It was an awfully slow news week last week. This week, we seem to be picking up the pace.
Imperialism
United States
Fig. 1. “American Progress,” painting by John Gast, 1872, digital version 2006, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
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The saga that led to [Julian] Assange’s prosecution dates back to 2010, when an Army intelligence analyst, Private Chelsea Manning, leaked a vast trove of data to WikiLeaks including videos of deadly U.S. military airstrikes, hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and logs of U.S. military activity in Afghanistan and Iraq. Among the revelations posted online was video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.
While the leaks of military and State Department records made Assange a controversial figure in the U.S. and a hero to many anti-war activists, the picture grew more complex in 2016 when his website released large volumes of emails from the Democratic National Committee and from a personal Gmail account of John Podesta, then the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Among other revelations, the stolen emails showed signs that the DNC had acted favorably toward Clinton during her primary against Bernie Sanders.
Many Democrats accused Assange of collaborating with Russian intelligence to undermine Clinton’s campaign. Assange denied the claim.[1]
The simple fact is that this is about wars that were atrocious ideas from the beginning but that the U.S. political class wanted, and had only become even more dubious in the time since they began. The politicians did not want to admit that they were profoundly wrong, though they had to know that they were profoundly wrong and were responsible for knowing it even if they didn’t, and they wanted to continue their wars at any cost. And so, pointless and ultimately futile slaughters had to be defended at any cost.
If you’re noticing parallels with Israel’s genocide in Gaza and with Russia’s attempted conquest of Ukraine,[2] go to the head of the class. The U.S. and Russian refusals to accede to the International Criminal Court are obviously about escaping accountability for war crimes. The U.S. defense of Israel’s genocide is nothing less.
Josh Gerstein and Samantha Latson, “Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, cuts plea deal to avoid US prison,” Politico, June 24, 2024, https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/24/julian-assange-plea-deal-00164763
Ellen Nakashima, Devlin Barrett, and Rachel Weiner, “WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange expected to plead guilty to felony charge,” Washington Post, June 24, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/06/24/assange-wikileaks-plea-deal-guilty/
Ed Pilkington, “Julian Assange leaves UK after striking deal with US justice department,” Guardian, June 25, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/25/julian-assange-plea-deal-with-us-free-to-return-australia
Israel
Fig. 2. John Bolton and Binyamin Netanyahu at a press conference. Office of U.S. National Security Advisor, August 20, 2018, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
The ultra-Orthodox in Israel have enjoyed considerable privilege, which many in the rest of the Israeli population resents, in exchange for supporting Binyamin Netanyahu. The Israeli Supreme Court’s decision threatens that support.[3]
Israel Cohen, a commentator on the ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Berama, said the community realizes that, post-Oct. 7 [the day of the Hamas attack], it has to compromise. He said it has so far directed its ire against the Supreme Court and will grant [Binyamin] Netanyahu a short grace period to draft a law that would take into consideration the new reality, while ensuring the ultra-Orthodox are able to hold on to their values.
“Now it’s test time for Netanyahu to pass a law,” Cohen said. “And, if not, support for this government disappears.”[4]
There is, of course, a bit more to this picture. Both the war on Gaza and a potential war on Lebanon are wars of choice, which Israelis claim are in “self-defense”—long a rationale for imperialism—but are actually about protecting Binyamin Netanyahu’s political career. When Israelis now say that the ultra-Orthodox are needed for military duty, it is due to their own imperial ambition.
Shira Rubin and Claire Parker, “Israeli Supreme Court rules ultra-Orthodox must serve in the military,” Washington Post, June 25, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/25/israel-haredi-ultra-orthodox/
Russia
Ukraine
Fig. 3. Cartoon by Ella Baron, June 2, 2024, via the Guardian, fair use.
Seb Starcevik, “The Hague hits Putin’s military cronies with arrest warrants for war crimes,” Politico, June 25, 2024, https://www.politico.eu/article/4982958/
Illiberalism
Gilead
Abortion, reproductive freedom, reproductive health, and even divorce
Fig. 4. Sign at demonstration in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, May 3, 2022. Janni Rye, via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
No-fault divorce is a way for partners to escape abusive relationships. Banning or restricting no-fault divorce is a way of trapping people in those relationships,[5] which is a way of saying you want to reinforce the powerful over the weak in abusive relationships.
My father was abusive, rejecting and physically assaulting me from the day I was born, verbally abusive toward my mother. When she finally threw him out in the 1970s, after Ronald Reagan—himself a divorcée—had signed a California law enabling no-fault divorce,[6] it felt like freedom for me. Her path was eased by no-fault divorce and she went on to marry a man whom I did not get along with but who brought her decades of happiness.
My father, on the other hand, went on to a second marriage, to a woman who suffered heroin addiction and depression and who became severely depressed during their marriage. He committed suicide at the age of 65, having recently retired and, I believe, discovered what it is like to live with a severely depressed person full time. Entirely dependent upon him, she killed herself with a opioid overdose a few months later.
Between 1976 and 1985, states that passed the laws saw their domestic violence rates against men and women fall by about 30%; the number of women murdered by an intimate partner declined by 10%; and female suicide rates declined by 8 to 16%.
Without such laws, “it’s hard to prove anything in court relating to a family because you don’t have any witnesses”, said Kimberly Wehle, professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. “It’s very difficult to get evidence to show abuse of children. How do you do it? Do you put your kids on the stand?”[7]
I still suffer. My father’s rejection developed into a societal rejection—shunning, for all practical purposes—depriving me both of a career and a social life, let alone a love life. I am forsaken, profoundly and eternally alone. But it would surely have been even worse if my mother had not been able to get that divorce.
Eric Berger, “Conservative US lawmakers are pushing for an end to no-fault divorce,” Guardian, June 25, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/25/republicans-no-fault-divorce
Gun nuttery
Fig. 5. “Rally Against Gun Control ‘Come and Take it’ flag at the Minnesota State Capitol,” photograph by Fibonacci Blue [pseud.], April 28, 2018, via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Expect this to not move the needle even a nanometer.
Sabrina Malhi and Lizette Ortega, “U.S. surgeon general declares firearm violence a public health crisis,” Washington Post, June 25, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/06/26/surgeon-general-firearm-deaths/
- [1]Josh Gerstein and Samantha Latson, “Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, cuts plea deal to avoid US prison,” Politico, June 24, 2024, https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/24/julian-assange-plea-deal-00164763↩
- [2]Ahmed Twaij, “Bush did what Putin’s doing — so why is he getting away?” al Jazeera, March 28, 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/28/putin-should-be-punished-so-must-bush↩
- [3]Shira Rubin and Claire Parker, “Israeli Supreme Court rules ultra-Orthodox must serve in the military,” Washington Post, June 25, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/25/israel-haredi-ultra-orthodox/↩
- [4]Shira Rubin and Claire Parker, “Israeli Supreme Court rules ultra-Orthodox must serve in the military,” Washington Post, June 25, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/25/israel-haredi-ultra-orthodox/↩
- [5]Eric Berger, “Conservative US lawmakers are pushing for an end to no-fault divorce,” Guardian, June 25, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/25/republicans-no-fault-divorce↩
- [6]Eric Berger, “Conservative US lawmakers are pushing for an end to no-fault divorce,” Guardian, June 25, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/25/republicans-no-fault-divorce↩
- [7]Eric Berger, “Conservative US lawmakers are pushing for an end to no-fault divorce,” Guardian, June 25, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/25/republicans-no-fault-divorce↩