Following anti-war unrest not seen since the Sixties, both major parties have decided that repression and clamping down on free speech, rather than reconsidering an off-the-rails foreign policy, is the solution to America’s problems. With thousands of cases of censorship, repression, and punishment for anti-Israel views, we have truly entered a new era of McCarthyism and thought control.
Since the Gaza war began we have witnessed unprecedented police violence against campus protesters, as well as outrageous accusations of “antisemitism” by mainstream media and politicians of both parties. Like candidate Hubert Humphrey before him, candidate Joe Biden has doubled down on American militarism and, like Humphrey, it’s going to cost him the presidency. With tens of billions for war on three fronts, active conflict in 16 different countries, “counterterrorism” operations in 78, and now with U.S. boots on the ground in Gaza, Biden risks pushing the U.S. to the brink of World War III while undermining domestic initiatives he claims to support.
Likewise, Biden seems unconcerned that his “ironclad” support for Israel, even in the face of a credible genocide case at The Hague, has irrevocably alienated his own voters. With the exception of a handful of Democrats, both major parties are equally committed to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and refuse to either call for a ceasefire or try to prevent Israel’s impending slaughter in Rafah. What we are now seeing is the unmasked, unapologetic face of bipartisan American imperium.
This week Democrats joined MAGA Republicans in not only suppressing free speech and ratcheting up support for World War III but in legislating the meaning of words.
We have been long accustomed to MAGA America insisting on their own definitions of “life,” “marriage,” “freedom of religion,” and “privacy.” Resisting any common or commonsense understanding of these terms, and now undermined by an overwhelmingly Christian Nationalist Supreme Court, we have entered an Orwellian world where words have only the meanings that authoritarians assign to them.
This week Democrats are joining the authoritarians. Bipartisan bill H.R.6090, the Antisemitism Awareness Act (AAA), attempts to redefine “antisemitism” as not the generally-accepted concept of “hatred of Jews” but as “criticism of Israel.” The alteration is based on the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which has a long history but in short was concocted by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. A number of Democrats have joined the bill’s MAGA sponsors in altering the meaning of a commonly understood word being changed for blatantly political purpose.
Accompanying this bill, H.R.7921, the Countering Antisemitism Act, would establish an Antisemitism Czar to clamp down on criticism of Zionism.
Sponsored by Senator Jackie Rosen and Congresswoman Kathy Manning, among others, the bill is the result of lobbying by virtually every Zionist organization in America: Agudath Israel of America; American Israel Public Affairs Committee; American Jewish Committee; American Jewish Congress; Anti-Defamation League; B’nai B’rith International; Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Hadassah; Hillel International; Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy; Israeli-American Civic Action Network; JCC Association of North America; Jewish Council for Public Affairs; Jewish Federations of North America; Jewish on Campus; National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry; National Council of Jewish Women; Nexus Leadership Project; Secure Community Network; The Rabbinical Assembly; Union for Reform Judaism; Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America; United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism; and the World Jewish Congress.
Now, in addition to the Israel Lobby applying pressure from outside government, they will effectively be part of it and playing a repressive role — for the benefit of a foreign power.
No doubt many more Democrats than merely the bills’ sponsors, and among them Massachusetts representatives like Seth Moulton, a cosponsor of CAA, will support both pieces of legislation.
Wartime has an uncanny facility for showing citizens the true face of their own democracy.
In coming days Americans will be treated to further proof that voting for Democrats is no less evil than voting for their ideological friends on the other side of an aisle that, increasingly, separates the two parties by only a name.
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