Thanksgiving: Uniting for Peace Globally and Nationally
The UN's Uniting for Peace still offers possibilities internationally. VotePact could be a path out of the deranged duopoly — to a meaningful realignment of politics.
I’ve long felt there are two seriously under-examined paths to profound progress:
A good globalism based on care for humanity and the world
A realignment in the US so that people break out of the confines of the establishment duopoly
Below are videos on each of these.
I write the day before Thanksgiving. I think this day is a serious threat to the establishment. It’s a time when people come together, families, friends sometimes neighbors in a unique space. The US is a highly atomized society and the establishment likes it that way. Thanksgiving could be a threat to that — people from different backgrounds could find common cause against the genocidal moves of the US and Israeli Empire.
I think it’s no coincidence that the US announced so-called ceasefires at Thanksgiving 2023 in Gaza and Thanksgiving 2024 in Lebanon. See my piece: “Are Ceasefires at Thanksgiving an Attempt to Manage the Public Mind?”
The phony ceasefire Biden announced in late May 2024 was timed to derail the ICJ orders, so international law was the target there. The temporary ceasefire of January 2025 was announced to get Gaza out of the news and make Trump’s antics the media narrative.
The current phony “ceasefire” combines elements of all these. It derailed Petro’s belated move for international law using Uniting for Peace in September, shifted the media cycle and also aims to keep Gaza unmentioned at millions of Thanksgiving Day tables. Honest conversations would lead to a scrutiny about US-as-Empire now and lead to resolution about its imperial history, as signified by the history of the day, as well.
There is a long-overdue realignment of the US political spectrum. This is clear in a number of ways as I examined last year in “The Need for a Radical Center Party” — but the lynchpin now is saying “No” to Israel. We see these tendencies causing fracturing in both the Democratic and Republican parties and that should accelerate and result in people forming VotePact pairings to break out of the duopoly. I recently addressed this at a lovely event “A Time to Break Silence” — here’s an excerpt:
And earlier today, I spoke to the South African Salaamedia about developments, impediments and prospects around Uniting for Peace at the UN with the renowned human rights advocate from Gaza Raji Surani (for a bit) and the insightful host Inayet Wadee:
Many thanks to Kelley Lane.
The second video won't play unfortunately. But I finally understand the he Votepact idea, which I didn't before. How can this idea be spread and really gain traction?