Dimensionally Barrett

“No Other Land” director Hamdan Ballal.   Photo by Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty Images The Jewish journal The Forward has a follow-up story on co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land Hamdan Ballal’s abduction. As the report points out, the only exceptional detail is that the abductee in question has an Academy Award. Otherwise, this is not unusual. That said, I want to share this article because it highlights the daily reality that Palestinians live with in the West Bank, particularly in areas like Masafer Yatta. It also highlights the work of Israeli volunteers who attempt to act as buffers to the violence brought by the settlers, the Israeli Defense Force, and the police. The volunteers come from all around the world to work with the  Center for Jewish Nonviolence. The risk is great since, as in the night when Ballal was arrested, Jewish settlers attacked Jewish volunteers. As I read this article, I couldn’t shake, and still cannot dismiss the sense of madne...

Rereading “On Tyranny” served to reinforce how important context is in our current moment. We are faced with a fascist-oligarchy hybrid government/assault on the citizens of this country and by extension, the world. Today, a Russian medical researcher at Harvard was detained by ICE for not declaring biological samples she had been requested to bring; instead of treating this as the minor offense it is, she is now detained in Louisiana after having landed in Boston. Additionally, USAID terminated almost all the remaining employees. There will likely by more disappearances and it feels likely that the rule of law will be suspended and martial law imposed as protests grow in number and numbers.  All of this helps underscore why “On Tyranny” and other tomes like Paine’s “Common Sense” and Havel’s “The Power and the Powerless” are important to read and share. Any political action should be supported with an understanding of historical context and precedent.  There are a couple of r...

  “If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, all of us will die under tyranny.” Snyder frames this last chapter as an epilogue, “history and Liberty.” He leads off with Hamlet as an example of “a virtuous man who is rightly shocked by the abrupt rise of an evil ruler.” It’s worth letting that sink in for a while. Throughout this short text, the author has presented the case for the past as prologue but also the understanding that nothing is inevitable. This book is a guide to navigating worst-case scenarios and I feel it is all the more valuable for that.  I genuinely do feel the darkest is yet to come. I believe Social security will cease to function in a matter of months, if not weeks. The economy is tanking but it’s in a slow-motion freewill. Nothing is going to happen linearly. There’s too much chaos at work for that to be the case. However, it is also the case that there is a tremendous amount of dysfunction behind the scenes. The recent Signal leak is a glaring examp...

Candidate for Chair of the Texas Democratic Party Lillian "Lillie" Schecter Source: lillieforchair.com To say that Texas is full of strong women is a gross understatement. Barbara Jordon, Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, my mother, the list could go on. In Houston, we’ve had Kathy Whitmire and Annalise Parker, both remarkable mayors and groundbreakers. We lost a great woman when Sheila  Jackson  Lee passed and currently we have Judge Lina Hidalgo, Harris County Commissioner Leslie Briones , Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher , and Lillian "Lillie" Schecter , who spoke yesterday at the monthly ROADwoman meeting.  A longtime and incredibly successful political fundraiser and strategist, she has worked on campaigns at all levels of government up to the national, on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. As chairwoman, she raised five million dollars for the Harris Country Democratic Party (HCDP), more than the state Democratic Party. She knows the machine, she know fundraising, and s...

“Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.” Snyder begins the chapter with what patriotism is not. It is an extensive list and much of it feels specific to a figure with whom all are familiar. For example, It is not patriotic to: Dodge the draft and mock war heroes Ask working families to finance one’s own presidential campaign, and then spend their contributions on one’s own companies To admire foreign dictators To say that Bashar al-Assaad and Vlaadimir. Putin are superior leaders To call up on foreign leaders to intervene in American presidential elections To share an adviser with Russian oligarchs To appoint a National Security Advisor who likes to be called “General Misha” and then pardon him for his crimes To refer to American soldiers as “losers” and “suckers” To take heather care form families  To golf your way through a national epidemic in which half a million Americans die To try to end democracy There is more, but this give...