Tag Archives: political economy

Stop Israeli Apartheid

Economics for Everyone, Events, personal, Reflections on Current Events, talks, Talks, , , ,

Stop Israeli Apartheid!

by Peter Bohmer,   December 9, 2023

I want to thank the organizers of this important event. We are living in a time of many crises. Let’s draw strength from gathering together in community and solidarity.

I will talk about anti-apartheid activism for Palestine.

Apartheid was the name given to the institutionalized segregation in South Africa–from the land where one could live, to voting and employment. Every aspect of life was dictated by apartheid.  It was legal and institutionalized from 1948 until 1994 when Nelson Mandela became President.

Zionism means a Jewish State where the laws, educational system and major institutions favor Jewish people, and Palestinians are second class or non-citizens. It means Palestinian families expelled in 1948 and their offspring cannot return to Israel, inside the Green Line, even though they lived there for generations. 

This is apartheid. So is the illegal and immoral occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem where Palestinians have been displaced, imprisoned, and killed by the Israeli military and settlers.  Gaza is an open-air prison that has become a concentration camp.

Don’t let Israel define antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Many Jews are anti-Zionist, e.g., JVP, and some Zionists, e.g., many Christian evangelicals, are Zionist and anti-Jewish.

I’m anti-Zionist which is fundamentally different from anti-Jewish. The Netanyahu-led Israeli government, most Republican and Democratic politicians, and some Jewish groups in the U.S. undermine criticisms of Israel and support for Palestinian self-determination by calling criticism of Israel, antisemitic.

Let’s not let them get away with it!

I recently completed a civil rights tour of key sites in Mississippi and Alabama of the powerful 1950’s and 1960’s Black Freedom Movement. The connection between Israeli apartheid and Jim Crow in the South was undeniable. The bravery and resilience of Black people and civil rights activists is analogous to the courage of Palestinians resisting occupation. My “End Israeli Apartheid” button resonated with most Black people we met.

In the 1970’s, a powerful social movement against South African apartheid developed globally. Activists supported the many levels of struggle inside South Africa.   

We boycotted South African goods, pressured universities and cities to divest from stock and bonds of complicit companies and pushed for sanctions against corporations profiting from Apartheid. This is BDS.  It isolated South Africa and contributed to the eventual end of apartheid although racial oppression continues.

Nelson Mandela, the leader of the anti-apartheid movement made the connection to Palestine: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians.”

There is a history of global movements against Israeli occupation and apartheid that continues today. It includes those of us here and courageous local activist, Rachel Corrie, who led by example. In 2003, Rachel went to Rafah as part of the ISM. She was murdered by the IDF for protecting the home of the family she was staying with.

Her death is mourned all over the world, her life, celebrated. She inspired our local food co-op, who donated to tonight’s auction, to be the first co-op in the US to join the BDS movement. Let’s honor Rachel’s legacy of Palestinian solidarity which has taken great leaps forward since October 7th by our actions.

Across the world, including in the US, millions are mobilizing against Israelis genocidal policies and the US Military’s support. On November 4, 3000 people participated in a demonstration in Olympia. Two days later, hundreds of protesters delayed for hours a ship headed to Israel with munitions.

This movement is multigenerational, multiracial, and practices a diversity of tactics. More want to get involved. Every Monday night, 80 of us have been organizing Palestine solidarity actions including tonight’s benefit. Talk to me later if you’re interested in planning actions targeting corporations supporting Israel’s war or future fundraisers.

Today’s movement gives me hope for the future, but Palestine cannot wait. Two apartheid movements have been defeated. Let’s join the fight to make it three.

Since 1967, I have been in solidarity with Palestine and actively opposed U.S. military aid and ideological support for Israel. My history of lifelong activism stems in part from being Jewish.

My parents grew up in Vienna, Austria. My dad was 22 when he was incarcerated and frequently beaten by Nazis for being Jewish. My parents escaped Europe and eventually were admitted to the U.S. in 1939. My grandfather and many relatives were killed in concentration camps.

I grew up believing Jewish people wouldn’t oppress others because of our history of oppression. I was naïve. Sadly, most Jewish people in Israel and around the world support a Jewish dominated state. I don’t want this done in my name.

We live in the U.S. Our government’s backing made this mass-murder possible. The more we fight for the end of Israeli occupation and against U.S. support, the more we have the right to criticize Hamas’ killings and taking of 240 hostages. However, history didn’t begin October 7th but with British colonialism and the 1948 Nakba.

Yesterday, the US shamefully vetoed a UN resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire. To call Israel’s ethnic cleansing ‘self-defense’ as the US does is grotesque. A ceasefire and end of the siege are important but insufficient.

A solution, whether it’s one state or a real two state, must center economic and political justice and equality for all, especially Palestinians. This includes the right of Palestinians to return to inside the 1948 Israeli imposed borders.

Educate yourselves, friends, and family about Israeli settler-colonialism. It’s catastrophic.  Our responsibility is to do what we can to change fundamentally, U.S. policy. We are the majority and beginning to have an impact.  Khader Hamide, a Palestinian activist said, “Palestinians are losing their land, and their lives and Israelis are losing their humanity.” This is even more true today.

A common slogan among Jewish people is “Never Again”, usually limited to only Jewish people. The holocaust against Jewish people was horrendous but so is the holocaust against people of African descent, Native and indigenous people, and now Palestinians.

Let us mean “Never Again” for Everyone. This is the moral and strategic position.

Stop the war on Gaza, end Israeli apartheid and occupation!

Solidarity!

dec9benefitfinalversion

Global Justice and Participatory Socialism

Real Utopia, talks, Talks, Videos, Writings, , ,

We live in a world of obscene economic inequality within and between nations. In this essay, I will address what a participatory socialist society[1] would mean for global justice and equity.

A guiding principle is that the quality of life would be the same within and between societies[2].

A goal is global equity, the same quality of life within and between nations (societies), with diversity of cultures, diversity of what is produced, in the kinship sphere, etc.

There is no moral justification for the quality of life being better because one lives in one society rather than another, it is an accident of birth.  Global equity should be a principle of groups and individuals advocating in favor of participatory socialism.,,I am including both the text and the video of my talk. https://znetwork.org/zvideo/global-justice-and-participatory-socialism/

[1] I am using the term, participatory socialist. Many of the authors in this text use the term participatory society. The difference is over terminology, not over the vision.

Global Justice and Participatory Socialismrev28202023

My trip to Europe

personal, Reflections on Current Events, ,

My travel to Europe, 2022

by Peter Bohmer,  peterbohmer@gmail.com

July 26, 2022

I recently returned from a two month visit on July 7, 2022 to seven countries in Europe visiting friends, families and activists. It was a very meaningful and enjoyable trip. I visited Spain, Italy, Greece, Austria, Slovenia, Sweden, the northern part of Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The hospitality and warmth people showed to me was incredible. Many were members of the group Real Utopia, Realutopia.org.  Thank You my friends, family and comrades! I truly appreciate you. Part of the reason for my warm reception is the respect people in most countries show to elders, which is much less common in the U.S.

I saw and appreciated beauty in many of the places I visited, nature, homes and beautiful gardens, beaches and lakes and seas, and cities. I learned about the history of partisan resistance against the Nazis in Slovenia, of collaboration with the Nazis in several countries, e.g.,  Sweden, of the Irish Republican struggle for a united Ireland, and more on my family history, especially with regards to the Nazis.

A further summary based on my conversations with people in the countries!

I visited!The “left” as a social force is currently weak in the seven countries I visited–whether anarchists, radical social movements or socialist organizations. However, there are active left groups doing good work in all the places I visited such as “The City Upside Down” in Salonika, Greece and the Pekarna Cooperatives in Maribor, Slovenia and the Kapsylen Cooperatives in Stockholm. Kapsylen is involved in supporting actively political prisoners and selling olive oil from Palestine and coffee from the EZLN.

The isolation caused by the Coronavirus has been a major factor in the weakness of the left as it has limited face to face interactions and meetings and community gatherings.  A greater cause of weakness of the left in the U.S. but also in the countries I visited is the growth of extreme identity politics and the related tendency to cancel people for perceived limitations in their political consciousness, often around transgender issues. Identity of course matters, I am critiquing where identity becomes destiny and the possibility of empathy across identities is denied. This expelling, canceling of people, the turning on each other is exacerbated by social media. This destructive behavior is caused by the weakness of the left, our feelings of powerlessness, and a cause of its further weakness. This problem is probably worse in the U.S. but also widespread in Europe. Transphobia is a continuing problem in the left and wider society; my criticism is how it is being addressed and challenged.

The authoritarian right is a serious danger in almost all of the countries I visited, but at least, not growing.  For example, the Swedish Democrats, whose origins are fascist, are an example of the growing right-wing  anti-immigrant political parties that have recently grown throughout Europe. They seem to have levelled off at about 20% support in the polls and popular support. Ireland was the one exception, fascism and the authoritarian right except for a few Unionist (pro British) groups in the north are minuscule. The Irish history of being colonized up into the 20th century by the British and up to the present in the six counties in the north of Ireland is a cause of identification with the people from other ex-colonies.

In Greece, Golden Dawn is no longer a force but authoritarian rightists including supporters of the 1967 military coup are in the New Democracy led government. The Social Democrats throughout the countries I visited are neoliberal and declining.   There is some growth of the Greens but their economic program is mainly neoliberal and they increasingly accept the growing militarism of Europe.  Political parties in this current period of a global neoliberal economy, unless they are explicitly anti-capitalist or at least anti-neo-liberal in their analysis and policies become neo-liberal over time.  The global and elite pressures are very strong for movement in this direction as is their increasing professional-managerial class membership and the decline of working-class labor unions as their base.

I was surprised at the public support in Sweden for joining NATO. Based on the popular perception of the history of Russian aggression against Sweden and reinforced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, their fear of Russian expansionism and militarism is even stronger than in the U.S. I don’t see Russia as a threat to Sweden or to Finland, who Sweden is closely aligned with.

I see the possibilities of the growth of a left in the countries I visited based on climate and housing justice whose base is precarious workers. Almost everyone I spent time with,mentioned that the climate crisis was here, not just a future danger. I heard much support for an anti-militarist and global Green New Deal.

Except for Vienna, there are housing shortages and rapidly rising rents in every major city in western and southern Europe. The extensive amount of social housing in Vienna has limited the rise in housing prices there, compared to other cities such as Dublin where housing prices are skyrocketing. Housing as a human right and not as an asset to make money off resonated among the people in all the countries I visited.

Neoliberalism has caused less and less secure jobs and more jobs with no benefits, e.g., college teachers increasingly are hired on limited contracts.  Young people are the most adversely affected by these changes in the labor market.  In Athens, there is important labor organizing among these precarious workers.

Europe is no longer, overwhelmingly, “white”. Immigration from the Global South is substantial. Immigrant and refugee justice must be combined with anti-austerity programs in order to combat the belief that immigrants are causing the decline of social benefits, pensions and secure jobs. Challenging in theory and practice this zero-sum ideology that gains for immigrants are the cause of the decline for domestically born workers is a necessary part of creating unity among them.

Many people I was with asked me what is going on in the United States–the repeal of Roe vs Wade, the voter suppression, the amount and worship of guns, mass killings, the support for QAnon, and the continued support for Trump and Trumpism—that it is beyond understanding and worse than anything occurring in Europe. I sadly agreed. I pointed out at the same time, tens of millions participated in the recent Black Lives Matter protests, the growing support for universal health care, the high support for the right to abortion and for socialism. We need to get more organized.

In Solidarity, Peter Bohmer

Connecting the $15 an Hour Movement to the Movement for Racial Justice and other Social Movements

Reflections on Current Events, , , , , , ,

Connecting $15 an Hour to Movement for Racial Justice and to other Social Movements.

by Peter Bohmer, September 26, 2015

At the Working Washington organized Gathering and Rally at Heritage Park, Olympia, Washington

Working Washington and the fight for $15 an hour is a very important movement and I want to thank the organizers and all of you for attending this gathering. You are involved in this necessary struggle for economic justice. I recently returned from a month in Greece where because of inhuman policies forcing Greece to cut government spending, cut pensions, lower the minimum wage and raise taxes on basic goods and services, unemployment, poverty, low wages and job security are even worse than in the U.S. Many Greek people asked me about important issues and social movements for justice in the United States and I usually mentioned the ones for climate justice, $15 an hour and a living wage, and the Black Lives Matter movement that has focused on exposing and stopping police shooting of Black people.

$15 an Hour: Its Time has Come!

First a little about significance of the fight for $15 and the statewide Working Washington organization. Since the 1970’s, the gaps between the rich and poor have grown significantly in the United States. The top 1% today takes more than 20% of national income; the average household in the poorest 20% of the population earns about 1/100th of the top 1%. The 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement made public the obscene inequality in the United States between the 1% and the 99%. In Olympia, four years ago, Olympia residents occupied the land where we are standing for more than two months as part of the national Occupy Movement. … (Connect to link above to read the entire talk)

 

Political Economy of Racism, talk given at Clallam Bay Prison, August 20th, 2014

Talks, Teaching/Lectures, ,

Political Economy of Racism, Outline of Presentation

Political Economy of Racial Inequality: Challenging Racism
August 20, 2014, Pete Bohmer,
For Black Prisoners Caucus at Clallam Bay State Prison

Question? What has changed and what hasn’t changed with regards to U.S. racism over the last 50 years?

I. Introduction
A.“Race” and racism central to understanding the U.S. past and present, e.g. ,immigration
B. “Race” as a social not biological construct, but socially relevant, (story)
C. Changing forms of racism, easier to criticize past than present. …