A Liberal Dose, May 9, 2024 "A Nation Divided Over a Nation Divided"

 

A Liberal Dose

May 9, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“A Nation Divided over a Nation Divided”

 

An interesting thing happened to me the other day. I was on Youtube, looking for the most recent clip from John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. The first thing that popped up was a bit showing Anderson Cooper reporting on the conflict between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza. Cooper was telling us that an attack had been launched from Gaza that killed Israelis, and the Israeli government was bombing Gaza in retaliation, killing countless civilians, and saying it was Hamas’s fault for hiding weapons among those civilians. Why was this on a comedy show? Because Oliver showed several more clips of Anderson Cooper -from 2012, 2009, 2006, back to 2002 -saying almost word-for-word the exact same thing. The joke was that there were two constants in the world: Anderson Cooper always looks exactly the same (Oliver made a Dorian Grey reference), and Israelis and Palestinians are always killing each other. I noticed at that point that the clip I was watching wasn’t from a 2024 episode after all, it was from a 2014 episode.

And that’s about the only halfway funny thing that can be said about this whole tragic situation (and even that is far more sad than funny).

Despite the fact the two sides have been fighting each other for what seems like forever, things have ramped up unbelievably since October 7, 2023. On that day, Hamas fighters surged into Israeli territory and killed over 1,100 people and abducted about 250 more, whom they took back to Gaza as hostages. There were reports of incredible atrocities, rape not least among them. Israel responded with overwhelming force, which surprised no one… but many have been surprised, and outraged, by how overwhelming it has been. So far, 34,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza -the vast majority of them civilians (and many of them children). The people of Gaza now have very little, in some cases no, access to food, medical care, fuel, electricity, or, in many cases, drinkable water. The result is widespread starvation. The UN Human Rights Council has cited “clear evidence” of war crimes. A large number of journalists and international aid workers have been killed by Israeli forces, sometimes despite clear markings of their identities.

Everything I said in the above paragraph was fact. However, exactly what those facts mean, or for some people how those facts are framed, depends on perspective. And everyone in the world -including the U.S. -does not have the same perspective. Most come down very firmly, often forcefully, on one side or the other. It seems most on the political right unequivocally side with the Israeli government, but the left is divided -with many on the center-left steadfast in support of the Israeli government, but many farther-left folks supporting the Palestinians, or even Hamas. While not universal, it seems to me there is also an age divide, with most people I know under 35 much more critical of Israel and much more empathetic toward the Palestinians of Gaza. I’ve heard pundits from both parties claiming that is true because young people are uninformed or easily misled, but I don’t think that is the case. I think at least some of it depends on how much one’s thinking was shaped by the Cold War era.

I also think that most Americans in general -young or old, left or right -don’t fully understand the complexities of this situation or the history associated with it. And I think that a lot of people (liberal and conservative) have fallen into the trap of describing any opposition whatsoever to Benjamin Netanyahu or the Israeli government as antisemitism. I admit that is a factor for some, but not for the vast majority of protesters. There are huge numbers of Jewish people IN ISRAEL who oppose Netanyahu and the current actions of his government (I know some). There are large numbers of Jewish people in the U.S. who are part of the pro-Palestinian protests around the country. My own future son-in-law, a devout Jew, was baking bread last week to take to the shabbat observances by the large number of Jewish protesters at one of the campus encampments.

It’s not as simple as many would have you believe. Or maybe it is… just not in the same way.

I said last week it was going to take a while for me to address this subject. This week’s whole column has been composed of me just setting the stage. Next week we’ll start delving into the history.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, May 2, 2024 "Notice Who the Money Keeps Trickling to"

 

A Liberal Dose

May 2, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“Notice Who the Money Keeps Trickling to”

 

First, the situation with Israel and Palestine continues to spiral further and further out of hand and is starting to do so in this country as well. I have been putting off discussing it on here until the semester was over, because doing the subject justice will take deep thought, time, and will require more than one 700-ish word column. I hope to get started on it with next week’s piece, because it can’t be put off any longer. I will say, for now, how ridiculous it was last week to read Marsha Blackburn’s column about how disruptive and wrong protests are and how they (and pretty much anything Republicans don’t like nowadays) should be felonies. Coming from people who continue to excuse, justify, deny, and/or support the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, this -much like cries of outrage over the border when they dropped their own bill on it -is rankest hypocrisy. Protesting in a peaceful yet “disruptive” way (which is the whole point of protest) should apparently be a felony when it is on a topic they don’t support- but wreaking havoc on the Capitol, assaulting policemen with dangerous weapons, and smearing feces on the walls of Congress are all just fine when it’s YOUR side that does it.

For this week, I’ll spend the rest of my time discussing rank hypocrisy on a state level.

Did you know that Tennessee is one of only 13 states in the country that imposes sales tax on food? Did you further know that, food tax aside, Tennessee has the highest sales tax in the nation? Relying on sales tax instead of state income tax is generally known as a “regressive” tax system… because it places a higher burden on the poorest people (including working people) than on the richest people. Taxing food is just adding insult to injury (while also compounding the injury). Democrats in the General Assembly tried to end the tax on food this year… but Republicans blocked those efforts. However, Republicans have ONCE AGAIN lowered the business tax, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year and billions over the next few years, including over 1.5 billion dollars in refunds to big businesses this year alone. And they are doing their level best to do it in such a way none of us will know just which businesses are getting these breaks, and how much… but it is estimated more than half of that money is going to be going to businesses outside Tennessee. A lot of it will be staying in the state, though, including those tax savings going to Governor Lee’s multi-million-dollar company.

So… we can’t afford to give working people a break on basic necessities like food -even when so many are suffering -but we can give up billions of dollars in tax revenue for big business. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned several bills that Republicans shot down -higher minimum wage, free breakfast and lunch for school kids, paid time off for new foster parents -in most cases, without even listening to the arguments in favor of them. One particular legislator, though, argued with us (my union) that the state government can’t afford to do things like that. Yet we have a surplus. And yet we keep handing tax breaks out to the large companies and the wealthiest individuals. Clearly, we CAN afford it, they just don’t want to do it… not because it would take money away from taxpayers, but because it would give them less money to hand out to their cronies.

I have a friend who loves to say “Has a poor person ever given you a job?” as a way to defend trickle-down economics. I always reply, yes, all the time. Because when a working person has more money on hand to spend, THEY SPEND IT -because they have to, to get what they need (or maybe just things they want but usually go without). And the more they do that, the more goods are sold in this country, the more goods need to be made, the more money flows through the hands of the most people. Heck, the more money people at the top make in the long run (as Will Rogers pointed out, money trickles UP). But they’d much rather have it NOW. And their Republican friends keep making sure they get it, don’t they… by taking it away from YOU. All this other stuff is just smoke and mirrors to keep you from noticing.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE