protests

Our landlord doesn’t read my letters, as far as we know, but it feels like it’s only fair to write a letter each month, if we’re not going to be paying the rent.

Israel is roiling with angry street protests that local observers have warned could erupt into open civil strife – a development Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be encouraging.
For weeks, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have been the scene of large, noisy demonstrations outside the official residences of Mr Netanyahu and his public security minister, Amir Ohana.
On Saturday night around 13,000 marched through Jerusalem shouting “Anyone but Bibi”, Netanyahu’s nickname. Their calls were echoed by tens of thousands more at locations across the country.

Rod DREHER
In true progressive form, the City of Minneapolis, which has decided that it doesn’t need the police, is now advising its citizens how to surrender more effectively to criminals:

Positive COVID-19 Test (Shutterstock)
The US is at a moment of truth. This week, Congress has to face up to a pandemic that is out of control and an economy that is collapsing. The Republican’s and Democrat’s proposals show they will fail this test. The people will need to protect themselves and lead from below.

The American idea of progress is how fast I become white. And it’s a trick bag. Because they know perfectly well I can never become white. I have drunk my share of dry martinis; I have proven myself civilized in every way I can. But there is an irreducible difficulty: something doesn’t work. Well, I decided: I might as well act like a nigger.
— James Baldwin, UC Berkeley, 19791

Talks between IMF officials and politicians broke down recently when it transpired that the latter wanted a ‘brown envelope’ in any aid deal. Don’t blame the politicians though. It’s all they know and it was, after all, the UN who showed them the way. But can the UN in Lebanon actually feed the Lebanese?

There are moments when collectively, as well as individually, we humans reach to a fork in the road. We can dither undecided at its bisection for a while, but ultimately, we must elect to take one of the paths ahead.

Portland protests say Go Home Feds as protests grow (by Noah Berger, AP)
Today is the 60th day of protests since the murder of George Floyd. This weekend, people marched in cities across the country in solidarity with Portland and in opposition to the US becoming a police state.

Far from restoring order, the arrival of federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Border Patrol in Portland, Oregon has only heightened tensions, with agents attacking and arresting protesters nightly. DHS’ Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli took to social media yesterday to share images of items confiscated from demonstrators.

If Trump still had an ounce of sanity after three years in office, he would stared at himself in the bathroom mirror sometime in mid-February and said something like this:
“OK, Donald, this virus is coming on much stronger than you expected, and it looks like it could take down half of the economy with it. You thought you were going to sail through to re-election, but now you’re Winston Churchill in May 1940 with the Nazis in France and Norway and Britain alone and adrift in between.