The Nation August 26/September 2, 2019

Eyes Wide Open I write to thank you for Arran Skinner’s beautiful and timely article about the victims of oppression who are being found on the riverbanks and beaches and in the detention facilities of autocratic regimes in many places [“On Not Looking Away,” July 29/Aug. 5]. This article reminds us, in nearly every sentence, of what is missing in the current political discussions. Compassion. Empathy. The recognition that each of these victims is as human and as valuable to the future of the planet as ourselves. America will never become great again until we absorb—and express—this truth. FRANK SOUTHWORTH NEW YORK CITY The Other Stain Eric Foner’s commentary “The Court: Grave of Liberty” [July 29/Aug. 5] quotes a scholar as saying that Oliver Wendell Holmes’s 1903 decision in Giles…

A few hours before the second round of Democratic presidential primary debates began in Detroit’s opulent Fox Theatre, union activists and their allies gathered around 13 miles away at a United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners hall near General Motors’ transmission plant in Warren. The factory was scheduled to be unallocated—corporate-speak for closed—the day after the Democrats left town, leaving 260 United Auto Workers members and another factory town as victims of President Trump’s lies. The Carpenters and Joiners’ union hall has a large auditorium and would have been a much better site for a Democratic debate. A forum in Warren on the eve of a plant closing would have put an urgent focus on deindustrialization and the future of work—issues that got scant attention in Detroit. If Warren was…

64 Deaths in Puerto Rico caused by Hurricane Maria, according to an initial report by the territory’s government 4,645 Deaths in Puerto Rico caused by Hurricane Maria, according to a later Harvard report $123B Puerto Rico’s government debt and pension liabilities 2 Rico officials indicted for defrauding the US of $15.5 million of federal funding 889 Pages of leaked chat logs between then-Governor Ricardo Rosselló and his advisers published by the Center for Investigative Journalism 500K Number of Puerto Ricans who protested in San Juan on July 17 to demand Roselló’s resignation; he stepped down a week later…

There are compelling reasons not to quote from the manifesto of the person who is alleged to have murdered 22 people and injured more than two dozen in El Paso, Texas, on August 3. It was written by a white nationalist copycat who cited as inspiration the massacre at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March. The El Paso and Christchurch slaughters are both manifestations of a global white nationalist movement that relies on stochastic terrorism. Unlike traditional terrorism, which is organized by mass political movements with some level of centralized discipline, stochastic terrorism spreads hateful messages on social media to radicalize lone wolf actors. Manifestos written to be discovered and advertised after the bloodbath are very much a part of this meme-driven strategy. They are the seeds of…

On July 23, the House of Representatives passed Resolution 246 targeting the grassroots global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights that I helped found in 2005. Sadly, H.Res.246, which fundamentally mischaracterizes our goals and misrepresents my views, is only the latest attempt by Israel’s supporters in Congress to demonize and suppress our peaceful struggle. H.Res.246 reinforces other unconstitutional anti-boycott measures, including those passed by some 27 state legislatures, that are reminiscent of “McCarthy era tactics,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union. It exacerbates the oppressive atmosphere that Palestinian rights advocates already face, further chilling speech critical of Israel at a time when President Donald Trump is publicly smearing members of Congress who support Palestinian freedom. In response to these repressive legislative measures, Representatives Ilhan Omar and…

In 2014, France’s channel TF1 produced a documentary that imagined a weather report in the year 2050. Featuring real-life staff meteorologist Évelyne Dhéliat, TF1 dramatized a terrifying new normal: a France ravaged by temperatures in the low 40s Celsius (104 to 109 degrees Fahrenheit). Just five years later, a European heat wave has made those scary projections seem optimistic. In June, Dhéliat stood in front of a map identical to the one from the documentary, but the actual temperatures were even hotter the predictions. A diptych of the two maps went viral. In one of the starkest differences, the projected 2050 temperature for Normandy, 28 degrees C (82 degrees F), was outdone this year by 11 degrees: 39 degrees C (102 degrees F). For the past two decades, scientists’ best…