Chris Hedges's Blog, page 483

From Venezuela to McCain, Big Media and Human Rights Industry in Lockstep

On August 20, the Economist ran an article on Venezuela saying that “forced migration from the country might surpass the Syria crisis.” The magazine reported:

The UN’s International Organization for Migration estimates that at the end of 2017 approximately 1.6 million Venezuelans were living outside their country. Today that number is likely to be far higher: as of June 2018 there were nearly 1 million Venezuelan migrants in Colombia alone. The UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, has recorded 135,000 asylum applications from Venezuelans during the first seven months of 2018, already 20 percent more than for the whole of 2017. The total number of displaced Venezuelans may already have reached 4 million, out of a population of some 30 million. The outflow could eventually surpass the 6 million people who have fled the Syrian civil war.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration estimates that, by July of 2018, 2.3 million Venezuelans were living abroad (which includes hundreds of thousands who have spent decades abroad).  Why does the Economist say it “may already” be 4 million? A good guess is that they are relying on the estimates of Tomas Paez, a vehemently anti-government Venezuelan academic who has long been a favorite source for corporate journalists (FAIR.org, 2/18/18). Paez has estimated that 1.6 million people left Venezuela from 1999–2015, about five times more than UN Population Division estimates for that period.

The Economist‘s claim (8/20/18) that migration from Venezuela “might surpass the Syrian crisis” is off by a factor of seven.

No doubt as Venezuela’s economy entered what could fairly be called a “collapse” starting in 2015, migration began to skyrocket, and it is indeed likely to get worse, thanks to illegal economic sanctions that Trump enacted in August 2017.

What about the Economist‘s Syria comparison? First of all, Syria’s civil war has not just created a massive “outflow” of refugees. It also created an enormous population of internally displaced people, as wars typically do. As of 2017, Syria had 6 million people forcibly displaced within its borders. Another 5 million refugees were still living in three bordering countries (Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey). That brings the total of those forcibly displaced by Syria’s civil war to nearly 11 million—almost seven times larger than the most credible estimate of the numbers displaced (so far) by Venezuela’s economic crisis.

Syria had a population of about 21 million in 2011 when the civil war began. It has now been estimated to be about 18 million. So more than half of Syria’s 2011 population are now refugees, either internally or externally—a far cry from the 13 percent of the Venezuelan population claimed by Paez (and hinted at by the Economist), or the 5 percent (1.6 million) estimated by the UN’s International Organization for Migration to have left since 2015.

In absolute terms, Colombia’s population of internally displaced is even larger than Syria’s. As of March 2018, the UNHCR estimated it at 7.7 million out of total population of about 50 million, or more than one in seven. Of course, relative to population, Syria’s internally displaced population is vastly larger than Colombia’s. Still, 7.7 million internally displaced is a hell of a disaster to sweep under the rug, but those are the benefits of being a government in the good graces of the US and its allies.

The Economist doesn’t mention that US policy (backed by the entire Western establishment) is to use harsh and illegal economic sanctions to deliberately make Venezuela’s economic crisis worse, which will help drive more people to leave the country. US economist Mark Weisbrot, who was recently given a very rare bit of space to state this fact, noted afterwards that

Brian Ellsworth, a journalist for Reuters who reports from Venezuela, has joined the latest avalanche of trolls, bots and blowhards who swarmed me because I dared to mention on BBC World TV, on Friday night, that Trump’s financial embargo against Venezuela makes it more difficult for any government to stabilize the economy—a fact that no economist would dispute. Indeed, that is the purpose of the embargo.

The Western establishment includes prominent human rights groups, who often express the same imperial perspective one finds in the Economist.  By citing these outfits, corporate media seem to provide critical assessments that are independent of Western officialdom. Don’t buy it. Amnesty International has refused to oppose US economic sanctions on Venezuela, and has also refused to denounce flagrant efforts by US officials to incite a military coup. Amnesty’s Americas director Erika Guevara-Rosas tweeted the dubious Economist article comparing Venezuela to Syria.

Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth (Twitter, 8/26/18) praised John McCain’s not-so-principled stance on torture.

Guevara-Rosas also tweeted out an article praising John McCain. McCain’s death has been a real “teachable moment,” showing how tiny the ideological differences are between corporate media and the human rights industry. Four different Human Rights Watch (HRW) officials used their Twitter accounts to spread praise for McCain. In 2011, McCain tried to have Venezuela placed on the US “sponsors of terrorism” list—not scary at all, coming from a man who joked about bombing Iran. McCain dutifully echoed the Venezuelan opposition’s line (also the Western media line, and HRW’s line) that the country is a “dictatorship.”

Ken Roth (HRW’s executive director) said McCain “will be remembered for his firm, principled opposition to torture, especially by Bush, a member of his own party.” Jose Miguel Vivanco said McCain was “a giant in North America politics and an ally in the defense of human rights.” Sarah Margon, HRW’s Washington director, said that McCain’s death “feels exceptionally tough for those of us who have fought for human decency and basic rights alongside and with him.” Dinah PoKempner, HRW’s general counsel, spread an article that called McCain a “war hero.”

HRW followed up with an official statement saying McCain “was for decades a compassionate voice for US foreign and national security policy.”

And, of course, the Economist’s obituary (8/30/18) similarly laid the praise on thick, casting McCain as part of a heroic Republican “resistance” to Donald Trump: “The talk was never straighter, the stance never more upright, than when he called on his fellow Republicans not just to endure, but to resist.” McCain voted with Trump 83 percent of the time, according to the FiveThirtyEight website.

The victims of empire are never more invisible than when it is time to whitewash a departed warmonger. McCain’s “war hero” credibility stems from being a direct perpetrator of, and not simply a cheerleader for, the mass slaughter in Vietnam that took the lives of millions of people—or “gooks,” as McCain unapologetically preferred to call them. It is left to independent voices like Max Blumenthal (Consortium News, 8/27/18), to review McCain’s bloodthirsty record:

McCain did not simply thunder for every major intervention of the post-Cold War era from the Senate floor, while pushing for sanctions and assorted campaigns of subterfuge on the side. He was uniquely ruthless when it came to advancing imperial goals, barnstorming from one conflict zone to another to personally recruit far-right fanatics as American proxies.

In Libya and Syria, he cultivated affiliates of Al Qaeda as allies, and in Ukraine, McCain courted actual, sig-heiling neo-Nazis.

While McCain’s Senate office functioned as a clubhouse for arms industry lobbyists and neocon operatives, his fascistic allies waged a campaign of human devastation that will continue until long after the flowers dry up on his grave.

Unless there is radical change—real “resistance”—that transforms the organizations that people rely on to be ”informed” (media and NGOs included), Donald Trump, like Nixon, Reagan and George W. Bush, will eventually be whitewashed as well.

Corporations Are Waging All-Out Class War

America’s political history has been written in the fierce narrative of war. Not our country’s many military clashes with foreign nations, but our own unending war for democracy in the United States.

Generation after generation of moneyed elites have persisted in trying to take wealth and power from the workaday majority and concentrate both in their own hands to establish a de facto American aristocracy. Every time, the people have rebelled in organized mass struggles against the monopolists and financial royalists, often literally battling for a little more economic fairness, social justice, and equal opportunity.

And now, the time of a new democratic rebellion is upon us again, for We the People are suddenly in the grip of a brutish level of monopolistic power.

Corporate concentration of markets, profits, workplace decision-making, political influence, and our nation’s total wealth is surpassing that of the infamous era of robber barons. Apple, which just became the first U.S. corporation to reach a stock value of $1 trillion, is now larger than Bank of America, Boeing, Disney, Ford, Volkswagen, and 20 other brand-name giants combined.

In fact, just four tech superpowers raked in half of this year’s stock price gains by the 500 largest corporations. Indeed, the recent gold rush of corporate mergers has created mega-firms, shriveling competition in most industries — including airlines, banks, drug companies, food, hospitals, hotels, law firms, media, oil, etc.

The result of fewer and bigger corporations is that those few attain overwhelming power over the rest of us. They are able to control workers’ pay, crush unions, jack up prices, squeeze out smaller businesses, dominate elections, weaken environmental projections, and generally become even fewer, bigger, and more powerful.

They’re waging all out corporate class war on the American people and on our democratic ideals — and they’re winning.

China’s Maneuver in Oil Market Defies Trump’s Boycott of Iran

China’s new futures market in Shanghai is trading in the Chinese currency, the yuan, rather than dollars. One reason for dumping the dollar in this regard is that the Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Asset Control is trying to stop countries from buying Iranian petroleum. The Dept of Treasury, however, only has control of dollar transactions or those that go through U.S. banks. China can buy Iranian crude till the cows come home if it buys them in yuan.

There are three major benchmark crude markets in the world. You have your West Texas Crude, you have your Brent exchange in London for North Sea petroleum, and you have Dubai. Each is of a different quality. The easiest to refine is light sweet crude, which has little sulfur or other admixtures. Refineries are built for specific blends, since they need to be able to take a lot of sulfur and other materials out of the oil, or not. The existing crude futures markets do not differ from one another greatly in the price of a barrel (there is usually no more than a ten dollar difference per barrel). The oil market is one global exchange.

China imports a lot of Middle Eastern oil, which is medium to sour (sour means it has a lot of sulfur and minerals and needs heavy duty refining to turn it into gasoline). So the Shanghai benchmark will be heavier than London, where the North Sea oil is closer to light sweet crude.

Reuters speculates that thwarting US sanctions on third parties that buy Iranian crude, due to kick in November 1, is one reason for the establishment of the Shanghai exchange. Since it functions in yuan, not dollars, the US Dept of Treasury has no say over it. If Chinese banks are used to transfer the yuan payments, Treasury cannot do anything to the companies involved.

When President Obama put in severe sanctions on Iran from 2012 forward, I thought to myself that the Chinese are not going to put up with this in the long term. They will simply trade oil futures in their own currency, even though the yuan is a “soft” currency so that there is little purchasing of it by outsiders. For China to buy Iranian oil in yuan just means that Iran is locked into using its Chinese foreign exchange reserves to purchase goods from China. Dollars as a hard currency are more flexible and could be used to buy or sell anything from anyone.

There have been a lot of conspiracy theories that the US government will go to war to prevent erosion of the dollar as the world reserve currency, especially against any moves to buy oil in a currency other than dollars. It has been alleged that this consideration was one reason for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Investors I’ve talked to dispute this theory, pointing out that traders routinely denominate oil sales in other currencies than the dollar if they are more favorable pricewise.

But now China really is establishing an alternative to the dollar-denominated barrel of crude, so we’ll see what sort of conflict with Washington, D. C., it will provoke.

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Bonus video:

CGTN: “China to enhance cooperation with Iran in BRI framework: Official”

California Passes Nation’s Strongest Net Neutrality Bill

In a major victory for the open internet that could have ripple effects throughout the United States, the California Senate on Friday thwarted aggressive lobbying by the telecom industry and passed the strongest, most comprehensive net neutrality bill in the nation.

“The passage of SB 822 in California has huge implications for our fight to restore neutrality nationwide,” declared the advocacy group Fight for the Future (FFTF) following Friday’s vote. “We also need to harness the momentum from this huge victory to put pressure on our elected officials in Congress.”

“Finally,” FFTF added, “y’all should be really proud of yourselves. Giant telcos like AT&T and Comcast spent enormous amounts of money lobbying to kill SB 822. They almost succeeded more than once, but we fought back. We drove phone calls, tweets, crowdfunded billboards, attended meetings.”

And it worked! Passing this bill in California is a massive victory for the whole Internet, and it was no easy task. We’re already planning campaigns to get legislation like this passed in other states, and get the FCC order reversed.

Chip in here: https://t.co/DgBZfkiDxE pic.twitter.com/9OtQw9rPHc

— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) August 31, 2018

Having cleared both houses of California’s legislature, SB 822 will now head to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk for a signature.

Brown, who has 30 days to sign the measure, is already facing pressure from the telecom industry to veto the bill, so open internet advocates are warning Californians to remain vigilant and keep up the pressure.

If SB 822 is ultimately signed into law, it would restore the net neutrality protections repealed by the Republican-controlled FCC last December and implement even stronger rules by establishing “an outright ban on zero-rating—the practice of offering free data, potentially to the advantage of some companies over others—of specific apps.”

WE DID IT! The most comprehensive #NetNeutrality bill in the nation is on @JerryBrownGov‘s desk. If you believe #BlackLivesMatter and #NoBanNoWall, we MUST push this through!

Read our statement on the state of #SB822: https://t.co/sw0y0DhTVA

— Center for Media Justice (@mediajustice) August 31, 2018

“We did it,” Democratic state Senator Scott Wiener, the primary author of SB 822, said in a statement. “We passed the strongest net neutrality standards in the nation. The internet is at the heart of 21st century life—our economy, our public safety and health systems, and our democracy. So when Donald Trump’s FCC decided to take a wrecking ball to net neutrality protections, we knew that California had to step in to ensure our residents have access to a free and open internet.”

As the fight for strong net neutrality protections gains steam at the state level, open internet advocates are hoping the resulting energy and momentum will translate into action in Congress, where the House is working to assemble enough votes to pass a Congressional Review Act resolution to undo the FCC’s deeply unpopular repeal.

Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, argued that lawmakers who don’t support net neutrality will feel the wrath of voters in the upcoming midterm elections and beyond.

“Internet users are still royally pissed off about the FCC’s repeal,” Greer said in a statement following Friday’s vote. “They’re still paying attention. And they’re not going to let their elected officials get away with it if they sell out their constituents by siding with big telecom companies.”

Vicious Feud Seemingly Forgotten, Trump to Campaign for Cruz

AUSTIN, Texas — President Donald Trump says he’ll ride to the rescue of one-time bitter rival Sen. Ted Cruz this fall, the strongest indication yet that the Texas conservative firebrand is getting nervous about his challenger, a liberal darling with a growing national profile.

Trump tweeted Friday that he will headline “a major rally” for Cruz in October and is “picking the biggest stadium in Texas we can find.” He added, “Ted has my complete and total Endorsement (sic),” and called Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke “a disaster for Texas – weak on Second Amendment, Crime, Borders, Military, and Vets!”

The tweet of support was a long way from Trump’s previous assessment of Cruz’ record. He once declared the senator “has accomplished absolutely nothing” for Texans. Cruz has labeled Trump “a sniveling coward.” But the promise of presidential assistance suggested Cruz — and his party — are feeling the heat. Trump has long planned to travel to bolster Republican candidates before November’s midterm elections, but he was not expected to spend valuable time in reliably-red Texas for a race that for months looked like a Cruz cakewalk.

“Either Ted Cruz is in trouble or it’s a remarkable waste of the president’s resources,” said Republican strategist Rick Tyler, who worked for Cruz’s presidential campaign.

The Texas Senate seat, Tyler noted, was supposed to be the GOP’s “safest seat this cycle.”

Trump’s announcement was also likely to further intensify the hype around O’Rourke, who has consistently outraised Cruz and has rocketed to national stardom in recent weeks. Video of O’Rourke, who is giving up his El Paso House seat to run, defending NFL players’ right to protest the national anthem has been viewed by millions and was praised by NBA star LeBron James.

National magazines have speculated that O’Rourke could be a vice presidential pick in 2020, or perhaps run for the White House — even if he doesn’t pull off the upset in Texas, which hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994, the nation’s longest political losing streak.

Yet Cruz’s race appears to be far tighter than the state’s history would suggest.

Those close to Cruz’s campaign report that internal polling shows O’Rourke trailing by just 5 or 6 percentage points, which is in line with recent public polls.

Republicans across Texas and Washington have become most concerned with the Democrat’s prolific fundraising. Cruz has raised more money than any other Republican Senate candidate this cycle so far. And O’Rourke, who reported having raised nearly $24 million through June, could ultimately double Cruz’s fundraising, despite shunning support of outside political groups.

Cruz has repeatedly attacked his opponent, doing everything from referring to him by his full name, Robert, to criticizing O’Rourke for voting against a bill offering tax breaks for Harvey victims. So far, little has slowed O’Rourke’s rise.

A super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday it was prepared to help if necessary. That’s despite Cruz’s charge, two years ago, that McConnell was a “liar.”

“We’ll be there for Ted Cruz if he needs us. We’re team players,” said Chris Pack of the McConnell-backed Senate Leadership Fund.

Trump’s announcement followed a series of private discussions between the White House and the Cruz campaign about how the Republican president, who handily won Texas in 2016, could be most helpful, according to Republicans with direct knowledge of the discussions but who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

But even in the red state, a Trump visit carries some political risks, particularly in areas with higher concentrations of suburban and minority voters.

Republicans expect Trump to be able to fill a sports stadium, as he suggested on Twitter, although there is some concern that an appearance at a place like Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington, which is set between Dallas and Fort Worth, could do more harm than good by energizing O’Rourke’s supporters.

Other locations would be more welcome, including Texas A&M’s stadium in College Station, which holds more than 100,000 or Texas Tech’s in Lubbock which holds roughly 60,000.

A Cruz spokeswoman did not return messages about discussions on scheduling or location for a joint rally with Trump.

Cruz said in recent weeks that he wouldn’t be surprised if Trump came to Texas to campaign. But unlike many other Republicans, he hasn’t directly appealed for a presidential visit. Asked after a recent rally whether he would need Trump’s help, Cruz dodged.

“What we need to win in November is for Texans to show up and vote,” he said. “This election is about turnout.”

A Trump visit could be the latest in an awkward dance with Cruz that has made the pair one of politics’ leading odd couples.

Cruz spent the early months of the 2016 presidential race praising Trump, betting that the reality TV star’s supporters would flock to him if their candidate’s meteoric rise flamed out. They later clashed bitterly as Cruz finished second for the GOP nomination, with Trump making fun of Cruz’s wife’s appearance and suggesting that his Cuban-born father had a hand in John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Trump also savaged Cruz on Twitter: “Why would the people of Texas support Ted Cruz when he has accomplished absolutely nothing for them?”

Cruz responded by calling Trump “a sniveling coward,” ”a pathological liar,” and “a serial philanderer.” He refused to endorse him during the 2016 Republican National Convention, only to suddenly announce his support barely a month before Election Day 2016.

The relationship has improved since, although resentment lingers among many die-hard Trump supporters.

It’s not yet clear whether Trump’s kind words on Twitter, and the would-be rally, can heal those wounds.

American History for Truthdiggers: A Broken Union (1851-1861)

Editor’s note: The past is prologue. The stories we tell about ourselves and our forebears inform the sort of country we think we are and help determine public policy. As our current president promises to “make America great again,” this moment is an appropriate time to reconsider our past, look back at various eras of United States history and re-evaluate America’s origins. When, exactly, were we “great”?

Below is the 16th installment of the “American History for Truthdiggers” series, a pull-no-punches appraisal of our shared, if flawed, past. The author of the series, Danny Sjursen, an active-duty major in the U.S. Army, served military tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and taught the nation’s checkered, often inspiring past when he was an assistant professor of history at West Point. His war experiences, his scholarship, his skill as a writer and his patriotism illuminate these Truthdig posts.

Part 16 of “American History for Truthdiggers.”

See: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10; Part 11; Part 12; Part 13; Part 14; Part 15.

* * *

“Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators … mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation.” —Sen. William Seward of New York (1858)

“It is difficult to achieve a full realization of how Lincoln’s generation stumbled into a ghastly war. … To suppose that the Union could not have been continued or slavery outmoded without the war … is hardly an enlightened assumption. If one questions the term ‘blundering generation,’ let him inquire how many measures of the time he would wish copied or repeated if the period were to be approached with a clean slate and to be lived again.”—Historian J.G. Randall (1940)

The debate may never end. Was the coming of the American Civil War the result of some irrepressible conflict between North and South, or the result of a blundering generation of politicians? In other words, was the Civil War inevitable, or could it have been avoided? This historian, trained to eschew absolutes such an “inevitability,” still understands the pull of an “irrepressible conflict” argument. After all, slavery and its expansion had dominated much political debate ever since the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Furthermore, it is hard to imagine the United States remaining half slave and half free indefinitely. Then again, an intersectional two-party system had prevailed for decades and avoided war through compromise after compromise. Besides, truth be told, few Northern whites were actual humanitarians; abolitionists remained but a fringe movement, and most whites above the Mason-Dixon Line were themselves highly racist and unconcerned with black rights. Seen in this light, perhaps war wasn’t preordained.

The only certainty is this: Millions of human decisions—contingent, contextual actions—led this nation into a near suicidal civil war, the largest conflict ever fought in this hemisphere before or since. Americans’ penchant for conspiratorial thinking, concern for their own rights and liberties, and capacity for political tribalism (sound familiar?) made such a bloody conflict possible. Slavery was, undoubtedly, the proximate cause of the divide—the core issue at hand. Nonetheless, it was never so simple as an argument over the ethics or morality of the institution of slavery. The inconvenient truth is that the vast majority of whites—North or South—couldn’t give a hoot about black civil rights in the 1850s. Outright abolitionists were often considered wacky extremists, out on the fringes of American politics. The issues at hand, though they centered on questions of slavery in one way or another, were often about power. Which way of life and labor would triumph in the West? Would slavery expand or slowly wither and die in the contained space of the Old South? Who would dominate the Congress—Northern or Southern, free or slaveholding representatives?

Slavery, indeed, must be understood as America’s “original sin,” a ticking time bomb sneaked into our Constitution for future generations to defuse. And, for many decades, nearly a century, in fact, political leaders succeeded in delaying the explosion through combinations of compromise and collective avoidance. If the fuse hadn’t been finally lit in the 1850s, perhaps it would have a decade or two later; we cannot be sure. What seems apparent, though, is that after the massive conquests by the United States in the Mexican-American War, increasingly bellicose Southern leaders—out of fear of loss of their plantation way of life—pushed too far, too fast, and collapsed the existing two-party system. Then, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, a new Republican Party would form in opposition to the further expansion of slavery. For Southerners this was too much, and they made clear their intention to secede should a Republican win the presidency. Bluffs were called. Neither side flinched. Perhaps a million would die.

A Slave Empire?: The Obsessive Calls to Expand the ‘Peculiar Institution’

Ever since the Age of Jackson (1824-36), the two primary political parties—Andrew Jackson’s own Democrats and the opposition Whigs—were intersectional. In other words, they had Southern and Northern wings. Most arguments centered on banks, tariffs, federal improvements and westward expansion. The “peculiar institution” of slavery was always, no doubt, an important issue, but it rarely tore the parties apart along sectional lines. Northern Democrats would usually side with their slaveholding Southern compatriots, and many Southern Whigs were slave owners themselves. The matter of the Mexican “Cession”—the land conquered from America’s southern neighbor—and what to do with it, would help shatter the intersectional system into increasingly regional political factions. Most Northerners—Whig and Democrat—were uncomfortable with the westward expansion of slavery. They thought such a spread would further empower Southerners in the Senate and compete with free labor in the western territories. Southerners—Whig and Democrat—believed that slavery must “expand or die.” Cotton defined their economic system, and they feared that the slavery on which it depended would, if contained, eventually die or be outlawed by an increasingly populous North.

Each side was scared of the other, but the Southerners were absolutely terrified by the prospect of loss of property, the overturning of their caste system, and racial mixing. That fear drove an obsessive penchant for slave expansion and fed the Northern narrative of Southern despotism. Southern overreach and overreaction led to the formation of a new pro-slavery ideology and a Southern chauvinism unparalleled in American history. Whereas many Founders were themselves slave owners, most believed the institution to be a necessary, temporary evil that would eventually disappear. By the 1850s, a new generation of planters turned this ideology on its head. Slavery, they said, was a necessary good and was superior to the “wage slavery” of Northern factory workers. James Hammond, a South Carolinian and a U.S. senator from 1857 to 1860, famously espoused the sheer power of the American slave South, boasting that “the slaveholding South is now the controlling power of the world. Cotton, rice, tobacco, and naval stores command the world. … No power on earth dares … to make war on cotton. Cotton is king.”

Southerners were so desperate to spread slavery that they took international law into their own hands, raising filibusterer (illegal and unsanctioned) armies to forcibly seize new territory. Many Southerners had long been obsessed with Spanish Cuba and its plentiful slave society. In 1851, William Crittenden, the prominent nephew of the federal attorney general, led some 400 volunteers in an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba. Fifty filibusterers, including Crittenden, were captured and executed in Havana. Furthermore, the line between official and unofficial policy was less than clear. The administration of President Franklin Pierce (1853-57) had long expressed a desire to annex Cuba. In fact, in the wake of Pierce’s election in 1852, young enthusiastic Democrats led torchlight parades while holding banners reading “The Fruits of the Late Democratic Victory—Pierce and Cuba.”

In an even more ambitious series of adventures, William Walker (perhaps the most famous filibusterer of all) sought, unsuccessfully, in 1853 to conquer Baja California and Sonora from Mexico, and then from 1855 to 1860 led several bloody invasions of Nicaragua in Central America. At one point, in spring 1856, with Walker at the helm of a Nicaraguan army that included 2,000—primarily Southern—Americans, the Pierce administration even temporarily granted diplomatic recognition to Walker’s Nicaraguan government. Slavery, of course, had already been abolished in most of Latin America by this time. No matter, Walker soon legalized it again, in September 1856. Walker’s invasion became a cause célèbre for Southerners desperate to increase the number of slave states (and hence slave state senators). One newspaper even proclaimed that “in the name of the white race [Walker] now offers Nicaragua to you and your slaves, at a time when you have not a friend on the face of the earth.” By 1860, though, Walker’s luck had run out, and he was executed by a Honduran firing squad.

Pierce, though not himself a slaveholder, appeared to be totally controlled by the pro-slave South and capable of colluding with wild, illegal adventurers. Northerners in both major political parties were appalled by what they saw as madness—a veritable obsession to add more slave states to the union. Northern Democrats faltered, Southern Whigs stood by their region, and the two-party system of old bent. And later, as official U.S. government policy began to appear to be under the control of the “Slave Power,” the system would break once and for all.

The ‘Slave Power’ Conspiracy: Truth and Fiction

Each side, North and South, was by the 1850s convinced that the other was out to suppress its way of life and trample on its liberty. “Free Soil” Northerners—those who wished to avoid the expansion of slavery and its damage to their own free labor—believed that a Slave Power sought to dominate the federal government. In this line of thinking, influential Southern aristocratic slaveholders wished to expand their slave labor system into the new western territories and even into the North itself, where the institution would compete with the small farming and wage labor system that provided most Northerners’ very livelihood. The minority Slave Power, it was believed, would accomplish this through domination of all three branches of the federal government—the courts, the legislature and the presidency—and impose its will on the nation’s Northern majority.

At the same time, Southerners, whether slaveholding or not, seemed to sincerely believe the polar opposite: that “black Republicans” were out to immediately abolish slavery, seize their chattel property and impose racial equality and mixing on Southern society. Poor whites, most of whom had not a single slave, feared the latter as much as the largest plantation owners. After all, their white skin was a badge of honor in a racial caste system and gave them a leg up in highly stratified Southern society. Firebrands on either side whipped up their followers and encouraged highly conspiratorial thinking—this being, perhaps, a highly American propensity then and now.

A political cartoon depicting the “Effects of the Fugitive-Slave-Law” of 1850. It shows black men being hunted down and seized, and it quotes both an anti-slavery passage from the Bible and the “all men are created equal” line from the Declaration of Independence.

To the Northerners, it appeared that each of the separate branches of federal power, one by one, had fallen under the sway of the Slave Power. It began with Congress. In 1850, a Democratic coalition pushed through the Fugitive Slave Act, requiring Northern authorities to turn over runaways to Southern slave owners. The irony of this struck deeply for Northerners, especially Whigs. For three decades or more, Democrats had argued against the expansion of federal power on one issue after another. Now, suddenly, they demanded what can be considered one of the most blatant expansions of federal authority in U.S. history. After all, under the conditions of the Fugitive Act, federal marshals could (and would) deputize any Northern citizens into slave-snatching posses.

Then, in 1854, the Democrats—with the help of the remaining Southern Whigs—passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which overturned the 30-year-old Missouri Compromise. In that famed system, Missouri would be admitted as a slave state, but no further slave states could exist north of the 36° 30′ line of latitude. This essentially excluded slavery from the northwestern parts of the Louisiana Purchase, most of which had not yet been settled or admitted as states. Now, in the new act, “popular sovereignty” would reign and the inhabitants of these new territories could decide on their own if a state should be slave or free. The Missouri Compromise was dead, and, when all was said and done, so was the Whig Party—fractured for good between Southern and Northern factions on opposing sides of the bill. After the Kansas-Nebraska Act became law, Sen. Truman Smith of Connecticut announced that “the Whig Party has been killed off effectually by that miserable Nebraska business.” Smith resigned from the Senate in disgust, but Southerners cheered the law!

A new party would be formed, slowly at first, and then with a vengeance by a coalition of Northern Whigs, Democrats and even contemptible “Know-Nothings,” anti-immigrant nativists. Kansas-Nebraska was a key tipping point. Abraham Lincoln, the former anti-war Whig, declared that “the moral wrong and injustice” of the act opened territory once closed to slavery and thus put the institution “on the high road to extension and perpetuity.” Lincoln was more radical than most, admitting that “the negro is a man,” but he and the vast majority of Republicans were decidedly not calling for the outright abolition of slavery, or for fully extending rights to blacks. They simply wished to limit the practice, and keep a competing, slave-based economic system (and in some cases all blacks) out of their states. Furthermore, they feared the Slave Power minority that seemed to rule the government. So, when the courts decided (seemingly) to sanction slavery in all states, yet another branch of government appeared subservient to the slave faction.

Dred Scott lived most of his life in obscurity. But when he sued for his freedom on account of his having spent years with his former owner in free state territory, he was propelled into the spotlight and the history books. Looking at the composition of the Supreme Court, it should have been obvious that Scott never stood a chance. The court, thanks to the many appointments of President Andrew Jackson years before, had an unelected Southern majority. The 80-year-old Chief Justice Roger Taney, a Jacksonian devotee, thus wrote a 7-2 opinion that has gone down as probably the court’s worst decision in its history. Taney could have just said that as a slave Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court. That would have been deplorable enough. Instead, he went further—much further—and, in the style of his generation of Southerners, ultimately overreached.

Taney and six other justices ruled that Scott wasn’t a citizen, then implied that no blacks, even freemen, could be considered American citizens. Then Taney spent 21 pages eviscerating the Missouri Compromise, arguing that Congress never had the right to prohibit slavery in any territory, North or South. It now seemed that owners could take their slaves and settle anywhere, spreading the institution across the breadth of the nation. And, of course, Southerners did little to reassure their Northern colleagues. One newspaperman wrote that “Southern opinion upon the subject of Southern slavery … is now the supreme law of the land.” Among opponents who felt compelled to speak out was Abe Lincoln, a rising star in the new Republican Party. After the Dred Scott decision, he quoted Jesus, stating, “ ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.” Advocates, he warned, sought to “push it [slavery] forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States … North as well as South.”

The executive branch seemed the last hope for Northerners opposed to the Slave Power. But, thanks to the Three-Fifths Compromise giving greater weight to Southerners in the Electoral College, many early presidents had themselves been Southerners. Ten of the first 16 owned slaves, eight while in office. Furthermore, many other Northern Democratic presidents proved to be at least as pro-slave as their Southern compatriots (who often dominated the party). Pierce and his successor, James Buchanan (1857-61)—a Pennsylvanian Democrat congenial to Southern desires—would prove more than willing to use the executive branch to enforce the will of the Slave Power. Indeed, in one of many such incidents, in May 1854, after a federal deputy was shot by a Boston mob opposed to the seizure of a runaway slave, Pierce would send companies of Marines, cavalry and artillery to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. The sight of federal regular troops marching solitary black men back into chains deeply offended many Northerners, and they now lost faith in the institution of the presidency.

This was politics, passionate and no doubt sometimes violent, but politics. However, in the backdrop of all this debate on congressional legislation and Supreme Court decisions, blood spilled in the remote territory of Kansas. Pro-slavery marauders from Missouri were invading the territory and willing to kill. When it appeared that yet another pro-Southern president—Franklin Pierce (1853-57)—was unwilling to put a stop to the Slave Power madness in Kansas, ever more Northerners gave up on traditional politics and the old two-party system. Some looked to form a new party firmly against slavery’s expansion (this would become the Republican Party); others took up arms and headed west.

‘Bleeding Kansas,’ Bleeding Nation

“To put it bluntly, without Kansas, Abraham Lincoln would never have been president of the United States. Moreover, if were not for Kansas, Lincoln would not just have lost the 1860 election—he wouldn’t even have been a candidate.”—Professor Jon Earle

I live in Lawrence, Kan., a uniquely progressive city on the prairie and home of the University of Kansas. There are about 90,000 year-round residents and some 30,000 students when school is in session. Just a few miles down the road is the tiny town of Lecompton, which has a population of less than 1,000. Once—150 years ago—they were the poles (one pro- and one anti-slavery) of a guerrilla war. Arguably, it is in Kansas, in 1854, that the American Civil War began.

A “death photograph” of Missouri guerrilla leader “Bloody Bill” Anderson,” a pro-slavery leader in the Kansas-Missouri Border War who was killed by federal soldiers.

When Kansas opened to new settlement, with the Kansas-Nebraska Act and concept of “popular sovereignty” in place, conflict was nearly certain. Pro-slavery men, desperate to spread the practice (and avoid their state being surrounded on three sides by free states), flooded over the border from Missouri and brought slaves—and guns. Though Eastern abolitionists from the New England Emigrant Aid Society, led by Amos Lawrence (the city’s namesake), promoted anti-slavery settlement, at least initially the flood of Missourian “bushwhackers” into Kansas was stronger in numbers. As time went on, though, both sides realized that “free state” anti-slavery men would predominate among the wave of new settlers. Knowing this to be the case, the Missourian “border ruffians” tried to push through a pro-slavery territorial delegate to Congress and to enshrine a pro-slavery state constitution.

They used tactics that were legal, extralegal and even violent to win the early rounds of this political conflict. The Missourians simply hated the free staters, especially the devout abolitionists among them, whom they saw as sanctimonious Yankees unhinged by their love for blacks. The pro-slavery men had no qualms about taking up arms. One of their early leaders instructed the Missourians to “mark every scoundrel among you that is the least tainted with free-soilism, or abolitionism, and exterminate him.”

By the fall of 1855, the bona fide free state residents outnumbered the anti-slavery men. No matter, the Missourians created their own territorial legislature in Lecompton (standing in contrast to an unofficial free state legislature in Topeka) and sent five cannons and 1,500 men to lay siege to the free state stronghold of Lawrence. Though the territorial governor initially cooled tensions, months later the “posse” entered Lawrence and burned it to the ground. The “Sack of Lawrence” resonated eastward and inflamed passions on both sides. In the minds of Northern Republicans, the Pierce administration had proved itself impotent and unwilling to enforce the law or majority rule in the territory.

One loquacious senator, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, made a two-day-long address titled “The Crime Against Kansas.” He excoriated the Pierce administration, the Missourians and his Southern colleagues who defended them. He named names and criticized individual congressmen. Two days later, Rep. Preston Brooks, the cousin of one of those Sumner had denounced, approached Sumner in the nearly empty Senate chamber and battered him over the head more than 30 times with a gold-headed cane. Southerners applauded! Braxton Bragg, a former Army officer (and future Confederate general), wrote that the House should vote a thanks to Brooks because “[Y]ou can reach the sensibilities of such dogs only through their heads and a big stick.” From all over the South, Brooks was sent notes of congratulation, along with dozens of new canes. His only real punishment was a $300 fine levied by a district court.

Sumner’s injuries were serious. His head was split open, and his injuries, along with mental wounds left by the beating, would keep him away from the Senate for most of the next four years. Even before the attack on the Senate floor, Republicans had taken to calling the war out West “Bleeding Kansas.” Now “Bleeding Sumner” joined the list of wrongs the Northerners counted against their Southern neighbors. The Congress was now, quite literally, divided into two (armed) camps as members took to carrying pistols to work.

After “Bleeding Sumner” and the “Sack of Lawrence,” the guerrilla war in Kansas escalated and the free staters struck back. Living in Kansas was John Brown, a 56-year-old radical abolitionist with 20 children, many guns and an Old Testament temperament. He declared that the time for passivity was over, that free staters must “fight fire with fire … and strike terror in the hearts of the pro-slavery people” and that “something must be done to show these barbarians that we, too, have rights.” Brown had a plan in mind.

Calculating that five free staters had thus far been murdered by the “bushwhackers,” he and four of his sons abducted five pro-slavery men (who had nothing to do with the murders) from their cabins near the Pottawatomie Creek and proceeded to split open their skulls with broadswords! It is hard, no matter how sympathetic his cause, not to compare John Brown and his followers—Bible in hand along with broadsword—with the ghastly showmanship of Islamic State’s executioners. Certainly, pro-slavery settlers saw Brown as a radical extremist.

Not everyone agreed, and the entire country divided on the case of Brown—who would be captured, tried and, on Dec. 2, 1859, hanged—and the “Bleeding Kansas” conflict. The famed Transcendentalist poet Ralph Waldo Emerson went so far as to say after Brown’s sentencing that he was “a saint, whose martyrdom will make the gallows as glorious as the cross.” The war didn’t end with Brown’s execution—not by a long shot. A guerrilla war that took hundreds of lives raged on and off for the next four years. In fact, once the Civil War began outright in 1861, the fighting would continue along the borders of Kansas and Missouri, until 1865, a decade’s worth of combat.

History, at least superficially, is alive in Lawrence. A customer can order John Brown ale from a local brewery or drink a cocktail at the John Brown Underground bar. University of Kansas students have been known to display images of John Brown holding an NCAA championship trophy instead of a Bible. Even the university mascot, the fabled Jayhawk, is a reference to the anti-slavery “jayhawker” guerrilla militia. Across the state line, University of Missouri sports fans can purchase T-shirts that say “Quantrill is my ‘homeboy,’ ” a reference to the Confederate bushwhacker leader responsible for the burning of Lawrence and execution of most of its male, anti-slavery population. As it recedes into history, the “Bleeding Kansas” or “Border War” issue that so inflamed the passions of an entire nation in the 1850s still resonates in this regional pocket of America, with the historical players often lightheartedly repurposed.

John Brown, a veritable hero in Lawrence, would leave his Kansas stomping grounds and bring his guerrilla war to a climax in Virginia. He always had millenarian, if fatalistic, aspirations. He, along with some of his sons and a few other supporters, seized the federal Army arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Va., where, under Brown’s scheme, he would distribute the weapons to foment a slave uprising up and down the East Coast. This was a crazy plan, more dream than reality—and of course it failed miserably. In the attempted seizure the local slaves did not revolt and the white townspeople violently turned on Brown’s band. Eight of his party (including two of his sons) were killed, and the survivors, including Brown, blockaded themselves in a thick-walled building to make a last stand. That night, a company of U.S. Marines led by two Army officers, Robert E. Lee and Jeb Stuart (both future Confederate generals), used battering rams to storm the building. Losing one of their own, the Marines killed two of the attackers and captured the rest, including a wounded John Brown.

It was as though Brown knew all along he would fail and die as a result. He seemed stoic before the court, stating, “If it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!” He was, of course, found guilty. As he was led to the gallows, Brown handed a scribbled note to a guard. It read, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood.” He would be proved correct.

The Electoral ‘Revolution’ of 1860: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of War

The nascent Republican Party was ever so young at the time of the presidential election of 1856. Its candidate, a famed Western adventurer named John C. Fremont, would lose to pro-Southern Pennsylvania Democrat James Buchanan. Americans voted largely according to the region in which they lived, and maps showing the results of the 1856 election foreshadowed the full sectional split to come. The rhetoric of the opposing sides had been extremely polarizing. Democratic papers published articles claiming that Fremont’s “ ‘Black Republicans’ ” would “turn loose … millions of negroes, to elbow you in the workshops, and compete with you in the fields of honest labor.” Another group of Democrats paraded girls in white dresses holding banners that read, “Fathers, save us from nigger husbands.”

It was a less than conclusive election, even though the electoral vote wasn’t very close. Fremont received 33 percent of the popular vote but carried all of New England and much of the Upper Midwest. The Republican Party was a non-factor in the South, sometimes not even appearing on the ballot. Nevertheless, Buchanan received 45 percent of the popular vote (the anti-immigrant “Know-Nothings” garnered 22 percent and split much of the middle states’ vote) but carried the South. When the “Know-Nothings” dissipated and the Republicans strengthened their party, it was certain the election of 1860 would be formative, perhaps even “revolutionary.” It was uncertain whether the union could hold.

In the 1860 campaign, the Deep South Democrats played the same game they had rolled out for 1856—arguing that (1) the “black” Republicans would unleash their slaves and a regime of misogyny; and (2) if Lincoln were elected the slave states would be “forced” to secede. This tactic had worked in 1856, scaring many Northern Democrats (and former Whigs) into supporting Buchanan. Then again, most Republicans didn’t take seriously the Southern threats of secession. They should have.

Something was profoundly different in 1860. The Southern Democrats once again overreached, insisting that the Democratic Party platform include a slave code for the western territories that would enshrine forever their right to expand slavery as an institution. When the Northern Democrats refused, the Southerners walked out and formed a new Southern Democratic Party, which nominated Vice President John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky as their presidential candidate. The Northern Democrats stuck with Illinois’ Stephen Douglas, and, in a desperate attempt to forestall crisis, old Whigs and conservatives in the upper South formed a constitutional Union Party (nominating John Bell of Tennessee), which took no stand on the slavery question and instead pleaded for caution and preservation of the union.

With the Democratic vote split three ways, it became a possibility that Lincoln could win by simply carrying the Northern states in a straight sectional vote. And indeed he would. He didn’t even appear on the ballot in the Deep South. Before Election Day, however, the Southern Democrats pounded the Republicans with propaganda and leveled threats of secession and racial revolution. Lincoln was elected by men who were Northern and white. The Republicans actually took pains to present themselves as the “White Man’s Party,” for it was they, they said, who wanted to exclude slavery—and by extension blacks—from their states and territories.

Thus, no matter how hard we try, it would be inappropriate to paint the 1860 election as one between civil rights Republicans and slave/segregation Democrats. What actually happened was this: An honest, incorruptible candidate (Lincoln), who was somewhat more progressive on race and slavery, won only 40 percent of the popular vote but carried an electoral majority by winning the entire North. The Southerners, then, acted the sore loser and seceded without even giving Lincoln a chance to govern. From their perspective, the three candidates who were more amenable to slavery had won a majority (60 percent) of the popular vote and thus Lincoln lacked a mandate. True enough, but he had won a constitutional majority, and, in the end, we must remember that it was the South that seceded, the South that insisted on the evacuation of federal military installations and, ultimately, the South that fired the first shots on their American brothers in Fort Sumter, S.C. By early 1861, it was clear: There would be war. John Brown had been right.

* * *

It is impossible to know if war could have been avoided. What seems certain is that there were many blunders committed on both sides, though more by the insecure, alarmist and chauvinistic South. Believing the “Yankees” would back down, the Southerners pushed and pushed and pushed again, wanting their cake and to eat it too. The call for a slave code, though, would prove to be a step too far.

In the 1850s, the functions of the federal government all became highly politicized and regional, crippling the bureaucracy and the sense of national union. By 1860, all three branches of government were seen as highly suspect. Congress became deadlocked on key votes between Northern and Southern factions that were increasingly fanatical; at times the armed parties nearly came (or did come) to blows on the floors of the House and Senate. Two weak presidents (Pierce and Buchanan) refused—despite their constitutional prerogative—to enforce federal law in Kansas. They folded to the South time and again, derelict in their duty. And, of course, the Supreme Court lost the trust of at least half of the population (the Northern half) when the Dred Scott decision made it appear tainted by partisanship.

As I write this in 2018, it is difficult not to feel a similar foreboding about our national divisions. If the 1850s teach us nothing else, it is that terrible things happen when the normal institutions of government grind to a halt—when tribally divided political factions bring the mechanisms of federal rule to a standstill.

* * *

To learn more about this topic, consider the following scholarly works:

• James West Davidson, Brian DeLay, Christine Leigh Heyrman, Mark H. Lytle, and Michael B. Stoff, “Experience History: Interpreting America’s Past,” Chapter 15: “The Union Broken, 1850-1861” (2011).

• Daniel Walker Howe, “What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848” (2007).

Maj. Danny Sjursen, a regular contributor to Truthdig, is a U.S. Army officer and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, “Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge.” He lives with his wife and four sons in Lawrence, Kan. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet and check out his new podcast, “Fortress on a Hill,” co-hosted with fellow vet Chris “Henri” Henrikson.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

German Police End March Envisioned as Far-Right Springboard

CHEMNITZ, Germany — Police in eastern Germany halted an anti-migration protest march that emboldened far-right activists started Saturday hoping would launch a nationwide movement capable of challenging the political establishment.

A trio of nationalist groups held separate daytime rallies in the city of Chemnitz over the Aug. 26 killing of a German citizen, allegedly by migrants from Syria and Iraq. The two largest groups also organized a joint nighttime march, thinking a broader force might emerge from the display of unity and take hold.

If the number of people who attended is any gauge, the envisioned far-right movement was in the earliest of embryonic stages. It drew about 4,500 participants, Saxony state police reported before citing security concerns as the reason for ending the event early.

The demonstrators screamed and whistled angrily as officers broke up the protest.

The march was stopped several times along the way as counter-protesters blocked the route and the police officers deployed to keep them and the marchers apart flooded into the street. The counter-protesters numbered about 4,000, the state police said.

The opposing camps clashed in Chemnitz on Monday, the day after the fatal stabbing of the 35-year-old German citizen and the arrests of the migrants on suspicion of manslaughter. Scenes of vigilantes chasing foreigners in the city’s streets have shocked people in others parts of Germany since then.

Police, at times, were unable to control the earlier protests and clashes.

Leaders of the two groups that combined forces on Saturday night cultivated a different image for the “mourning march,” wearing dark suits and carrying white roses.

However, the mood at the event bringing together previously isolated clusters of nationalists — from lawmakers to Hitler-saluting skinheads — darkened as the sun set. People from both ends of the political spectrum could be seen drinking beer and shouting slurs at police.

The tension in the air reflected the polarization over Germany’s ongoing effort to come to terms with an influx of more than 1 million refugees and migrants seeking jobs since 2015.

The right blames Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow in hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers from war-torn countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan for multiple problems. Some far-right supporters argued before the killing in Chemnitz that migrants are responsible for an increase in serious crimes, especially attacks on women.

The anti-migrant sentiment has been particularly strong in Saxony state, traditional strongholds of groups that sought to inspire a nationwide movement on Saturday night: the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, and the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which has won seats in federal and state parliaments with an anti-Muslim platform.

While the share of foreigners residing in Saxony remains below Germany’s national average and displays of Nazi symbols are outlawed across the shame-marked country, far-right sympathizers mobilized with exceptional speed on the night of the Chemnitz slaying and the days after.

German Justice Minister Katarina Barley said Saturday that authorities should investigate the role of networks from the radical far right in spearheading the week’s protests.

“We do not tolerate that right-wing extremists infiltrate our society,” Barley told weekly newspaper Bild am Sonntag. “It’s about finding out who’s behind the mobilization of far-right criminals.”

Local police appeared to have been caught unprepared when the slaying triggered the protests, which attracted crowds openly engaging in Nazi veneration and devolved into violence.

The protests were sparked by a fatal stabbing early Sunday morning of a 35-year-old German man, Daniel Hillig. Two asylum-seekers, a 22-year-old Iraqi and a 23-year-old Syrian, have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, known for his anti-migrant stance, said Saturday that he understood why “the people in Chemnitz and elsewhere are upset about the brutal killing” but added “there’s no excuse for violence,” Funke Media Group reported.

“We need a strong state and we have to do everything politically to overcome the polarization and division of our society,” Seehofer stressed.

While anti-migrant protests took place in Germany before, especially during the early 1990s, a strong and vocal opposition usually was there to provide a counterforce. Artists organized concerts to raise awareness, and ordinary citizens lined up in miles-long human chains to protest violence against newcomers.

Chemnitz, a city known for its hardened neo-Nazi scene, at first attracted a comparatively weak response to the recent anti-migrant activity. Some 70 left-leaning and pro-migrant groups organized the “Heart not Hatred” rally that got in the way of Saturday’s far-right march.

“I’ve a lot of experience with far-right protests in Chemnitz,” Tim Detzner, a member of the Left Party in Chemnitz, said, noting that the street riots this week “reached a level of aggression, brutality and willingness to use violence that we haven’t known before.”

___

Grieshaber reported from Berlin. Frank Jordans contributed from Berlin.

‘Terrorist Motive’ Alleged in Attack on Americans in Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM—A 19-year-old Afghan citizen had a “terrorist motive” for allegedly stabbing two Americans at the main train station in Amsterdam, city authorities in the Dutch capital said Saturday.

Amsterdam police shot and wounded the suspect after the double stabbing Friday at Central Station. The local government said hours later that it appeared the victims weren’t targeted for a specific reason but added that investigators were not excluding any possibilities.

After the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands on Saturday identified the people injured as American tourists, Amsterdam City Hall gave an update.

“Based on the suspect’s first statements, he had a terrorist motive,” the city administration said in a statement that did not elaborate on what the statements were or how they showed intent.

The wounded Americans were recovering in a hospital from what police termed serious but not life-threatening injuries. Their identities have not been released. The suspect, who was identified only as Jawed S. in line with privacy rules in the Netherlands, also remains hospitalized.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte confirmed on Twitter that the investigation was focused Saturday on extremist ideology.

W. had a residency permit from Germany. German authorities searched his home and seized data storage devices that would be analyzed as part of the investigation, the city government statement said.

He was scheduled to be arraigned during a closed-door hearing with an investigating judge on Monday. Dutch officials did not disclose the charges he could face.

A statement issued late Friday by Amsterdam’s city council said the Americans did not appear to have been victims of a targeted attack. Amsterdam authorities also said Friday that it appeared from initial inquiries that the victims weren’t chosen for a clear reason.

The local government said Saturday it had no immediate plans to beef up security in the city, saying the swift action by police “shows that Amsterdam is prepared for this kind of incident.”

A passerby’s dramatic photo showed two police officers pointing guns at a man in blue jeans and sneakers lying on the ground inside a train station tunnel.

Earlier Saturday, the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands confirmed that the two people injured Friday were Americans visiting the Netherlands when they were stabbed at the station.

Ambassador Pete Hoekstra issued a written statement saying U.S. Embassy officials had been in touch with the victims or their families.

“We wish them a speedy recovery and are working closely with the City of Amsterdam to provide assistance to them and their families,” Hoekstra said.

Central Station is a busy entry and exit point for visitors to Amsterdam, with regular trains linking it to the city’s Schiphol Airport. Friday is one of the busiest days of the week for train travel as tourists arrive for the weekend.

The station is patrolled by armed police and other security staff.

McCain Tributes at D.C. Service Echo With Criticism of Trump

WASHINGTON—John McCain’s daughter opened his memorial service by posing her father’s legacy as a direct challenge to President Donald Trump, setting a tone that echoed the senator’s own fighting spirit as former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush eulogized him Saturday at the Washington National Cathedral.

Bush and Obama, both challenged by McCain in their bids for the White House, drew on the senator’s legacy at home and abroad to talk of the nation’s values in remarks that at times seemed a clear rebuke of Trump and his brand of politics.

Obama spoke of the long talks he and McCain would have privately in the Oval Office and the senator’s understanding that America’s security and influence came not from “our ability to bend others to our will” but universal values of rule of law and human rights.

“So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse can seem small and mean and petty, tracking in bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage,” Obama said in another not-so-veiled nod to Trump. “It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born in fear. John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that.”

Bush said one of the great gifts in his life was becoming friends with his former White House rival. He said they would in later years recall their political battles like former football players remembering the big game.

But mostly Bush recalled a champion for the “forgotten people” at home and abroad whose legacy will serve as a reminder, even in times of doubt, of the power of America as more than a physical place but a “carrier of human aspirations.”

“John’s voice will always come as a whisper over our shoulder — we are better than this, America is better than this,” Bush said.

Bush, a Republican, and Obama, a Democrat, spoke during the service at McCain’s request.

Trump was not on hand for the ceremony, after McCain’s family made clear he was not invited.

But Meghan McCain made sure Trump was part of the memorial in another way, leveling pointed criticism at the president in her eulogy.

“We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness — the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who lived lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served,” she said, her voice first choking back tears then raising to anger.

Later, she said to applause, “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”

In another clear swipe at Trump, she said some resented her father for being “a great fire who burned bright” and what he revealed about their own characters. Those critics, she said, still have an opportunity to emulate her father’s legacy.

Those gathered Saturday morning to eulogize the six-term senator included three former presidents, scores of members of Congress, current and former world leaders and family and friends. Among those in the front row were Barack and Michelle Obama, George and Laura Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Dick Cheney and Al Gore.

McCain’s motorcade arrived from the Capitol, where he laid in state overnight, and the procession made a stop at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where McCain’s wife, Cindy, placed a wreath. His flag-draped casket was escorted by military body bearers up the cathedral steps under gray skies.

It was the last public event in Washington, where McCain lived and worked over four decades, and part of McCain’s five-day, cross-country funeral procession. He died Aug. 25 at age 81.

“His death seems to have reminded the American people that these values are what makes us a great nation, not the tribal partisanship and personal attack politics that have recently characterized our life, ” said former Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a longtime friend and fellow global traveler who McCain once considered as his vice presidential running mate.

“This week’s celebration of the life and values and patriotism of this hero, I think have taken our country above all that,” he said. “In a way, it’s the last great gift that John McCain gave America.”

Trump, meanwhile, left the White House in the presidential motorcade shortly after 10:30 a.m., as the service was underway, headed to his Virginia golf course.

Two of his top aides, White House chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis, flanked Cindy McCain as she placed the wreath at the memorial and joined the service. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner attended.

McCain was a decorated veteran who was held for more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He refused early release. Trump obtained deferments for his college education and a foot ailment.

McCain had long urged the Senate and the polarized nation to recognize the humanity even in bitter political opponents. McCain’s request for speeches by the former presidents, to some, represents that ideal.

“We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe,” McCain wrote in his farewell letter to the nation, read posthumously by a longtime aide. “We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.”

By all accounts, McCain ended up liking both Bush and Obama but was not especially close to either man. Bush delivered McCain a decisive defeat in the race for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000. Obama defeated McCain eight years later in the general election.

McCain’s service and dedication to working across the aisle — even as he sometimes infuriated his opponents — was a major theme of Friday’s ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda.

Of those who spoke at Friday’s ceremony, fellow Republican Mitch McConnell had perhaps the fullest sense of the McCain experience. The two had served in the Senate together since McCain’s 1986 election.

McCain is to be buried Sunday at his alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy, next to his best friend from the Class of 1958, Adm. Chuck Larson.

“Back,” McCain wrote on the last page of his recent memoir, “where it began.”

At Gaza Protests, Medical Workers Face Great Danger

KHUZAA, Gaza Strip—Each Friday, volunteer medic Asmaa Qudih goes through a tense ritual: She prays, kisses her mother’s hand and packs a bag with medical supplies as she heads off to work at the weekly mass protests along Gaza’s border fence with Israel.

Treating the wounded has become dangerous for Gaza’s emergency workers. In the past five months, three medics were killed by Israeli army fire, while dozens more, including Qudih, were hurt by live fire or tear gas canisters.

Qudih, 35, says the weekly routine is terrifying, but that national pride, religious devotion and professional ambition drive her and other medics to risk their lives.

“As long as you go to work in the field, you expect at any time to get injured or killed,” she said on a recent Friday as she prepared to head to the frontier.

Before leaving home, she inspected her red backpack, filled with bandages, sticky tape and the saline spray that soothes the effects of tear gas on the eyes and skin. She hugged her young nieces and nephews, and then solemnly kissed her mother farewell.

“She goes against my will,” said her mother, Fatma, as she showered Qudih with blessings. “But this is her decision.”

In the latest violence, witnesses said volunteer paramedic Shorouq Msameh was shot in the back Friday while standing about 300 meters (yards) from a fence during a protest east of Rafah as demonstrators tried to launch a burning tire toward Israeli territory. Msameh, who was wearing a white coat marking her as a medic, was listed in critical condition at a hospital in nearby Khan Younis.

The plight of Gaza’s medics lies at the heart of a debate over Israel’s use of force in the protests. European and U.N. officials, along with international rights groups, accuse Israel of using excessive force, citing the large numbers of civilian casualties, including medical workers. The U.N. and World Health Organization have both said Israel is obligated to allow medics to work safely.

Israel says it does not intentionally target medics and even tries to protect them but accuses militants of mixing in with the crowds. Last month, Israel said a Palestinian nurse from the group Doctors Without Borders tried to carry out a late-night cross-border shooting attack on Israeli troops. Israel apparently killed the man, but has not revealed details.

Qudih never planned to work at the protests, which are aimed in part at trying to break a blockade of Gaza imposed by Israel and Egypt to weaken the ruling Islamic militant group Hamas. The marches, led by Hamas but also driven by the desperation of Gaza residents over blockade-linked hardships, typically take place on Fridays along a perimeter fence.

On March 30, the day of the first march, Qudih walked about half an hour from her home in the southern town of Abassan to the nearest protest site to watch.

She saw thousands of Palestinians marching close to the frontier, burning tires and hurling rocks and firebombs in the direction of Israeli soldiers, including snipers behind earthen mounds on the other side of the fence. Soldiers responded with live fire and tear gas.

Fifteen people, mostly young men, were killed that day, and hundreds more were badly wounded. Protesters and medics struggled to evacuate the wounded, in many cases carrying them “improperly and hastily” to ambulances or private cars, she recalled.

Noticing the shortage of paramedics, Qudih volunteered as an emergency responder.

“Seeing the injured in front of me gave me the courage to provide them the needed service,” she said.

The job has proved to be dangerous. In five months of marches, 125 Palestinians have been killed and about 4,500 others have been wounded by gunfire, according to Gaza health officials and rights groups. Palestinian officials say the vast majority were unarmed.

Among the dead have been three paramedics, including Razan Najjar, a 21-year-old woman who also worked as a volunteer with Qudih in the Khuzaa protest camp. All wore white or fluorescent uniforms identifying themselves as medics.

Witnesses said Najjar had just helped treat a protester when she was shot in the chest. Qudih, who did not see it, said word spread quickly among her colleagues.

“We collected ourselves and hurried to the hospital, all the medics,” she said. “There was big pain and shock.”

At least 100 medical workers have been injured by gunshots, shrapnel and direct hits from tear gas canisters, according to al-Mezan, a leading Gaza-based rights group. Rescuers typically walk slowly, their hands raised, when approaching the border to treat the wounded.

“They noticeably target the medical crews recently,” Qudih alleged.

Qudih herself was hit with a tear gas canister dropped from a drone on May 14, the most violent day of the marches, in which about 60 Palestinians were killed. The canister knocked her unconscious and she was briefly hospitalized to have her head stitched up.

After Najjar, a friend and neighbor, was killed, Qudih decided to work at a field hospital, far from the front lines, for three weeks. And if she felt in danger, “we would step back a little or hide ourselves behind a sand hill,” she said.

She once scolded her young nephews when she saw them at a protest. “Later, I felt embarrassed because the place was full of people and I looked as if caring for our children only.”

Her brother Loai initially objected to her going but eventually gave up. “This is who she is,” he said.

On a recent Friday, it didn’t take long for Qudih to see action. Dozens of protesters ventured toward the border fence and set tires ablaze as Israeli forces responded with volleys of tear gas and occasional live fire.

Qudih, wearing a medical coat over her full-body Islamic gown, moved quickly to treat the wounded. She darted to the front lines, sprinkling saline on people lying on the ground until paramedics carried them away. When the acrid smoke cleared, she removed her medical mask and wiped her face with tissues.

Israel accuses Hamas of using the protests as cover to carry out attacks and says it is defending its border from infiltration attempts. One Israeli soldier has been killed by a Gaza sniper.

But Israel has come under heavy criticism because of the large number of unarmed protesters who have been shot. It came under similar criticism during a 2014 war with Hamas in which 11 paramedics were killed and 24 ambulances destroyed, according to al-Mezan.

In a statement, the Israel army denied targeting medical workers but said they operate very close to the fence “and are often mixed between those carrying out attacks and those acting violently.”

It said commanders “repeatedly and emphatically” ordered their troops to avoid harming medical workers. It said troops generally stop their activities when medical personnel near the border, even though this can heighten risks to soldiers by allowing Hamas militants to approach.

“Nevertheless, despite these efforts, unintended harm to medical personnel may have been unavoidable in such volatile, challenging and chaotic situations,” it said, adding that the deaths of medical personnel are being investigated.

Professional medics from the Health Ministry, Civil Defense and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society provide most of the care. But trainees and unpaid volunteers like Qudih have played supporting roles because of the many injured, al-Mezan said.

Being unemployed, Qudih said she hopes health officials will offer her a job. Unemployment in Gaza is close to 50 percent. But she said her main motivation is her “national and religious duty” — and to remember her friend, Razan Najjar.

“We continue our volunteer work here in great part as an honor to Razan,” she said.