News & Articles

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” Frederick Douglass, 19th century abolitionist.  

Here are some more news stories you may have missed along with my ruminations on them.   

“Can it really be true that most people in jail are legally innocent?” This was the question raised by a recent Washington Post opinion piece. The answer is yes. In the “land of the free,” where the “rule of law” is supposed to be the guiding principle, the jails are full of people who have not been convicted of any crime. They are there primarily because they are poor.   

According to the editorial, in 2002 (the last time the government collected data) 29% of people in local jails were awaiting trial and had not been convicted. Seven out of 10 (69%) were poor people of color. Since then the number of these detainees has been increasing.   

The Prison Policy Initiative (prisonpolicy.org) says in 2023 more than 400,000 people were in jail awaiting trial while legally innocent. This was 69% of the people in city and county jails. Nationally the median bail for a felony charge was $10,000. The average annual income of a person who couldn't afford bail was $16,000 for a man and $11,000 for women. The national, annual cost of pretrial detention is estimated at $13.6 billion. Divide this number by 400,000 and you get $33,000 per detainee.  

“Law and order” Republicans have frequently opposed adequate funding for the state and federal court systems. This has created long delays for both criminal cases and civil law suits. They have opposed legal aid services and public defenders for those who can't afford lawyers. This makes no sense if you want effective public safety or an efficient justice system. 

It is true today, as it was 100 years ago that, “Where justice is denied...neither persons nor property will be safe.”  

Speaking of justice, The Progressive magazine (December 2023) had an opinion piece by Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman titled “I Protest This Bloodshed.” She talks about visiting a Palestinian refugee camp 20 years ago and being appalled at the conditions. At the time she supported the state of Israel. She used to believe that Israel “would mean liberation for the Jewish people.” But now she says, “My dream of Israel died in that refugee camp.”  

Rabbi Zimmerman's words about the current war need repeating, “The brutality of one side does not justify the brutality of the other...Hamas' attacks on Israeli civilians constitute a war crime...Yet we must not be silent in the face of Israel's own war crimes...This is not a time to root for your team. This is a time to stand on the side of humanity.”   But this message is falling on deaf ears in our country. Our politicians are too busy arguing over which foreign war to waste money on – how much gasoline to throw on the fires – to care about justice or humanity. Scoring political points is more important than doing anything practical to reduce the slaughter in Ukraine, Gaza, South Sudan or anywhere else.  

Case in point is House Resolution 894 which states that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” This  Republican-sponsored political theater is not about “denouncing the rise of antisemitism” as it claims. Its real purpose is to brand anyone who condemns Israel's massive killing of civilians, or supports justice for Palestinians, as “antisemitic.”  

Republicans sponsoring this resolution are extremely hypocritical. Historically right-wing conservatives and their supporters (the KKK, Neo-Nazis and Christian religious fundamentalists) have been the primary purveyors of antisemitism (or anti-Catholic and racial, sexual and gender bigotry). It is deeply disingenuous for Republicans to now be “denouncing the rise of antisemitism.” The statements of their current presidential front runner and the actions of his MAGA movement prove this assertion.  

Equating Zionism and antisemitism shows the Republican's ignorance and misunderstanding of history. Zionism was historically the political movement to create a Jewish nation in Palestine. Since Israel's founding, Zionism has worked to annex all of Palestine and make Israel a Jewish state controlled exclusively by Jews. The Zionist political ideology required displacing, or subordinating, the Palestinians. Antisemitism is individual hatred, prejudice and bigotry toward Jews. Opposing the political goals of Zionism is not the same thing as being antisemitic.  

The Republican-controlled House passed this resolution 311 to 14 with only one Republican voting against it. Democrats split with 95 voting for it and 92 abstaining by voting “present.”  This speaks volumes about the power, and money, of the pro-Israeli lobby. It also tells us that  many Democrats can be just as venal, self-serving and ignorant as Republicans.  

Turning to the economy, the U.S. continues to lead the world in billionaires. In 2022, there were 751 in the U.S. (0.0002% of the population). There were 24.5 million millionaires (7%). In comparison, the real (adjusted for inflation) median household income was $74,580, down  2.3 % from 2021.  

This extreme level of income inequality is not good for the economy, democracy or people. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich says the “U.S. has the most unequal distribution of income” of any developed nation. This is “bad for everyone” because “wealth doesn't just beget more wealth – it begets more [political] power.” This limits growth and destabilizes the economy. It corrupts politics, distorts elections and weakens democracy.  

Moving on to a lighter topic, National Public Radio had an interesting story related to climate change. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is revising its "plant hardiness zone map." These zones tell growers and gardeners which plants will likely grow in their areas. Average temperatures and frost dates are changing, making the old zone boundaries obsolete.  

Northeast Minnesota and much of northwestern Wisconsin have been in zone 3 (meaning good luck growing anything that requires much warmth). But with climate change, my wife has been raising great, vine-ripened cantaloupe! The cool weather crops, like peas and spinach, have not been doing well. In our woods the cold hardy balsam fir are dying from heat and drought.   

Climate change deniers need to turn off Fox News, go outside and experience what is really happening.