also go easily into the Class section.

*Immigrants (We Get The Job Done) (Lin-Manuel Miranda). A remix with pieces from various songs in his musical, Hamilton. Lyrics here.

Running (Refugee Song) (Keyon Harrold, Andrea Pizziconi, and Jasson Harrold) describes the hard life in refugee camps—and why they had to flee in the first place.

American Land (Bruce Springsteen). With a rollicking Irish melody, Springsteen contrasts the dreams of wealth and ease shared by so many immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries with the harsh realities they found here. This version, appropriately, was filmed live in Dublin. Also of note are the words Springsteen speaks at a 2025 concert in Manchester, UK before singing Land of Hopes and Dreams (another song from the same album).

Kilkelly, Ireland (Peter Jones). A 19th-century Irish farmer dictates letters to his son living in the US across several decades. This hauntingly beautiful song reminds us that until quite recently, people who emigrated left behind loved ones and had only very slow postal mail to keep in touch. And despite the magic of video calls and emails, what’s still true today is that for many, there is no going back.

 

Class, Labor, and Economic Justice

This Land is Your Land (Woody Guthrie). In 1975, I found myself co-leading a march of several thousand people through the streets of Washington, DC, playing this song on harmonica along with a violinist, a kazoo player, and I think a guitarist. Not only didn’t we rehearse, I had no idea I was going to be drafted into this impromptu marching band. The two string players were also singing. That day was memorable both because it remains the only time I’ve ever performed music for an audience (other than teaching “Oh What a Grand and Glorious Feeling”)—because it was the first time I heard the long-suppressed politically progressive “secret” verses. I used to own an LP where you could actually hear the needle scratch as it was pulled away to cut those verses out of the master. Guthrie wrote hundreds of lyrics but to the best of my knowledge, never wrote a tune.

This particularly moving performance is led by Pete Seeger, less than four months before he turned 90, with some help from his grandson Tao Rodríguez Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, and a mostly Black chorus—recorded at the Lincoln memorial during Obama’s inauguration concert.

Talkin’ About A Revolution (Tracy Chapman). Chart-topping class-based anthem about those who are “…standing in the welfare lines/
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation”

Is This the World We Created? (Freddie Mercury and Brian May of Queen). A British comparison of desperate hunger in the Global South with “a wealthy man…sitting on his throne.”

Step By Step (Words from a 19th-century union rulebook; music by Pete Seeger). We are strongest when we work together.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? (Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney). Written in 1932 during the Great Depression and a hit for both Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee, it starkly illuminates the way corporate greed casts aside those who built that wealth. This much more recent version, soulful if a bit overblown, is by George Michael. Good backgrounder on the Kennedy Center website. In case the MAGAs have taken it down, this is the most recent version (April 12, 2025) on Archive.org. BTW, Harburg is a major Broadway songwriter probably best known for songs like “Somewhere, over the Rainbow” and “It’s Only a Paper Moon.”

I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler (Tom Paxton). A scathing response to the bailout of US automakers during the Carter years (not to be confused with the similar bailout under Bush II). Arlo Guthrie recorded the song when it was new, then recorded it with Tom’s updated lyrics for this 2008 Farm Aid benefit.

We Gotta Get Out of This Place (Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil). Hard-rocking ‘60’s hit about love amidst terrible working conditions.

 

Liberation Struggles Around the World

*Would You Harbor Me? (Ysaye Barnwell, USA, of Sweet Honey in the Rock). A beautiful song asking the title question about a wide range of people who are part of oppressed groups.

Woyaya (Sol Amarfio, Ghana, of Osibisa). You may know versions by Art Garfunkel or the Fifth Dimension. This is the composer’s band, Osibisa, from 1971.

Si se calla el cantor (Horacio Guarany, Argentina). “What will become of life if the Singer/Does not raise his voice in the stands/For those who suffer, for those for whom there is/No reason that condemns him to walk without a blanket.” Full lyrics and translation here.

Mbube (Solomon Linda, South Africa). Americanized as Wimoweh/The Lion Sleeps Tonight, this was a huge hit for the Weavers in 1951 and again 11 years later for the Tokens. This version by Ladysmith Black Mambazo is closer to the original but with lots of unique LBM touches. And this is very much what a local Black chorus sounded like when we heard them play this song on the streets of Cape Town. There is an upsetting chronicle about the way Mr. Linda was defrauded of proper compensation on Wikipedia.

Falasteen Biladi (Hamood Alkuder). A Palestinian cries out for justice in Gaza. Arabic with English subtitles.

Zahrat al-Mada’en (Assi Rahbani, Mansour Rahbani). The Palestinian narrator mourns the isolation from Jerusalem (whose name literally translates as “city of peace”), beloved by both Palestinians and Jews. Performed here by Fairuz. Translated lyrics here. For a Jewish perspective, listen to Ben Snof singing “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem” from Psalm 137 (many translations into English here). Interestingly, the same Biblical psalm also contains “By the Waters of Babylon,” another song of exiles longing for their homeland.

 

Resources

This list of 50 songs is a drop in a roaring river of great social change music. Find more in the songbooks Rise Up Signing and its second volume, Rise Again, compiled by Peter Blood and Annie Patterson, in We Rise: A Movement Songbook available for no-cost download, at the websites of Peoples Music Network and Sing Out magazine, at this Spotify playlist, and on the websites of many of the authors and performers.

 

Thank-yous to the many people (alphabetically) who suggested songs:

Janet Beatrice

Stephanie L.H. Calahan

Donna Cooney

Lisa Diaz

Raf Horowitz Friedman

Luis-Orlando Isaza Villegas

Riqi Kosovske

Yosl Kurland

Lauchlan Mackinnon

Oscar Martinez

Marcia Miller

Amanda Risi

Andrea Rudnik

Phil Stone

Sandy Sulsky

Melody Tilton

Dianne Turausky

Debbie Ward

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Ethics in Government, language, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

An acquaintance reposted a pack of lies from the rocker Ted Nugent. I’m not going to link to the original, but it will be easy to find. I responded thusly (uncapitalized quotes are directly from Nugent, who put his whole thing into one sentence):

 

I respectfully disagree. 1) Yes, Biden has some cognitive loss (so do I and probably so do you). Not nearly as much as T, who was reasonably coherent in his 2016 campaign but completely looney in 2024. And I’ve seen zero evidence that Biden knew about the cancer during his campaign. Where’s your evidence that he knew?

2) There is nothing mathematically impossible about Biden’s victory in 2020. Hate is a hard sell, and four years with T in charge was scary both for policy and for incompetence. OTOH, there is a LOT of strangeness about T’s 2016 numbers, eking out the narrowest victories in just enough swing states. It’s a lot easier to throw a few thousand votes than to throw hundreds of thousands. It just takes a few precincts.

3) “arrested anyone who contested it.” Nope. Arrested those who rioted, attacked police, destroyed government property, etc. But T is having people grabbed off the streets and thrown in foreign and domestic gulags for their political views and for their ethnicity.

4) “sanctioned an invasion.” Yes, Biden was horribly silent on the invasion of Gaza by Israel. But Nugent is more likely talking about immigrants at the Southern border, which was not an invasion. Invasions involve armed soldiers and instruments of war. What Hamas did on October 7, 2023 was an invasion, and so was Israel’s response. And so is the invasion by Putin against Ukraine—which Nugent is completely silent about.

5) “weaponized the courts, silenced speech” You mean the way T has done to a host of perceived enemies from prominent Democrats to Palestinian students? And T has also weaponized the DOJ, DHS, ICE, and several other agencies, not to mention attempting to blackmail colleges, universities, and law firms into suppressing dissent on his behalf and giving favors to him and his pet causes. Meanwhile, people being illegally kidnapped by daily ICE raids that violate any semblance of due process. Imagine what it feels like being dragged out of your car or home or required immigration hearing by heavily armed masked officers who refuse to show badges or warrants. The victims include many who are legally in the US, have immigration cases pending, and even a few who are citizens, and sometimes these kidnappings happen in front of their kids. And even those who are not here legally are entitled to due process they are not receiving. Imagine the anguish of Abrego Garcia, torn from his home and illegally deported by mistake (even according to the government) to a notorious prison in El Salvador for no reason, and now that government is refusing to lift a finger to get him back. Where is your outrage about that?

6) “turned the US into Sodom & Gomorrah”: I’m assuming Nugent is making a homophobic remark here. Personally, I’m delighted that people who love a partner who doesn’t fit the conventional mode now have the freedom to be public and even to marry. And I’ve read both the Old and New Testaments. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because the visiting angels were threatened with violence (including rape) by a mob that surrounded Lot’s house. More like January 6, 2021 or Kristallnacht. Meanwhile, Jesus was all about love. Jesus defended immigrants, prostitutes, and the poor. He opposed war and violence in all forms. I suspect if He were alive today, Jesus would be attending Pride marches as a supportive ally.

7) Nugent’s post doesn’t talk about corruption. But he should, because T seems much more interested in monetizing the presidency than in actually running the country. The sheer scale of T’s corruption is unlike anything the US has ever seen. We’ve had massive bribery, selling access, squandering our hard-earned tax money to illegally sell crypto, and even accepting a “gift” superjet from a foreign government where he has business dealings. That plane is not only worth more than all gifts given to all previous presidents combined but will cost more than twice its stated value to bring up to security standards and then be turned over to T’s library when his term is over (so no future president gets to use this supposed gift to the nation). He accused Obama of spending too much time on the golf course, but he’s golfing almost every weekend, at enormous cost to the taxpayers. (Snopes estimated that just his first five 2025 trips to Mar-a-Lago cost taxpayers $22.2 million.) The whole sordid DOGE episode was all about vendettas and accumulating wealth and power for him and his billionaire friend who now, illegally, has access to the personal, supposedly private data about millions of our citizens. It didn’t save any money but it destroyed a lot of it.

His entire second term so far has been about greed, power, and repression. He’s carefully following the Project 2025 playbook, which in turn draws very heavily from what the Nazis did in the 1930s and 40s. Our democracy is at risk. Fascism CAN happen here. And that’s why I’m spending so much time writing pieces like this, marching in the streets, lobbying officials, and standing up for justice.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail