John Funiciello

The Palestinians have been living in refugee camps, living in other countries, and in what has been described as the biggest open-air prison in the world, the Gaza Strip. Often, on this day, you may read the words of Frederick Douglass about the condition of black Americans, slave or free, in the ‘land of the free.’ His words could stand today for those who remain unfree, at home and around the world.

For most Israelis and for most Americans, their lives are little touched by either the punishment of Israel ‘mowing the grass’ of Palestinians or the Trump punishment of defenseless children to try to keep their parents from ever coming to this country to seek asylum. It has not worked, but it has traumatized thousands of children who have been yanked from their parents.

Trump loves dictators, as he has shown with his cozying up to the murderous Saudis, with Duterte of the Philippines, with Kim of North Korea, and many others. He loves their power and wishes he had it. He does not have it, though, and that's a good thing. If power needs to be tempered by truth and justice, those two elements of a civilized society will never be found in the vicinity of Donald Trump.

Southern Momentum, like other shills of big business usually claim to be the “underdog” in a struggle like VW in Chattanooga, but all of the money and power are on their side and they are most willing to use money, threats, propaganda, and donuts to bring the workers to their side.

While Trump has moved to curtail the entrance of any people of color into the U.S. (his ban on people from Muslim-majority countries is an example of this), it's very difficult to block them all, even if he were to construct his racist wall from the Pacific coast to the Gulf of Mexico.

As populations of rich countries, capitalist countries, grow and their land is played out for the production of food, both governments and their global corporations are roaming the world and grabbing land and resources at an ever-increasing pace.

Who perpetrated this war on workers? There's long list, but mostly it has been the rich, Corporate America, right-wing think tanks, newspapers, television programming and commercials, whole fields of academic studies that purport to be scholarly.

In the case of his tariffs and his trade wars, he is doing damage to the nation and not just to those who have mistakenly chosen to associate themselves with him. He has shown himself to be a personal tragedy, but what he has brought about as “leader of the free world” is a national tragedy and, in turn, a global economic tragedy.

Their strikes are most often about the care they can provide and the teaching attention they can give to each student. That should tell the American people about the state of the caring professions,