The Struggle for the Soul of America: The Israeli-Hamas War Is Biden’s Vietnam

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Author: Bruce Berlin

As a college student in the 1960s, I became so appalled at our government’s prosecution of the Vietnam War that I joined the protests against the war. On April 15, 1967, hundreds of thousands of us marched from New York’s Central Park to the United Nations on the East River in the biggest anti-war rally up until then.[1] But as the war grew, so did the protests. On November 15, 1969, the Moratorium to End the War staged an even larger demonstration in Washington.[2] I was among the protesters at the Pentagon that the police teargassed that day.

Today, as then, college students are spearheading the protest movement against America’s involvement in a costly war. And, similar to President Johnson back then, President Biden is now the primary target of the students’ wrath.

True, there are very significant differences between the two conflicts. Most importantly, no Americans are fighting and dying in Gaza today. Over 58,000 American service people lost their lives in Vietnam.[3]

On the other hand, the Administration’s unconditional support for one side is very similar in both wars. Then the United States was all in with the South Vietnamese. Today, our government fully backs Israel. At the same time, a large segment of the American Jewish community as well as Muslim Americans oppose Biden’s position, making his re-election campaign that much more difficult.

In both cases, however, resistance to our government’s handling of the war grew. By March 31, 1968, the opposition was so great that President Johnson announced he would not run for re-election that fall.[4] While President Biden does not appear to be considering withdrawing his candidacy in this year’s election, the protests on college campuses and beyond have increased, though not to the extent of the Vietnam-era demonstrations; at least, not yet.[5]

The Democrats will hold their National Convention in Chicago this coming August. Ironically, that’s the same city where the Democrats gathered in 1968 to nominate their presidential candidate, and it didn’t go well. Anti-war protesters clashed with the police on national television reminding the voters of the Dems’ responsibility for the quagmire in Vietnam.[6] The Democrats ended up losing the election to Richard Nixon. We could very well see a repeat of that tragic scenario later this year if Biden fails to take decisive action soon to stop the slaughter in Gaza.

Despite the growing protests, as well as the increasing death toll in Gaza, Biden just signed a bill providing another $26 billion for Israel’s war effort. Included in that Israeli figure is over $9 billion in humanitarian aid to Gaza.[7]

At the same time, 55% of Americans now disapprove of Israel’s military actions and only 27% approve of Biden’s handling of the Middle East conflict, according to a March Gallup poll.[8]

While the war is not one of the top concerns of the electorate, in a close election as this year’s is likely to be, Biden could lose critical swing states due to his continued support for Israel’s military aggression. Given this distinct possibility, it’s puzzling that Biden hasn’t done more to stop the slaughter of thousands of innocent Gazans, mostly women and children, and the destruction of their homeland.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently offered this path forward for Biden: stop sending Israel offensive weapons. Kristof noted, “…that would get the attention of the Israel Defense Forces very quickly.” He argued for suspending “the transfer of offensive arms to Israel, pending food actually being delivered to Gaza to end this starvation, and some indication of dialing back the more reckless side of the bombing in Gaza and then push immediately for some kind of a cease-fire and hostage release and, likewise, then try to use that for some kind of an arrangement for a Palestinian state.”[9]

Kristof explained that Biden was right to call out Hamas’s October 7^th attack on Israel as “barbaric and intolerable. But if you only care about human rights for one side in a conflict, then you don’t actually care about human rights. And if you regard the deaths of children on one side of a conflict as a tragedy, as unacceptable, but deaths of children on the other side of the conflict as regrettable, then there is something profoundly wrong not just with your geopolitics but with your moral compass.”[10] While it remains to be seen whether Biden actually gets that, we can only hope that he changes course soon before it’s too late.

However, there is something you can do here at home to try to advance peace between Israel and the Palestinians. At 11:15 a.m. on May 12, a live-streamed Joint Memorial Ceremony will be viewed at the Jean Cocteau Theater in Santa Fe as part of an international event in support of efforts to end the violence and bring freedom and justice to all in the Middle East. I hope to see you there. For more information about the Memorial, go to https://www.afcf.org/2024-joint-memorial-day-ceremony.

Bruce Berlin

A retired, public sector ethics attorney, Berlin is the author of Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America (See breakingbigmoneysgrip.com.), the founder of New Mexicans for Money Out of Politics, a former U.S. Institute of Peace fellow, and the founder and former executive director of The Trinity Forum for International Security and Conflict Resolution. He can be reached at breakingbigmoneysgrip@gmail.com. Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/

[1] https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/massive-anti-war-demonstrations/

[2] https://archive.nytimes.com/learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/nov-15-1969-anti-vietnam-war-demonstration-held/#:~:text=all%20Historic%20Headlines%20%C2%BB-,On%20Nov.,and%20towns%20across%20the%20country.

[3] https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics#:~:text=April%2029%2C%202008.-,The%20Vietnam%20Conflict%20Extract%20Data%20File%20of%20the%20Defense%20Casualty,casualties%20of%20the%20Vietnam%20War.

[4] https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/lyndon-b-johnsons-decision-not-to-run-in-1968

[5] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pro-palestinian-seders-planned-new-york-other-cities-college-campuses-simmer-2024-04-23/; https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-mounting-antiwar-protests-on-college-campuses/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=wp_post_reports

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Democratic_National_Convention_protests

[7] https://apnews.com/article/congress-ukraine-israel-pacific-glance-0af96be97c47496f88506a21ebe1ddab#:~:text=%E2%80%94%20About%20%2426%20billion%20for%20supporting,amid%20the%20Israel%2DHamas%20war.

[8] https://news.gallup.com/poll/642695/majority-disapprove-israeli-action-gaza.aspx

[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/opinion/biden-morality-gaza-israel.html?action=click&module=audio-series-bar&region=header&pgtype=Article

[10] Ibid.

The Struggle for the Soul of America: We’re in for a Wild Election Year!

Posted on January 30, 2024 by Author: Bruce Berlin

There’s never been anything like the 2024 election year. Every other day I hear a different scenario of how the presidential election could be radically changed.

First, Biden and Trump are the two oldest candidates to ever run for president of our country. One or both of them could die or become incapacitated before election day. Neither looks like they’re in great shape.

Second, the courts could find Trump ineligible to run under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment and knock him out of the race. Section 3 bars anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the country from holding federal office.[1]

The Colorado Supreme Court has already held Trump ineligible to be on its primary ballot based on Section 3.[2] The former president immediately appealed its decision to the U.S. Supreme Court which will hear oral arguments very soon on February 8^th. Prominent conservative legal scholars who are members of the Federalist Society, an influential conservative advocacy group, agreed that the Court could disqualify Trump under the Fourteenth Amendment. They wrote that Section 3 is “self-executing, operating as an immediate disqualification from office, without the need for additional action by Congress.” They then concluded that Trump could be rendered ineligible for election.[3]

From a liberal perspective, Bruce Ackerman, Yale Professor of Law and Political Science, offered a different angle in reaching a similar conclusion. He contends that “originalism,” that is, the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment as it was intended at its origin, requires Trump’s exclusion from the race for president.

Ackerman argues that the Colorado court “found that Trump’s support of the Proud Boys, which played a key role in the Jan. 6 riot, represented a paradigm case of “insurrection” as it was originally understood at the time the amendment was enacted.” And, that understanding is supported by “leading originalist scholars and jurists.”[4]

Additionally, Trump’s three appointments to the Supreme Court, “Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett,…proudly proclaim(ed) their adherence to “originalism” at their Senate confirmation hearings.” Ackerman notes it was also their “basis for repudiating Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to an abortion in Dobbs.”[5]

In effect, these three justices are trapped by their own doctrines. How could they use originalism to deny women the right to an abortion and not apply it to deny Trump the right to run for president? Ackerman believes that “if the three Trump appointees stick to their originalist principles and vote to disqualify him from office, the justices would actually strengthen American democracy and might help ease the country’s sharp divides — while also bolstering a beleaguered Supreme Court.”[6]

Whatever the Court decides will apply to all fifty states, not just Colorado. Given the Colorado presidential primary, along with those in 15 other states and territories, is March 5^th, just five weeks away, the Court should decide pretty quickly. A decision to throw Trump off the ballot would drastically change the election and might even result in widespread protest and violence. That last factor could play a role in the Court’s decision as well.

This is just one of several wild cards in this year’s election. I will explore others in the coming weeks and months.

Bruce Berlin

Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/. Join the movement to revive our democracy. Together we can save the soul of America.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66690276

[2] https://apnews.com/article/trump-insurrection-14th-amendment-2024-colorado-d16dd8f354eeaf450558378c65fd79a2

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66690276

[4] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/25/supreme-court-originalism-trump-ballot-eligibility-00137666

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

The Struggle for the Soul of America: Are You Really Going to Sit on Your Couch and Let Trump Destroy Our Democracy?

Posted on January 4, 2024 by Author: Bruce Berlin

Without a doubt, 2024 promises to be one of the most challenging years in American history as the very survival of our democracy is at stake. The question each of us must ask ourselves is what am I willing to do now to save American democracy?

Donald Trump has clearly stated his authoritarian leanings. His autocratic positions mandate that he must be stopped from regaining the White House or it’s curtains for our democracy. For example:

He intends to be a dictator on day one if he is elected.[1]
He expects to use the federal government to punish critics and imprison opponents should he win a second term.[2]
He plans to create a federal workforce that can be fired by the president at will and must follow his personal whims;[3] and
He wants to pardon people convicted of federal crimes for their involvement in the January 6^th assault on the U.S. Capitol.[4]

Defeating Trump and his autocratic agenda is critical. We cannot wait for Biden and the Democrats to take action. Nor can we count on the courts to find Trump guilty of undermining our democracy. Given Trump’s delaying tactics and the slow-moving legal process, there is at least a fair chance that the courts will not finally settle the ex-president’s legal culpability before November’s election.

It is up to us, the people who still believe in the Constitution, to step up and make sure that voters understand that the survival of our democracy is the central question in this year’s elections.

Will Bunch, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, put it this way:

My hope for 2024 is that the silent majority of Americans who still believe in freedom will stop wallowing in despair and waiting for the worst. Instead, these voters should rise up from their couches, get organized, and start taking action to save democracy now, and not 10 months and one week from now when it will be too late.

There needs to be an active, pro-democracy movement in the United States that is bigger, more visible, and more determined than the MAGA movement that seeks to destroy it. They should be organizing right now, crafting new messages, posting on TikTok, making themselves known, knocking on doors, registering every voter, and talking to—and listening to—millions of disillusioned young people.

We can enter a new year with high hopes, and not existential dread, but we have to remember that hopes only come true through action.[5]

Now is the time for all of us to take action. Write letters to the editor, register voters, connect with disillusioned youth, campaign door-to-door, attend town halls, primary debates, and political rallies, and talk with friends and neighbors.

We must make democracy the issue. If we don’t stop Trump, our voices and our votes will be crushed, and America will be changed forever. We must organize and act now before it’s too late.

Bruce Berlin

Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/. Join the movement to revive our democracy. Together we can save the soul of America.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/trump-says-hell-be-a-dictator-on-day-one/676247/

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/05/trump-revenge-second-term/

[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/donald-trump-15-most-dangerous-statements/675970/

[4] Ibid.

[5] https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/save-democracy-in-2024