Daily Archives: May 18, 2023

A few weeks ago, dozens of elected officials from all levels of the US government and both sides of the aisle came together to proclaim April 29 as #EndJewHatred Day a day of empowerment and solidarity in the face of growing antisemitism.

The magnitude of #EndJewHatred Day cannot be understated. It is historically unprecedented to have a nationwide bipartisan effort to recognize and empower the Jewish people to fight Jew hatred. These proclamations showcase the power of ordinary people who join together to fight for civil rights and social justice and the importance of bipartisanship and unity to achieve change.

Civil rights and social justice movements succeed by bringing together people from all walks of life to act for change. To foster successful allyship, however, individuals must be willing to let go of preconceived yet misguided notions they may hold about their allies.

Setting aside stereotypes to unite for positive change is even harder in the face of an establishment with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The establishment uses a narrative of oppression to describe people as divided by race, religion, or political ideology. These are distinctions made by the ruling elites to prevent the people from forming the alliances needed to shake the existing order and bring about social justice for those who need it most.

The establishment knows too well that if you identify with people by certain characteristics (immutable or not), you create an atmosphere that fosters distrust of those who dont share those characteristics. Distrust creates division, and when these divisions become internalized they give rise to bigotry and discrimination. Because of the distrust among people of different groups, this bigotry becomes systemic, making change impossible. This is precisely what the establishment wants.

Not too long ago, we saw signs that read, Whites only. Those signs didnt come down until an allyship was formed between people of different races and political backgrounds, standing together to demand the civil rights and protections we enjoy today. No one group, on its own, could have made that change. Today, the signs may be gone, but systemic racism still exists and in response, social justice advocates have been building new alliances to confront it.

In the fight for social justice, an allyship can be built around the simplest unobjectionable message: Black Lives Matter; Stop Asian Hate; End Jew Hatred. The power of these messages in bringing people together is their ability to transcend divisions, whether political, religious or other.

It doesnt matter who gets your vote, what you believe about policy issues, where you come from, or what color your skin is. These things are irrelevant to the universal truth of the message. And if you agree on the need to end Jew hatred in your lifetime, you can do your part to de-normalize antisemitism and make it socially unacceptable. You can do your part in assuring consequences for hateful conduct. You can be an ally, and together we can achieve positive change.

The problem is with the old guard that encourages tribalism as a means to maintain the status quo. In todays world, what better way to encourage tribalism than to suggest a political litmus test for social justice, and reinforce preconceived but erroneous ideas? We see this all the time when ideas or people are described as left-wing or right-wing. We see it in the suggestion, reinforced by some elected representatives, organizations, and even journalists, that only people who vote a certain way or hold certain positions on Israel can be true warriors for justice.

Make no mistake, the people who push these narratives are part of the problem, not allies working towards a solution. Injecting politics into a message of universal truth is meant to handicap the people fighting for change, not help them. Its meant to divide us and tear us apart, to destroy our unity in a common goal.

Without that unity we cannot effect the change in society that makes bigotry unacceptable. Without it we cannot pass bipartisan legislation that protects our identity while affirming and empowering us as people. We become disparate tribes pitted against one another by a patriarchal establishment responsible for the oppression of centuries.

Sadly, many false narratives have even penetrated the Jewish community, weakening our collective sense of identity and our ability to unite and fight to be heard.

The idea that we must pledge allegiance to one political party, or that we must fight for others to have the right to be heard, has kept us from standing up for ourselves. Unfortunately, our community is fragmented when it comes to asserting our civil rights, and the exploitation of our intergenerational trauma hinders our ability to unite and mobilize for social justice.

It is to be noted that, as the Jewish community has started to come together along with our allies in the End Jew Hatred movement, our trauma is used as a tool to pit us against one another and deny us the empowerment for which we strive. Regarding our right to fight for Jewish rights, we are told, alternatively, that we are too conservative; too progressive; too binary; too non-binary; too Sephardi; too Ashkenazi, too religious; or not religious enough.

Our motives are questioned. Our goodwill is challenged. Why? Because our unity is a threat to the establishment. Our grassroots actions threaten to upend the last vestiges of oppression. After all, now that other minority and marginalized people have stood up and forced change, who is left to keep down but the Jew?

The strength of the End Jew Hatred movement is in the people who understand the importance of unity in achieving a common goal. Its strength lies in partnering with everyone, no matter who they vote for as long as they demand justice for the Jewish people and respect for our identity and our civil rights. The reason End Jew Hatred is successful is precisely its message of unity.

Our emancipation from bigotry and discrimination has nothing to do with whether you voted for a Democrat or a Republican. The movements remarkable success serves as undeniable evidence: At a rally, two individuals representing polar opposite ends of the political spectrum stood shoulder to shoulder, proudly holding signs that bore the powerful hashtag #EndJewHatred.

These individuals embody a profound comprehension that the cause they champion transcends mere politics; instead, it is rooted in the fundamental principles of civil rights. They recognize that advocating for the civil rights of the Jewish people extends far beyond a religious or secular identity it is a duty incumbent upon every compassionate human being.

Regrettably, there exist some individuals who fail to grasp this profound truth, their minds shackled by narrow-mindedness. Incapable of perceiving the shared values that bind us, they demonstrate a lamentable inability to appreciate our common ground.

There may never have been (certainly not in modern times) a movement fighting for the civil rights of the Jewish people for social justice for the Jewish people in the face of ever-increasing Jew hatred.

There has never been a movement centered on the Jewish community as a minority community, targeted by systemic oppression and bigotry, and deserving equal protection under the law unbound by whats happening thousands of miles away in the Middle East.

The End Jew Hatred movement is built around the simplest, most unobjectionable message: We need to end Jew hatred in our lifetime.

Over the past few years this message has resulted in a grassroots movement that has captured the imagination of supporters across the world, sparked meaningful direct action in support of our civil rights, and empowered bipartisan cooperation to proclaim April 29 as #EndJewHatred Day.

This movement is greater than any divisive ideology. Ending Jew hatred is not political. It is not about any one organization, or any one person. A movement is greater than any one of us. It is about all of us. This is how we succeed in the fight for social justice we bring people together from all walks of life with the knowledge that by acting together, we cause change.

It is astounding that in this day and age, there are still some people committed to maintaining the status quo of bigotry and racism. They include the elected officials who refuse to accept #EndJewHatred Day and view Jew hatred through the lens of politics rather than social justice. They include the leaders of organizations who wont act in concert with anyone unless they are in charge.

They also include practitioners of yellow journalism, prone to sensationalism and scandal-mongering to drive traffic to their articles. They have one thing in common: the promotion of the tribalism that keeps us apart and prevents us from truly uniting for social justice.

As we strive to build a better society, we cannot afford to be distracted by the noise of those who would see us fail. We cannot afford to allow our differences to outweigh our commonality of interest and purpose. The very existence of those who try to divide us shows the need for the End Jew Hatred movement and the need to come together on bipartisan initiatives like #EndJewHatred Day.

We must reject attempts to politicize a universal truth, and continue to unite for the common good to continue to come together to #EndJewHatred in our lifetime. We invite everyone, especially the Jewish community, to join us.

The writer is co-founder of #EndJewHatred.

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End Jew Hatred: Fight for social justice must be above political fray - The Jerusalem Post

If demonstrations are an act to draw sympathy for their cause, the violent rally staged by the construction union under the combative Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) on Tuesday and Wednesday in downtown Seoul failed to achieve the goal. For two days, union members caused extreme traffic congestion during the day and unbearable inconvenience to citizens at night as they slept on the street. Who would really listen to their demands?

The two-day protest in central Seoul was illegitimate from the beginning. Police disallowed them from staging the rally from 5 p.m. to prevent a traffic jam and protect pedestrians rights. But unionized members pressed ahead with it.

Many of them slept around the city hall building, which left a tremendous amount of trash, including many empty soju bottles and leftover food, not to mention urine on the street.

Citizens had to persevere all the horrid smells when reporting to work yesterday morning. Protestors may take pride in showing a determination to protest the governments hardline approach to them. But they must take responsibility for all the confusion and chaos they triggered.

The construction union claims that it took action to oppose the conservative governments oppression against them. But what the prosecution and the police have conducted is an investigation into their illegal acts such as obstructing a hiring of non-unionized members, obstruction of business, and demand for dirty money in return for favors to stakeholders, as well as extorting money from others when they show weaknesses. The police have discovered 866 cases of violation of the law in a 200-day special investigation. Many senior members of the construction union have been indicted on charges of threat, blackmail, and violence.

What the law enforcement authorities tried to do was to root out the tyranny of the mighty union, not their normal activities. It does not make sense for the union to define it as a political repression.

Such an aberrant way of demonstrating suggests their political goal of shaking the government instead of trying to convince the public of their cause. Familiar senior members of progressive civic groups and lawmakers from the Democratic Party also joined the violent rally on Wednesday to show their support for the union. If that is not political strife, what is?

It is regrettable that the same faces always appear in such anti-government protests. This suspicious mix of powers became a chronic disease in our society long ago. The answer must be found in the common sense of citizens who can say no to them.

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Political strife, not protest anymore - The Korea JoongAng Daily

On January 6, 2021, supporters of former President Donald Trumpmany toting crosses and Trump flags, some with tactical gear and gunssmashed their way into the U.S. Capitol building, seeking to stop certification of Joe Bidens victory. As we watched the mayhem on TV, perhaps the question that crossed my mind also occurred to you: How the hell did we get here?

One obvious answer involves Trumps bogus election fraud claims, the logical endgame of a presidency built around grievance, paranoia, and wild falsehoods. But as one-time New Yorker legal reporter and former CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin shows in Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism, the road to January 6 can be traced back at least a quarter century to the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people, including 19 children. The perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh, embodied the anti-government, gun-obsessed, white supremacist rage evident on January 6a politics of rage that has moved from the fringe to very near the center of conservative politics (think Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, or of course, Trump himself). Though McVeigh was executed in 2001, Homegrown, released May 2, shows that his story is very much a story for today. Moreover, though the bombing took place north of the Red River, it is both a Texas story and a national one.

As befits the second-deadliest instance of domestic terrorism in U.S. history (exceeded only by the 1921 Tulsa Massacre), there is no shortage of work on the Oklahoma City bombing. Besides a compelling 2017 American Experience documentary, Richard A. Serranos gripping One of Ours (1998) is especially evocative in describing the carnage wrought by McVeighs truck bomb. American Terrorist (2001), by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, draws on extensive interviews with McVeigh to explain his worldview and motivations.

Homegrown inevitably covers much of the same ground as these earlier works, but has the advantage of two decades hindsight. We learn about McVeighs troubled childhood, his lifelong obsession with guns, his frustration over lack of job opportunities and his failure with women (Toobin notes that he was an incellonely and unwillingly celibatebefore the term existed), his rising anger against the federal government, and his attraction to right-wing extremist ideology. In the early 1990s McVeigh plugged into a growing underground community animated by an anti-government politics of grievance, including the nascent militia movement and the on-air screeds of Rush Limbaugh and Watergate-felon-turned-radio-personality G. Gordon Liddy. Especially formative for McVeigh was The Turner Diaries, a white racist fantasy book about patriots who spark a race war by blowing up FBI headquarters with a truck bomba prototype for the weapon McVeigh himself would deploy.

What moved McVeigh from inchoate rage to homicidal actionand what makes Homegrown very much a Texas storywas the disastrous 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco. For McVeigh, the siege constituted a federal assault on gun rights: He regarded guns as instruments of freedom and any attempt to regulate them, especially by the federal government, as a form of oppression, Toobin writes. During the long standoff, McVeigh drove from his home in Florida to see the siege for himself; while there, he sold anti-government, pro-gun bumper stickers from the hood of his car. One bore the slogan: A MAN WITHOUT A GUN IS NOT A CITIZEN. McVeigh left Waco after a few days, but was preparing to return and make some kind of stand against the feds when the siege ended with the fiery destruction of the compound, leaving 82 Branch Davidians dead.

Over the next two years, Toobin notes, McVeighs reaction to Waco exceeded mere political outrage and became a psychological obsession. Waco, he told a friend, drew the first blood of war. It became his central purpose to avenge the deaths of David Koresh and his followers. As Toobin shows, McVeigh was not alone in regarding Waco as an excuse for violence. For instance, Liddy, during a radio discussion of agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) responsible for the initial raid on the Branch Davidians, urged his listeners to kill the sons of bitches.

McVeigh took such exhortations to heart. He chose the Murrah Building as his target because it housed an ATF office. He chose April 19, 1995, as the date for the attack in part because it was the two-year anniversary of the fiery destruction of the Waco compound, and in part because it was the date the first shots were fired in the Revolutionary War. Considering himself a modern-day Minuteman, McVeigh hoped that his attack would spark a widespread rebellion of White patriots to overthrow the federal government, la The Turner Diaries.

Homegrown doesnt offer the vividness of Serranos book, nor the psychological insight of American Terrorist. But it offers its own rewards. The greatest by far is the way Toobin carefully maps the road that leads from McVeigh to MAGA, January 6, and the right-wing extremism and violence we see today. Significantly, the book opens not in 1995 but with the Capitol insurrection. The insurrectionists, Toobin writes, were McVeighs ideological successors:

During that quarter century, right-wing extremists launched a widespread wave of violence, of bombings, assassinations, and mass killings, which Toobin describes in disturbing detail.

Toobin contends that authorities, the media, and the public have been slow to wake up to todays right-wing extremist threats. Americans tend to associate terrorism with foreign actors like al-Qaida. Yet Toobin cites studies suggesting that most terrorist violence in the United States in the past two decades has been homegrownthe work of right-wing and white supremacist extremists.

Furthermore, Toobin writes, these outrages were too often explained, if not dismissed, as the work of lone wolves, rather than symptoms of a wider and deeper right-wing extremist threat. Thats dangerous, Toobin contends, quoting terrorism expert Juliette Kayyem: White-supremacist terror is rooted in a pack, a community. When one of them puts the violent rhetoric into action in the real world, the killer is often called a lone wolf, but they are not alone at all.

All the trends that McVeigh embodied came together under the forty-fifth president.

Indeed, Toobin argues, McVeighs politics of grievance and rage has become the beating heart of the right wing today. Timothy McVeighs legacy became clearest during Trumps campaign and presidency, Toobin writes. All the trends that McVeigh embodiedthe political extremism, the obsession with gun rights, the search for like-minded allies, and above all the embrace of violencecame together under the forty-fifth president. Then, when Trump became president, Toobin writes, the wolf pack had a new leader.

One final irony suggests just how dramatically the right has reshaped the landscape. In 1995, FBI agents were able to apprehend McVeigh only two days after the bombing because he happened to be jailed in Perry, 65 miles north of Oklahoma City. While making his getaway, McVeigh was pulled over by state trooper Charles J. Hanger: The getaway car had no license plates. When Hanger found McVeigh was carrying a handgun without a permit, McVeigh was arrested. But in 2019, Oklahoma changed its law to allow individuals to carry guns without a permitjust as Texas did two years later. If Hanger had stopped McVeigh under the new law, Toobin writes, he could not have arrested him. All Hanger could have done was give McVeigh a ticket.

Although Toobins reputation has recently been tarnished by scandal, in Homegrown he has produced the definitive book on McVeighs continuing legacy. This book serves as a wake-up call to the ongoing extremist threat, and a vivid reminder that, in the words of William Faulkner, The past is never dead. Its not even past.

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'A Man Without a Gun Is Not a Citizen' - The Texas Observer

-By International Campaign for Tibet

A new US State Department report chronicles Chinas oppression of Tibetan Buddhist practitioners and efforts to keep two of the religions most prominent leaders out of sight inside Tibet.

The State Departments 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom, released May 15, 2023, documents allegations of forced disappearances, arrests, physical abuse, and prolonged detentions without trial of monks, nuns, and other persons due to their religious practices in Chinese-occupied Tibet last year.

The report arrives just days before the 28th anniversary ofChinas abduction of the Panchen Lama, a high-ranking Tibetan Buddhist figure who has not been seen in public since his forced disappearance at age 6.

The report also addresses Chinas ongoing refusal tonegotiate with the envoys of the Dalai Lama, theNobel Peace Prize-winning Tibetan Buddhist leaderwhom China forced into exile from Tibet over 60 years ago.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain released the report at an event at the State Department attended by International Campaign for Tibet President Tencho Gyatso.

I was grateful to join other civil society leaders and religious freedom advocates at the release of the 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom, and Im grateful to the State Department for shining a spotlight on Chinas oppression of religious worshippers in Tibet,Gyatso said.

As the report shows, Tibetans face horrific abuse from Chinas government for attempting to practice their faith freely, speak up for their religious rights or venerate their spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. The best way to bring this oppression to an end is to push for renewed dialogue between China and the Dalai Lamas envoys by passing thebipartisan Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Actcurrently in Congress.

Tibetan Buddhist leaders

According to the report, Chinese authorities in the Tibet Autonomous Region, which spans about half of Tibet, required clergy and Tibetan government employees to denounce the Dalai Lama, who has not set foot in Tibet since his forced exile in 1959.

Authorities also continued to force monasteries to display portraits of [Chinese Communist Party] leaders and required Tibetans to replace images of the Dalai Lama and other lamas in their homes with portraits of CCP leaders, including former chairman Mao Zedong and General Secretary and [Peoples Republic of China] President Xi Jinping, the report says. Images of the Dalai Lama were banned, with harsh repercussions for owning or displaying his image.

As one example, the report, citing news articles and rights groups, says Chinese police arrested a Tibetan named Zumkar after finding a photo of the Dalai Lama on her home altar. They also arrested her sister Youdon for colluding with Zumkar to conceal the photo.

According to the report, authorities also required clergy and government employees to pledge allegiance to Gyaltsen Norbu, whom Chinese leaders appointed as their own Panchen Lama after kidnapping Gedhun Choekyi Nyimathe 6-year-old recognized as Panchen Lama by the Dalai Lamaon May 17, 1995.

Traditionally, the Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama have played a key role in identifying one anothers reincarnations.

With the current Dalai Lama about to turn 88, China has made clear it plans to appoint its own successor to the globally revered Buddhist leader.

However, according to the report, US officials last year underscored that decisions on the succession of the Dalai Lama should be made solely by the Tibetan people, free from interference, and they raised concerns about the disappearance since 1995 of Panchen Lama Gedhun Choekyi Nyima.

Human rights abuses

China also cracked down on ordinary practitioners ofTibetan Buddhism last year, according to the report.

The report says China continued to place restrictions on the size of Buddhist monasteries and other institutions and to implement a campaign begun in 2016 to evict monks and nuns from monasteries.

Between 6,000 and 17,000 monks and nuns wereevicted over three years from the Larung Gar and Yachen Gar Buddhist institutes, the report says. Those expelled were forbidden from continuing their religious education elsewhere; instead, many of them were forced to undergo patriotic education.

The Chinese government also blocked religious education for laypeople, including children. Authorities restricted children from attending traditional religious festivals or from going on pilgrimages during school holidays, the report says. Tibet Autonomous Region authorities required monks to cancel all classes with children, warning that monks and parents could have their social security benefits restricted or be detained if classes taught by monks continued.

This restriction on childrens education continued with China reportedlyseparating nearly 1 million Tibetan children from their familiesand sending them to residential schools, where they are forced to learn in Mandarin Chinese in a curriculum built around Chinese culture. This massive program threatens the very survival of Tibetan language and culture inside Tibet.

In addition, the State Department report notes thatseveral Tibetans self-immolated last year, and it cites the International Tibet Networks figure of more than 700 political prisoners in Tibet as of November 2022.

The report also cites a study from Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto finding that Chinese authoritiessystematically collected DNA from one-quarter to one-third of the TARs population.

US response

Blinkenaddressed the reported mass DNA collectionat a Freedom House event on May 9, saying: Were also concerned by reports of the spread of mass DNA collection to Tibet as an additional form of control and surveillance over the Tibetan population.

The report notes other actions US officials have taken in response to Chinas violations of Tibetan religious freedom.

The reports says the US used continuing visa restrictions on [Chinese] government and CCP officials whom the U.S. government determined to be substantially involved in the formulation or execution of policies related to access for foreigners to Tibetan areas, pursuant to the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act of 2018.

That act, whichCongress passed unanimously, addressed Chinasunfair policy of keeping American diplomats, journalists and ordinary citizens out of Tibet, even though their Chinese counterparts are largely free to travel across the US. The report says no US diplomats visited the TAR or other Tibetan areas last year.

In 2020, Congress passed the bipartisan Tibetan Policy and Support Act, which dramatically upgraded US support for Tibetans, including bymaking it official US policy that only the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Buddhist community can decide on his succession.

The report notes that in October 2022, Under Secretary of State Uzra Zeya, who serves as the US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, spoke about the Dalai Lamas succession at a US Mission in Geneva event. The importance of [the Dalai Lamas succession], its ramifications for the preservation of Tibets rich religious traditions, the dignity of the global Tibetan community, and the protection of the human rights and fundamental freedoms that we all hold dear, deserves the international communitys urgent attention, Zeya said.

She added: We call on the international community to reject any PRC attempts to install a state-selected proxy, and we will use every opportunity available with our partners and allies to discredit [Peoples Republic of China] interference in this process.

Resolve Tibet Act

At the same event, Zeya said, we will continue to urge the PRC government to return to meaningful dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives, without preconditions.

Chinawhich has illegally occupied Tibet for over 60 yearshas refused to negotiate with the Dalai Lamas envoys since dialogue between the two sides stalled in 2010.

Earlier this year, Democrats and Republicans in both chambers of Congress reintroduced a bill that can help push China back to the negotiating table.

ThePromoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Actwill pressure China to resume negotiations by recognizing that Tibetans have the right to self-determination and that Tibets legal status is yet to be determined under international law.

Tell Congress to pass the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act.

Read the Tibet section of the 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom.

Click here to read the original report on ICT website.

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State Department Report Says China Oppressed Tibetan Buddhist ... - Central Tibetan Administration

When U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety publicly stated that weapons loaded onto a cargo vessel docked at a South African naval base last December were destined for Russia, he made big news. Despite a steady drumbeat of reports that have highlighted the African states reluctance to condemn Russias war of aggression and the warm military and political relationship South Africa continues to enjoy with Russia, some sought to characterize Brigetys remarks a gaffe or an affront to South Africa. Others seemed to portray the incident as an easily forgotten hiccup in an otherwise positive narrative. None of these assessments quite hit the mark. What Brigetys remarks really represented was a step forward in moving to a reality-based policy toward South Africa.

It's simply not plausible that Brigety was relaying a suspicion or a gut feeling. Why is honesty such an affront? If South Africa finds it distasteful to have its activities acknowledged in the light of day, why does the country engage in them in the first place? South Africas leaders have every right to assess the costs and benefits of the options before them and make the choices they believe are in their countrys interest, but no right to insist that other states help them obscure those choices. Neither the United States, nor any other country, has a responsibility to pretend not to notice the gulf between South African actions and its preferred narrative of nonalignment driven by its values and passionate commitment to equity for the Global South.

Its long past time to stop romanticizing U.S.-South Africa relations, or pretending that a one-sided enthusiasm for cooperation with the South African government is a critical linchpin in U.S.-Africa policy. These fantasies have more to do with our wishful thinkingboth about ourselves, and about the nature of the South African statethan with reality. The United States support for the apartheid government during the Cold War is undeniable. The equally undeniable history of the American publics opposition to such policies, which ultimately led to Congress overriding a presidential veto to pass the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, clearly has less resonance across the Atlantic than it does at home, as does decades of U.S. effort to build a robust bilateral partnership with a democratic South Africa. Other U.S. policies, including the 2011 intervention in Libya and its consequences, have been wrapped into a South African narrative of an arrogant, militaristic, and dangerous West; while the brutal realities of Russian policies, at home and abroad, somehow are understood to paint a picture of a desirable partner in remaking the international order.

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South Africa

U.S. Foreign Policy

Sub-Saharan Africa

At the same time, South Africa is not only a country in which numerous political leaders believe the United States is more enemy than friend, and who pursue policies explicitly aimed at weakening the United States and strengthening its adversaries. It is a state in which the dominant political party boasts both a stirring history of resisting oppression, and a damning record of not just accepting corruption, but at times systematically perpetuating it at the expense of the South African public. Its liberation struggle is respected, and the size (though not the overall health) of its economy is admired in the region, but South Africa today cannot be celebrated as a model of the rule of law, or democratic governance that works for the population. The countrys independent judiciary and robust civil society continue to be real sources of strength, but they shine in part because they push back on an increasingly dysfunctional state

Just as the United States cannot achieve its goals at home and abroad without an honest acknowledgement of our own flaws, Washington cannot conduct foreign policy without a clear-eyed assessment of our partners. Thats not bullying, its operating in reality. Over and over, South African words and deeds demonstrate that what would seem to be fertile ground of shared interests and values in democratic societies is, for the time being, a mirage. Some honesty may rock the diplomatic boat, but ultimately will lead to fewer dashed hopes and fruitless overtures. In the best case, telling the truth can point toward the strategic clarity that U.S.-Africa policy needs.

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Facing Reality on South Africa - Council on Foreign Relations

Recently, the FBI has targeted Black nationalist groups for allegedly having ties to Russian authorities. Three individual members of the African Peoples Socialist Party (APSP) and its activist arm Uhuru Movement based in St. Petersburg, Florida, and one member of the Black Hammer Party based in Atlanta, Georgia were indicted by a federal grand jury in Tampa for allegedly working on behalf of the Russian government and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Specifically, the indictment alleges that the Black nationalist activists conduct[ed] a multi-year foreign malign influence campaign in the United States, and acted as unregistered agents of the Russian government to sow discord and spread pro-Russian propaganda.

The indictment alleges that Russian citizen Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, who was indicted last year, sought to use U.S. political groups to interfere in U.S. elections by, among other things, funding political campaigns of APSP members in 2019.

Omali Yeshitela, who is a founding member of the APSP and the Uhuru Movement, has stated that Ionov did not play a role in any of their election campaigns and denied taking money from Ionov. Yeshitela is a long-term resident of St. Petersburg, Florida, and has been active in promoting anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist politics there and across the country. Penny Hess, chairperson of the African Peoples Solidarity Committee and one of the APSP members facing indictments, said at a May 10th press conference that it is completely absurd and profoundly racist that anyone would say that Chairman Omali Yeshitela is anything but his own person, that he would be somebody elses agent.

Indeed, these indictments echo racist propaganda used by the media and government officials that try to paint political dissent among Black people as the result of outside influence or outside agitators. The goal of these assertions is to undermine the political activity of Black radical and socialist activists and minimize the wider impact and influence of particularly militant expressions of resistance by the Black working class and community.

The political repression of Black, anti-racist, and anti-capitalist activists is an act with historical precedence, and one that the capitalist state and both capitalist parties (the Democrats and Republicans) relied on to curtail the growth of the 2020 BLM uprisings and their radical, anti-capitalist tendencies. When the protests erupted in 2020, many were met with police violence and mass arrests. When that failed to stop the movement, the capitalists then relied on the Democratic Party, the non-profit and trade union bureaucracy, and corporate foundations to co-opt the movement. When they failed to co-opt the vanguard of the movement, the capitalists deployed continual forms of state repression to drive the vanguard off the streets. Examples include the proliferation of anti-protest laws throughout the country and the continuous persecution of BLM activists in Grand Rapids and Detroit as well as abolitionist and environmental activists resisting Cop City in Atlanta, Georgia.

Many of the vanguard activists and organizations have found it difficult to maintain their forces and organize while defending themselves against legal charges. Many leaders were placed on probation, and in some instances even sentenced to jail. Hence, it should be clear that the main goal of state repression is to prevent the independent activity of the working class and oppressed, which in turn makes it critically important that the Left speak out and expose these instances of state repression and their purpose.

The Left should not only speak out against this attempt of state repression against activists expressing dissent against the U.S. government, but also advocate for the right of activists to have international connections and ties to other anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist organizations. This, in principle, should include organizations that we have political disagreements with. We in Left Voice have very important disagreements with APSP, the Uhuru Movement, and Black Hammer, specifically our analysis of class exploitation and oppression, the role of the revolutionary vanguard party, and the need to have a strategic orientation towards the working class, to name a few. Given that Black Hammer has recently aligned itself with neo-fascist formations like the Proud Boys and shown admiration for Trump and Majorie Taylor Greene, we cannot in good faith consider them as part of the Left and call into question their commitment to liberation of the working class and oppressed. Nonetheless, we stand firm against the capitalist states racist attempt to repress these groups because they speak out and critique the capitalist state.Above all, we must ensure that the critiques of the racist and violent practices of capitalism stay front and center, and not the narratives of the police and FBI. Their narratives are challenged by evidence of their violence and repression, such as the recent autopsy report of Tortuguita, who was shot 57 times and had no gun powder residue on his hands. We demand all charges be dropped against Black activists and those fighting to Stop Cop City.

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Federal Charges of Political Activists Show the Racist and ... - Left Voice

International attention in recent days has been fixed on the unprecedented social and political crisis wracking Pakistan. Following the arrest (and temporarily release pending trial) of deposed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, a wave of social unrest not seen in years has been ignited. Protests of his supporters have shaken the entire country which will no doubt continue even after his temporary release, with Khan calling for freedom protests this coming Sunday.

Roadblocks have been mounted cutting off access from Islamabad, where the government is based. Protestors have targeted the residence of senior state officials, police commanders and army generals. In one widely shared video, protests raided the house of the local corps commander in Lahore, stealing expensive food, golf clubs and even peacocks. Reports emerged in the last week of Khan supporters taking to the house of current right-wing PDM (Pakistan Democratic Movement a loose coalition of 13 bourgeois, regional and Islamist parties) coalition government leader Shehbaz Sharif, with his luxury cars allegedly being torched by the crowds.

A torrent of state repression has been the due response of the Pakistani state. Social media platforms such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have been entirely closed down. Schools and universities as potential sites of opposition to the military have been forcibly closed. Official reports at the time of writing state between 9 and 14 protestors have been shot dead and 4,000 arrested since the unrest began. This is quite likely to be an under-estimate, and shows the brutal lengths to which the state will go in order to crush the alleged conspiracy by Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to drag Pakistan into a civil war.

Although Khan was released after a judgment by the Supreme Court, he faces charges relating to the alleged personal sale of state gifts (given to Pakistan by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman) along with allegedly failing to declare his personal wealth to the Electoral Commission. But these are only part of a multitude of charges, including but not limited to terrorism, corruption, contempt of court, rioting and blasphemy.

Whether Khan is actually guilty of these charges cannot be exactly determined, but it is also not the main issue. This is not why the PTI has been placed on trial in the first place. Far more serious crimes have been and continue to be committed by all factions of Pakistans ruling elite. Khans real crime in the eyes of the military elite and the PDM coalition government is exploding the facade of military rule, at a time of unprecedented crisis for Pakistans ruling class which has pushed the country to the brink.

The crises for Pakistani capitalism are deep and unique even by the standards of South Asia. Its economy is crumbling under the pressure of sovereign debt to imperialist powers, be it the IMF or Chinese state and commercial banks. Society is further held back by an openly factional, warring ruling elite. Last years devastating floods still leave millions in poverty or without homes. Long queues are commonplace as the rapidly growing army of the unemployed struggle to find food to survive. The Economist magazine quoted a media capitalist in Taliban-run Afghanistan, that his country is better managed today than Pakistan.

Khans posing as anti-establishment and an opponent of the military-capitalist elite and the hated Sharif government has therefore struck a deep chord in society. He is by far the most popular politician in Pakistan today, which strikes fear into the heart of the military establishment given the scheduled upcoming October elections.

The fight between Khan and the PDM is not simply one between the capitalists, landlords and generals on the one hand, and the people represented by Khan. Khan has indeed mobilised wide layers of the Pakistani masses to his own banner. But his own record needs to be brought out. In fact, Khan represents another wing of the same capitalist elite which has fallen out of favour with the military hierarchy. But only after that same military elite engineered his coming to power in 2018.

Since partition in 1947, Pakistan has been consistently burdened with the outsized role played by the military. When necessary (as cannot be ruled out over the next period), this has taken the form of overt dictatorship, infamously in the form of the bloodthirsty Zia-ul-Haq regime. More frequently, the facade of democracy in Pakistan has depended on a system of military patronage. Those in power are whoever wins the favour of the generals and secret service chiefs, who themselves form a key link in the chain of Pakistans capitalist and feudal landlord classes.

Khan won such support at the exact point in 2018 when all other options had exhausted themselves. Popular disgust at the neoliberal policies of the PML (Sharifs party) and the Pakistan Peoples Party had grown to such proportions that a new, clean face was needed for the generals to lean on. It is an open secret that Khans victory that year came from the torrent of intimidation and propaganda from the military.

Through his time in office, Khans policies remained firmly within the confines set by imperialism and capitalism. Two IMF-mandated austerity packages were forced through during his government. He willingly carried out the generals preferred policy of balancing between US and Chinese imperialism, integrating Pakistan deeper into the debt trap of the Belt and Road Initiative via the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which consequently allowed him to lean on anti-US rhetoric at key opportune moments. In return, the military top brass opened up corruption cases against rivals of Khan, not dissimilar to those facing him today. Far from siding with the poor and oppressed, the class character of the PTI in this period was summed by the comment of Khans Kashmiri Affairs Minister Ali Amin Gandapur in 2021 when news arrived of growing inflation: Cant we sacrifice a little and reduce the quantity of the sugar in our tea and eat less bread?

The honeymoon was never going to last for an entire term. Since the birth of Pakistan, it has always been customary for the military to turn against its own governments after only a short time in office. Not a single one of Pakistans 22 Prime Ministers have ever finished an entire term. What has been unique about Khans removal from power has been the extent to which he has openly challenged it, unintentionally calling into question the entire established way of forming and deposing governments.

The reason for his discarding in early 2022 was simple: Khan simply grew too big for his boots for the liking of the generals. Khan broke the elites oldest taboo in wanting to declare himself kingmaker, over chief of army staff at the time, General Qamar Bajwa. Instead of accepting Bajwas choice to appoint Asim Munir as his successor, Khan vouched instead for his closest ally Lt General Faiz Hameed, as a maneuver to extend his own time in office. The result was a stage-managed vote of no confidence which ended Khans time in office and brought the PDM to power in April 2022.

Now the dirty laundry of the entire ruling elite has been aired in public, in a way not seen in decades. In a game of tit-for-tat attacks over the last year, Khans and Sharifs followers have gone to the end of the earth to dig out dirt on one another. As a result, the fraud of Pakistani democracy now lies in tatters.

Khan is distinguished not only by his willingness to take the fight to his enemies in the military high command, but to mobilise his own mass base in high-profile marches, twinning this with a superficially anti-US, anti-imperialist image. Khan has staged multiple national demonstrations and dissolved regional governments in his local bases of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as maneuvers to call an early election to bring himself back into power.

It is no surprise then that this factional battle over the previous year has turned to bloodshed. First, key Khan ally and TV presenter Arshad Sharif was assassinated in exile in Kenya last October. Just over a week later, a gunman made an attempt on Khans life during a rally in Northern Punjab, only wounding Khan while killing one of his supporters. While the military and ISI have publicly denied involvement and issued their condolences, you dont have to be a conspiracy theorist to know where responsibility almost definitely lies. You can only look at the fates of Benazir Bhutto, as well as her father Zulfikar to see the extent the generals have been prepared to go in the past to wipe out political figures who outlive their usefulness to them and become a nuisance.

While the elite factions line up and wage war for their privileged positions, the masses of Pakistan are living in a quagmire of economic, climate and social hell, as a result of the capitalist policies of the ruling class.

Pakistans annual inflation hit 36.4% in April, with food-price inflation running at 48.1%. Hundreds of factories continue to close down, with millions of workers losing employment monthly. Staple supplies such as medicine have reached record-low levels. Salaries are being slashed, privatisations are gaining pace and fees increasing. Increasing numbers of young people are fleeing the country, including educated student youth who have left studies to find not even menial work on offer.

Pakistans foreign exchange reserves have dwindled to only $4.5 billion, only just about enough to cover a months worth of imports. Since the floods last year, 45% of Pakistans total food producing land has been eradicated. These floods submerged more than a third of Pakistans total land underwater, killing more than 800,000 livestock. One million houses were washed away, bringing particularly acute devastation to the nationally-oppressed regions of Balochistan and Sindh, both hubs of Pakistans textile industry.

This shows the sheer destruction which the escalating global climate crisis will have in the neo-colonial world. The policies of the super-rich monopolies and corporations, and generalised chaos of the capitalist system have left the poorest globally to pick up the bill for crimes not of their making.

But the response from imperialism underlines its sheer brutality. Rather than cancelling Pakistans sovereign debt in the wake of the floods, the IMF has only doubled down on the estimated $77.5bn in loan repayments expected by June 2026. The Sharif government meanwhile has eagerly responded by raising the prices of oil, gas, electricity and introduced general sales taxes on the poor. Pakistan is now on the brink of a crisis mirroring that of Sri Lanka, which defaulted and declared bankruptcy last year.

While Pakistan is contested between the imperialist powers, attention has somewhat shifted out of the region compared to the period of the War on Terror. As key resources and attention have instead shifted to Ukraine and the South China Sea in the New US-China Cold War, meagre sums of 53m from the US and 25m from British imperialism were provided in aid, compared to the dozens of billions forked out in spending to prop up the Ukrainian military. China, meanwhile, facing internal shocks from its own economic and Covid crises, has complicated the expansion of its international influence, drawing question its role as a fledgling imperialist power over the region.

Anybody who tries to put this down to Pakistans status as a poor country is wrong. The total declared wealth of the Sharif family sits at $1.8bn. Nishat Group chair Mian Mansha, the ultra-rich mill owner whose family profited from the 1947 partition, boasts $3.7 billion. For real estate mogul Malik Riaz, his declared wealth is $1.5 billion. Former President Asif Ali Zardari, the former husband of Benazir Bhutto sits on a net worth of $1.8bn. The list goes on. If, instead of the criminal racket ruling Pakistan today, there was a government of the workers and oppressed, which seized the wealth of the capitalists, generals and landlords, and invested it into the real needs of the people of Pakistan in a planned socialist economy, the lives of the people would of course be utterly transformed.

Despite Khan being a bourgeois populist and opportunist, the growing support for him is still an expression of deep discontent with the ruling elite in Pakistani society. He is looked to by many as a figure prepared to take on the rottenness and corruption of the capitalist parties of the PDM coalition, under whose rule unemployment, hunger, inflation and terrorist violence have skyrocketed.

This is why the ruling elites fear this mobilisation. By targeting the generals, the protests have unknowingly gone beyond simply saving Khans own career. What the ruling class fears is a revolutionary explosion which could pose a serious challenge to the establishment and alter the balance of power in the region. There are clear signs of splits in the Pakistani state, with the lower echelons of the judiciary, army and even potentially the police indicating growing levels of support for Khan.

Where events take Pakistan over the next period is not entirely clear. It is not even ruled out that the generals could dig up the heritage of the Zia regime and attempt to form a new military junta if they feel control slipping out of their hands.

Events may also take the turn of what happened last year in Sri Lanka, where after declaring bankruptcy to the IMF and facing harsh austerity measures, a mass hartal (total stoppage and general strike) paralysed the regime, leading to the storming of the palace of President Rajapaksa. Were this to happen in Pakistan it could have deep ramifications. This is a country with the fifth-largest population in the world.

A revolutionary upheaval would likely see the women of Pakistan come to the fore expressing their seething anger against sexism, patriarchal violence and fundamentalist oppression. It could echo the events shaking Iran last year and this year, while giving a signal to the people of Afghanistan that mass resistance to Taliban rule is possible and necessary. It could also boost the confidence of the oppressed peoples in Sindh and Balochistan, intensifying calls for national self-determination.

Like the people of Iran have re-discovered the best traditions of 1979 and the revolution against the Shah, the people of Pakistan the unemployed, workers, women, and nationally oppressed peoples will need to rediscover the traditions of the 196869 revolution, when a mass movement of students and factory occupations posed a serious challenge to military rule. But building a movement for revolutionary change will require acting independently of all wings of the capitalist elite whether PDM or PTI. It is quite possible that Khan, in exchange for lenient terms and a forgiving treatment, will be prepared at some stage to place a dampener on these protests.

Events have shown that the working class is more than capable of acting independently. Recent strikes, of health workers this January in Sindh against privatisation, of the victorious 40,000 strong strike of power loom workers in Faisalabad last August and others provides a glimpse into what the exploited poor and working-class majority in Pakistan is capable of when organised. The now-six year tradition of Aurat Azadi feminist Marches, bravely challenging fundamentalist patriarchy and violence against women and gender non-conforming people against police repression, provides a small window into the heroic role that women could play in the struggle to transform society, as they have in Iran.

The workers and the oppressed of Pakistan must rely on their own strength to win fundamental change. This will mean setting up organisations of the unemployed, to link up with a militant Pakistani labour movement. This would provide a powerful basis on which to challenge the wealth and power of the capitalist elite, and to fight for a democratic socialist Pakistan, in a confederation of South Asia, and a socialist world.

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Age of Disorder || Pakistan on the Brink: Down with Capitalist PDM ... - International Socialist

Victimhood is a basic prop of fascism. It helps to legitimize the aspiring fascist leader with his victimized base while at the same time giving license for the persecution of those people he denounces for victimizing his base.

As Donald Trump constantly demonstrates through his laments about being the object of witch hunts, the fascist-in-waiting proudly wears the mantle of victimization. This cleverly disguises that he is, in reality, the embodiment of the class and system responsible for the oppressed state of his victimized base.

For in touching this very sensitive nerve of the millions of citizens in this country who are bitterly disappointed and enraged by their fate in life particularly white males he creates a bond of fellow victimization. Their sense of abject powerlessness, as well as betrayal for having been cheated out of the promise of the American Dream (especially their privileged status as white males) has caused many to identify with Trump and his self-pitying victimhood. Hes become their voice, his crazed public outbursts expressing what they privately rant about, providing them with accessible targets migrants and people of color, the gay and transgender populations, teachers, school board and election board members, not to mention the Wokes and liberal politicians for their wrath and hatred. As Trump promised at the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year, Those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.

What is especially ironic about this, of course, is that fascism is the ultimate expression of capitalism and the class warfare that the ruling class wages against working people. While largely invisible, it is the rich and powerful who are not only responsible for the economic oppression that working people suffer but also the money behind the efforts to destroy democracy and its potential to eliminate power relationships.

Unfortunately, fascism is greatly aided by the disempowering false consciousness that afflicts so many everyday folks, causing us to not recognize the origins of our oppressive situation. We envy the ruling class, instead, their power and wealth, hence blinding us to the connection between their ill-gotten gains, and the exploitation of our labor that made such affluence possible.

The absence of such liberating consciousness, however, should not mislead us about the legitimate rage that found expression in the storming of the nations Capital on January 6, and the MAGA movement in general. While perverted by Trumps lies, the wrath and fury demonstrated toward our government is embedded within a sense of betrayal that goes to the heart of the capitalist system and its political and corporate masters.

In what she identifies in her book, Hiding in Plain Sight, as the wreckage of the American Dream, the author, Sarah Kendizor, describes the period from 1946 to 1974 as one of unparalleled stability and prosperity. It was a time in which the American Dream seemed feasible, having a steady job and getting a raise, owning a home, not needing an advanced degree for a career, and if you did, being able to afford one without being saddled with decades of debt.

Then the bottom fell out, and class warfare against workers and the middle class accelerated. Along with its assault on labor unions, the Reagan Administration cut tax rates on the rich from 74 to 27 percent while raising taxes on working-class people 11 times, initiating the extreme stratification of income and wealth that has characterized American society for the last 40-plus years.

From 1947 to 1979, income for the bottom fifth of Americans rose 122 percent. Up to that time, workers pay had increased proportionally with productivity. But between 1979 and 2017, while growth in worker productivity grew 70.3 percent, hourly compensation grew only by 11.1 percent.

At the other end, earnings of the top 0.1 percent grew 343.2 percent; from 1979 to 2009, income of the top 1 percent rose 270 percent, while that of the remaining 99 percent stagnated. This disparity has continued right up to the present, stripping average people of opportunities and resources.

For working Americans, the American Dream has become a nightmare of dashed expectations, as illustrated by the belief that their children will be financially worse off than their parents, reversing the historic trend of generation progress, as well as the skyrocketing death rate amongst middle age, white males known as Deaths of Despair, caused by outright suicide as well as the many instances hidden in drug overdoses and alcoholism. The latter is a phenomenon that particularly afflicts those who are lost in todays economy, unable to assume their patriarchal-prescribed role of supporting their families.

The corporate-controlled government bears significant responsibility for this situation, as evidenced from Reagans union busting and trickle-down economics, and Clintons support of NAFTA and GATT free trade globalization that resulted in the loss of US jobs, to its failure to train an increasingly technologically redundant workforce to transition from an industrial to a knowledge economy, and what Kendisior identifies as the iron triangle of organized crime, state corruption and corporate criminality that fleeced the common person.

However, white working men have compounded their economic circumstances by their racist-inspired perception that the socialist government has promoted policies that provide unfair advantages to people of color. Playing the race card that many white workers have bought into since the early days of slavery, fascists exploit these fears by promoting the Great Replacement Theory that maintains white people are losing the skin privilege theyve enjoyed during four hundred years of caste supremacy.

Along with their legitimate class rage, white racism contributes significantly to the community of victimhood that wants to Make America Great Again.

Tim Stevenson is a community organizer with Post Oil Solutions from Athens, and author of Resilience and Resistance: Building Sustainable Communities for a Post Oil Age (Green Writers Press), and the recently published, Transformative Activism: A Values Revolution in Everyday Life in a Time of Social Collapse (Apocryphile Press). The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Vermont News & Media.

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Tim Stevenson | Living with the Long Emergency: Rising Fascism ... - Brattleboro Reformer

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Just ahead of the mayoral inauguration next week, one issue that will face Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration is big bureaucracy.

On that subject, one topic we've covered extensively is water bills. For four years, we have exposed systematic issues at the Chicago Department of Water Management - leaving Chicagoans getting hosed.

We invited all the aldermen to our studios to talk about it. Three incoming Ald. William Hall (6th), Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th), and incoming Ald. Ronnie Mosley (21st) came and sat down with CBS 2 Streaming Anchor Brad Edwards.

Edwards told the aldermen that when he first started investigating people's water bill woes in Chicago, he expected it to be a dry, dull subject. But he told the aldermen it turned out to be "the most riveting, regressive government oppression" he has seen.

The circumstances vary from case to case, of course, but in short, the pattern involves Chicagoans getting socked with bills for water they didn't use.

"Because of your reporting, I'll be working with my colleagues to make sure that we're beginning to address this issue," Villegas said, "and I think I think that we'll finally put it into this thing this year. We're going to hold hearings with the Department of Water Management and Department of Financing."

CBS 2 fixed dozens of people's water bills under Mayor Lori Lightfoot but the city departments refused to answer any more questions. What if they refuse to answer Ald. Villegas' questions too?

"I can tell you that they're not going to refuse to come - because of the fact that we're the body that appropriates their budgets," Villegas said.

Lead pipes

Meanwhile, Chicago water rates have quadrupled in 20 years from $1+ per gallon in 2002 to $4+ per gallon by 2020.

"So over the years, I've seen my water bill increase, but I've also seen the lack of investment in infrastructure," said Hall.

Chicago has 387,095 lead service lines. Those are pipes made of lead that deliver water to homes.

The service lines are also potentially delivering lead into those homes. We have measured illegally high amounts of drinking water in said homes.

"The danger that we have is that we're on the verge of another Flint crisis," said Hall.

"We've got to figure a way to address this issue," added Villegas. "This is impacting predominantly African American and Latino communities."

Villegas plans to fight for billions in federal funds to replace the pipes. He estimates to replace all of Chicago's lead water lines, it will cost $9 billion.

But such an undertaking will also mean jobs.

"We're going to have a lot of development and rebuilding of the infrastructure in the 21st Ward," said Mosley. "I want to make sure that our residents are the ones that are doing that work; that they have the skill sets, the certifications, the licenses to participate in the rehabilitation and revitalization of our ward."

A broken system

These are all hypotheticals. Right now, as we've shown, the system is broken.

And we have fixed water bills for numerous Chicagoans some of them in excess of $61,000.

One common thread among all of our victims in our Getting Hosed series, which are dozens over four years, is that the city doesn't care.

Villegas says he expects that to change.

"I think that the new administration is going to be a lot more welcoming of this change, because of the fact that it's affecting everyday working families," he said.

This made it sound as if Mayor Lori Lightfoot's team whether the mayor herself or her administration was not working with Villegas on this issue, as they were not working with us.

When Edwards asked about this, Villegas replied, "Yeah, that's a correct assessment."

Solutions

Villegas spearheaded a study that found departments are siloed and don't speak to each other in what amounts to a crippled bureaucracy.

"So this is something that I've been working on, as it relates to making sure that we have the technology in place," Villegas said.

Villegas is now undertaking what might be a $500 million tech upgrade to fix that siloing. But Alderman-elect Hall said such proposals for upgrades or investments can raise red flags for taxpayers.

"When you hear upgrades, and we hear investment, that's usually code word on the backs of those who are residents," Hall said, "and I thank you for having the conversation. But again, residents are not going to, and they should not have to, pay for misery due to mismanagement of infrastructure and water. That's unacceptable."

As for the bills, Alderman-elect Mosley has an idea.

"This can't be in another email that just goes unread, and time goes by. I would invite the Water Department to come to the 21st Ward - and my residents to bring their bills with them so that we can go through them together and figure out the cost savings that need to be applied here," Mosley said. "When we talk about just that accountability, yes, it is coming to the alderman's office; you can call 311. But my job is to be your ambassador to expedite or deliver those city services. And so when you talk about leadership, and what does it look like, When you talk about just being an alderman, it is bringing those departments representatives directly to the people and bringing forth a solution."

It's not just bills. All agree there is also a safety issue when it comes to the city's water supply with too many generations of too many kids having consumed too much lead-laced water. Such poisoning can lead to a lifetime of cognitive issues.

Villegas' call for City Hall hearings is a huge step, and one not taken before. And there's much to tackle.

Those hearings could happen within weeks.

Brad Edwards is an investigative reporter and main anchor at CBS2 Chicago.

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Members of new City Council weigh in on water bills - CBS Chicago