| October 13, 1934 |
| The American Federation of Labor (AFL) voted to boycott all German-made products as a protest against Nazi antagonism to organized labor within Germany. |  |
| Watch The U.S. and the Holocaust 2022, A new documentary by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october13
(It can’t hurt to put bits like this out into the universe. Somebody’s working on this, and more people ought to. So a nice little discussion of what’s working is appropriate. -A)
October 11, 2024 ARC Laureate Fellows
This Cosmos series on Australian Research Council Laureate Fellows 2024 reflects excellence from world class researchers in Australia.
Chris Gibson is a Senior Professor in the School of Geography and Sustainable Communities at the University of Wollongong. For his ARC Fellowship, he is investigating how decarbonisation impacts Australian regions.
Professor Chris Gibson: finding a truce in the climate wars.
Decarbonisation and energy transition are at the sharp edge of a hot political battle. There is a lot of dispute over new technologies like offshore wind, and exactly what mix of energy we need. It’s like a second iteration of the climate wars. But after a decade of stalled policy on climate, we have to embrace the decarbonised future, whether we like it or not. It’s an issue that needs to transcend the political divide.
But we’re faced with a dilemma: we need urgent change, but urgent change rarely occurs, if ever, in a way that is fair. The burdens and benefits of change are not distributed equally across society. And the quicker the change, the more risks there are. Regions can be all too easily left behind.
Geographers think about how substantial change, like this energy transition, affects communities. We think of ourselves as an integrative discipline. We bring together expertise from across environmental science, economics, social geography, legal geography, and from experts who are good on governing transitions. By stitching together insights from all directions, we try to see the bigger picture.
My ARC project is aiming to put together a systematic understanding of what’s happening in decarbonisation, both from the top down, with a nationwide view, and from the ground up, about how people in different regions are responding to change.
We’re putting together a team to look at how decarbonisation hits the ground in different regions, and how it affects different workers, different industries, what kinds of opportunities come out of that, what kinds of changes are needed, how communities and households are responding to the decarbonisation challenge, and how a First Nations’ perspective can lead the way.
Community responses have to be taken seriously. It’s too easy and too convenient to cast aside sceptics as “nimbies” (Not In My Backyard) or selfish or ignorant. If you take the time to hear the diversity of opinions that come from communities, you’ll often find that people are worried about real issues, with valid concerns. Local communities are very knowledgeable about their patch, and have a capacity to understand what kinds of changes are needed. If we can forge a more inclusive process that brings regional perspectives, skills and experience to the forefront, we reduce the risk that regions are left behind. And governments might actually see regional communities as an opportunity rather than a hindrance to change.
A good example is here in the Illawarra, (Coastal New South Wales) where offshore wind has been very controversial in the last year. One of the lessons to be had is to not underestimate the community’s ability to understand what an energy transition means, and not to underestimate the degree of attachment people have to their local places.
The community here is highly knowledgeable about energy. The Illawarra has a workforce with a long history in heavy industry – the number of electricians per capita in the Illawarra must be as high as anywhere in Australia. And people have opinions – it’s not a passive region that knows nothing about the change that’s coming. The task is not purely to convince local people that this is a good thing, but to have a mature conversation with them about the pros and cons.
There are all kinds of philosophical questions about who benefits, how those benefits are shared, what it means to turn our oceans into a space for energy generation. Some members of the community are asking for a proper conversation, because they don’t feel like they’ve been part of the story so far.
People react unpredictably to change that they see is imposed upon them. Let’s say it’s closing down a coal-fired power station in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, or proposing a green hydrogen hub in South Australia – people don’t necessarily assess these as singular proposals that exist outside of everything else in their region or in their lives. People make sense of change in relation to their place, their community, their household, their family.
My work is about putting those people and their households first, and looking at it from their point of view. How does structural change look when we take into account the pressures of cost of living, on housing, on employment? People are grappling with these issues in their everyday lives.
There’s also a real risk in introducing changes that are presented to communities as if they have arrived from elsewhere, as a fait accompli. The direction of the flow of ideas and proposals, how they hit the ground, are a very important part of the process. If a proposal seems to arrive in their backyard from the top down – from a government or a corporation provider – you can get a community offside from the outset.
My work is about setting up different kinds of approaches that recognise that these communities have their own capacities and their own perspectives to offer. What we hope to do in the five years of the ARC Laureate program is develop an evidence base so that we can craft better models of how to manage this change. We’re looking at some of the implementations that have already occurred, tracing where those decarbonisation initiatives are hitting the ground, and looking at different kinds of community reactions – what sorts of processes work better than others in terms of building that relationship with community, as well as what happens when things end up in a more antagonistic situation.
Geography is the study of the relationship between humans and our environment. It has always occupied a slightly slippery position in universities and in public life, because we’re both a science and a social science, because we do this work of integrating perspectives from different areas of knowledge. In fact, we call ourselves all sorts of different things: we’re also environmental managers and coastal managers, policy officers and sustainability experts. It’s a discipline that connects, that fills the gaps. We often find solutions to problems by putting knowledge together from those different perspectives. It’s making these connections that can make a big difference.
As told to Graem Sims
https://cosmosmagazine.com/energise/engaging-communities-during-energy-transition/
October 11, 2024 Ellen Phiddian
The printing press – and a particular manual it printed – played a big role in early modern witch trials, according to a fascinating new study.
Between 1450 and 1750, some 90,000 people were put on trial for being witches across Europe. About 45,000 of these people were executed.
Reasons for the fervour of this “witch craze” are murky. People had believed in witches for centuries, but brutal witch-hunts weren’t nearly as common until the 15th Century.
A study published in Theory and Society uses data on witch trials and witch-hunting publications to suggest that manuals may have been a big contributor.
In particular, they believe the Malleus maleficarum, which was first published in 1487, could explain a lot of the uptick – alongside trials in neighbouring cities.
“Cities weren’t making these decisions in isolation,” says lead author Dr Kerice Doten-Snitker, a postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, USA.
“They were watching what their neighbours were doing and learning from those examples. The combination of new ideas from books and the influence of nearby trials created the perfect conditions for these persecutions to spread.”
The researchers tracked the “ideational diffusion” – the spread of an idea, and behaviours linked to it – of witchcraft by looking at trial data and publication data from 553 cities in Central Europe.
They looked specifically for the publication of witch-hunting manuals, like the Malleus maleficarum.
This book contained a detailed explanation of “demonology” – the theory of witchcraft – as well as practical advice on finding and convicting witches.
“At the time of its appearance, there was only a shaky consensus among learned authorities on the crucial questions of who witches were, what they did, and why they had supernatural powers,” write the researchers in their paper.
“The willingness of [author Heinrich] Kramer to expound confidently on these questions is part of what made Malleus so influential.”
Each new edition of the Malleus maleficarum was linked to an increase in witch trials in the city where it was printed.
“The printing press did not cause the inception of the elaborated theory of witchcraft, but our results show that it fostered its spread,” write the researchers.
The team believes this ideational diffusion can be seen in many other areas.
“The process of adopting witch trials is not unlike how modern governments adopt new policies today,” says Doten-Snitker.
“It often starts with a change in ideas, which are reinforced through social networks. Over time, these ideas take root and change the behaviour of entire societies.”
Originally published by Cosmos as Misinformation: how the printing press fuelled witch trials
https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/social-sciences/printing-press-witch-trials/
October 12, 1492 Natives of islands off the Atlantic shore of North America came upon Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who was searching for a water route to India for Spanish Queen Isabella.  |
| October 12, 1945 Pfc. Desmond Doss became the first conscientious objector ever to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Doss, a Seventh Day Adventist, enlisted in 1942 but refused to carry a rifle or train on Saturdays. On the island of Okinawa, under heavy Japanese fire, he saved the lives of 75 sick and wounded soldiers by lowering them, one by one, down a 400-foot cliff.  The guest house at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is Doss Memorial Hall in his honor. Read more (includes movie trailer) |
| October 12, 1958 A Reform Jewish Temple in Atlanta (the city’s oldest) was firebombed with fifty sticks of dynamite in retaliation for Jewish support of local black civil rights activists. The Temple’s Rabbi, Jacob Rothschild, was outspoken in his support of civil rights and integration, and was a friend of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. before he became well known nationally.  From Georgia PBS |
| October 12, 1967 British zoologist Desmond Morris stunned the world with his book, “The Naked Ape,” a frank study of human behavior from a zoologist’s perspective. Morris had earlier studied the artistic abilities of apes and was appointed Curator of Mammals at the London Zoo. Read more |
| October 12, 1967 “A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority” appeared in The Nation and the New York Review of Books. 20,000 signed it, including academics, clergymen, writers. It urged “that every free man has a legal right and a moral duty to exert every effort to end this war [Vietnam], to avoid collusion with it, and to encourage others to do the same.” This document became the main basis for the federal government’s criminal prosecution (for encouraging draft evasion) of five of the signers: Dr. Benjamin Spock, Marcus Raskin, Mitchell Goodman, Michael Ferber, and the Reverend William Sloane Coffin. Read the Call |
| October 12, 1970 Lt. William Calley was court-martialled for the massacre of 102 civilians in the Vietnamese village of My Lai; far more actually died during the incident.  The full sad story  Lt. Calley |
| October 12, 1977 “Regents of the University of California v. Bakke” was argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The question: Did the University of California violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by practicing an affirmative action policy that resulted in the repeated rejection of Bakke’s application for admission to its medical school? Read more |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october12
“Pebbled Pathways”
Marisa Kabas October 11, 2024
A poster created by Halachic Left
Monday marked the one year anniversary of the October 7th massacre in Israel, and at sundown Friday, the Jewish day of atonement—Yom Kippur—begins. It’s the holiest day of the Hebrew calendar, saddled with even more gravity given the past year of intra and inter-community turmoil. It’s meant to be observed with deep self-reflection.
Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, Executive Director of Harvard University’s Hillel (an international Jewish student organization) endeavored to do just that with a searching letter posted to his chapter’s website Thursday evening. The nearly 2,600 word missive was published in response to a fairly confusing fracas on campus earlier this week. The details are important, so I’ll break it down for you:
Another poster from Halachic Left
I’d like to share some additional language from Rubenstein’s letter so that my criticism makes sense. He writes that the poster images from Gaza, “depict, in ways that are painful to confront, effects of the IDF’s campaign against Hamas there on Palestinian civilians. It is vital that we, as Jews, not evade the effects of the Jewish state’s army’s actions on others.”
The framing in that first sentence feels especially important. It’s a reminder that from a Zionist perspective, Israel’s government and army have killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza for a reason: to eradicate Hamas. The Palestinian civilians are simply bystanders caught up in war, and while their pain should cause us pain, it doesn’t mean that all Jews should have to repent for it.
I as much as anyone have consistently made it clear that the conflation of Zionism with Judaism is dangerous and harmful. The trouble is, however, that from the perspective of the world, the atrocities being committed against Palestinians are being done in our name–therefore, we’ve become part of the story, whether we agree with the premise or not. And so from my perspective, the posters are not trying to say that every Jew should atone this Yom Kippur for the sins of the IDF, but that we should atone for what is seen as violence carried out to protect our religion. After all, “not in our name” is a phrase that has been used by Jews long before, but especially since, October 7, 2023.
But what’s perhaps even more troubling on a micro level is the involvement of law enforcement and the idea that certain freedoms be curtailed in the name of safety.
“Jewish institutions have a tremendous amount of power, and it hurts my heart that they so often use it to gate-keep and exclude rather than enfranchise,” Rabbi and author Danya Ruttenberg, who publishes the newsletter Life is a Sacred Text, told me. “That Harvard Hillel decided to engage law enforcement on a matter of…postering (never mind that they were posters with…our sacred liturgy? Inviting us to collective moral reflection?) speaks to just how profoundly some corners of our institutional life have lost the thread here.”
A Jewish Harvard student I spoke with Friday morning, whose name I’m not sharing to protect their privacy, pointed out that the situation could have turned out even worse had the JStreet U-affiliated student been a person of color. They felt that involving the cops rapidly escalated the situation, when it could have easily been an opportunity for community building handled privately between groups.
And, as Ruttenberg pointed out, there was no actual crime was committed.
The impact of Hillel’s rush to suspend and punish JStreet U, another Jewish student organization—never mind the fact that they didn’t have an active chapter on campus or that Hillel doesn’t have any apparent authority over other student organizations—goes beyond this one incident. The student told me how they feel this represents something larger about how Hillel views left of center Israel activism, and that even the actions of an organization as close to the center as JStreet is unacceptable.
Harvard has been no stranger to controversy (legitimate and manufactured) since last October, which is why this seemingly niche story captured my interest. While one elite university campus is not representative of the country or world at large, much like Judaism and Zionism, the school’s experience and reality have been conflated. And so even a relatively small event looms large.
“How ready are our institutions to criminalize young people who simply seek to engage about horrific moral questions with the community, and with those in power?” Ruttenberg wondered. “This was a moment for communal conversation, for drawing in and speaking to. Is this who we want to be?”
If you’re observing Yom Kippur, I hope that however you choose to observe is meaningful to you. I will be attending a Yizkor service tomorrow organized by Rabbis for Ceasefire. And, in keeping with Jewish tradition, I want to apologize to anyone I may have hurt by my words or actions this past year. I hope you can accept my sincere forgiveness.
https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/harvard-student-posters-yom-kippur-hillel-cops
by Tanya Modersitzki Thu, October 10th 2024 at 12:51 PM
Updated Thu, October 10th 2024 at 4:13 PM
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA — As Superintendent Ryan Walters sees the inside of a courtroom more with recent court dates piling up, he’s also racked up more than $100,000 in attorney fees in a five-month time span.
On Oklahoma State Court Network’s website, since last year, he’s named in eight lawsuits, not including the one involved with the State Grand Jury on alleged misspent pandemic money, and others related to the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
State Representative Mark McBride said he’s concerned how much Walters’ legal fees are costing taxpayers.
“I’m pretty confident there’s another investigation going on by the feds in the Department of Education. I think he’s 12 or 14 lawsuits,” McBride said.
Walters most recent lawsuit came from the Bixby Public Schools Superintendent for alleged defamatory remarks.
From March of this year until July, records we received from Oklahoma Management and Enterprise Services show Walters averaging roughly $20,000 a month in lawyer fees.
In March, OSDE paid an attorney invoice for more than $28,000.
In May, multiple invoices came out to cost more than $19,000.
In June, OSDE paid nearly another $28,000 for attorneys.
In that timespan, Walters’ attorneys cost the state more than $104,000.
McBride said this is all at the cost of constituents.
“These things I think he’s going to lose at the end of the day and taxpayers foot the bill,” he said.
These totals don’t reflect charges for August, September, and October. NewsChannel 8 is working to get those numbers.
Walters’ office did not respond for a comment.
The stops will take him to Coachella in California and Madison Square Garden in New York.
By Matt Dixon and Allan Smith
Get ready for Donald Trump’s blue state extravaganza.
With less than four weeks until Election Day, Trump is scheduled to hold rallies in staunchly Democratic states he has virtually no chance of winning. It’s an unorthodox strategy campaign advisers say is designed to focus on areas where Democratic policies have failed, but it will also keep him away from the small handful of swing states almost certain to determine the election.
Over the next month, the former president has events scheduled in Colorado, California, Illinois and New York. President Joe Biden won those states by an average of 20 points in 2020, with his 13-point Colorado win the closest margin. Colorado is the only one of those states to vote for a Republican nominee for president this millennium, backing George W. Bush in 2004.
While each event will be held in slightly different venues, the most notable will be later this month in Madison Square Garden, a place where Trump has long said he wanted to hold political rally.
“Choosing high-impact settings makes it so the media can’t look away and refuse to cover the issues and the solutions President Trump is offering,” said a senior Trump campaign adviser of the strategy behind late-election cycle events in Democratic states. “We live in a nationalized media environment and the national media’s attention on these large-scale, outside-the-norm settings increases the reach of his message across the country and penetrates in every battle ground state.”
“President Trump is closing the campaign highlighting the problems the country faces as a result of Harris and Biden’s failed leadership and articulating his solutions to solve the problems they created,” the adviser added.
The decision to deviate from a traditional campaign playbook comes at a time when the race is almost certain to be decided in places like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Michigan, places that are within the margin of error in most public polling and considered winnable for both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“This does not seem like a campaign putting their candidate in critical vote rich or swing vote locations — it seems more like a candidate who wants his campaign to put on rallies for optics and vibes,” longtime Republican operative Matthew Bartlett said.
He called Trump the “most unorthodox candidate in modern history,” which means the off-script strategy could have some value.
“In 2016, Trump realigned the party to be much more rural and working class, now in 2024 he is trying to expand his voting base along certain cultural lines that may eat away at traditional Democratic voting blocs,” Bartlett said.
A second Trump adviser said that no matter where Trump holds rallies, he gets huge online viewership, including in swing states, and there is a confidence within the campaign about their chances, which in their estimation allows for some risk.
“Certainly we are bullish on our prospects writ large,” the adviser said.
Some Trump supporters argued that going into areas of the country traditionally not visited by Republican presidential candidates could have a sort-of coattail effect, helping boost down-ballot Republicans in tough races. None of the states where Trump is visiting has a competitive Senate race, but there are a handful of competitive House races in a year where the majority of that chamber will likely be decided on a razor-thin margin.
In California, House District 40 is represented by Republican Young Kim, and House District 41 is represented by Republican Ken Calvert, both of whom are in contested races in the Los Angeles media market along with Coachella, which is where Trump will be holding his rally.
In New York, Rep. Mike D’Esposito won Nassau County’s 4th district in 2022, but it is a seat that leans Democratic and was won by Joe Biden by 15 points in 2020. Flipping the seat played a big role in helping Republicans take the House majority in 2022.
“The fact that we can pickup down ballot seats with President Trump’s aggressive travel plan is a testament to the well orchestrated and effective campaign plan that focuses on unifying all Americans,” said Ed McMullen, a Trump donor who served as ambassador to Switzerland during the Trump administration.
“It is a well-planned effort to reach out and win key seats,” he added.
Scottie's Playtime 