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moms for liberty
The Fight for Palestine Is the Fight Against Fascism
We must understand that to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine, we must also develop a longer-term strategy that contends with the growing power of far-right forces here in the U.S.
Jan 09, 2025
It has been over 450 days since Israel began its genocide and military invasion of Gaza and then Lebanon, Iran, and Syria. With the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president, the American government will continue and increase support for Israel’s all out war against Palestinian people.
For the past year, students have rallied and protested to demand divestment from Israel and its apartheid regime. Heated protests have erupted across the country, including in San Francisco where students planned walk outs and took over quads with encampments and teach-ins.
Alongside these students, parents from Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) communities went up against San Francisco’s school board to insist that their children cannot be censored for supporting Palestinian people. Many of these parents are Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) members, so I joined a meeting between these parents and the superintendent. When the superintendent would not bring up pressing issues around how students were being impacted by the ongoing genocide, parents disrupted the meeting and demanded their kids’ rights to speak up.
Through organizing, we build trust and are able to inoculate the harmful disinformation coming from white Christian nationalists and other right-wing forces.
However, not too long ago, I saw these same parents swayed by white Christian nationalists who were mobilizing Arab and Muslim parents around transphobia and homophobia. By circulating hateful rhetoric and drumming up fears about the “influence” of LGBTQ+ acceptance, white Christian nationalists convinced Arab and Muslim parents to pull their children out of public schools in the Bay Area. This is a trend we have seen across the country as Christian nationalist groups like Moms for Liberty recruit conservative Asian faith-based groups to rally against curricula portraying LGBTQ+ families and themes.
What happened? How did these parents go from being swayed by one fascist force to vehemently countering another fascist force? What can we learn as organizers from this moment?
The fight for a free Palestine is deeply ingrained into the many other fights against rising facism in the United States and abroad. We must understand that to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine, we must also develop a longer-term strategy that contends with the growing power of far-right forces here in the U.S. We cannot do one without the other.
What does this take? First, we must be clear about who we’re up against and what strategies they are using. After 75 years of occupation and a year of military invasion, Zionism has made clear their strategy: complete annihilation of Palestine and its people. To do this, the Zionist system requires the support of other right-wing forces for monetary, political, and narrative power.
One formidable partnership is between white Christian nationalists and Zionists. Nationally, the largest Zionist organization in the United States is Christians United for Israel, which funnels millions of dollars into the Israel lobby every year. Project 2025, the 900-plus-page policy document spearheaded by the far-right Heritage Foundation, lays out far-right forces’ plan to transform the United States into a Christian nationalist theocracy that would sustain Israel’s military expansion. Locally, in San Francisco, when AROC campaigned with parents and students for the addition of Eid as holidays on the school calendar, Christian nationalists and Zionists allied to threaten the school board and halt the decision.
This issue of transphobia is a longer-term struggle that we will continue to face. We have not resolved it with our members, and there is no success story. However, we are helping our members to understand the contradictions of right-wing forces in order to move our communities on various contentious issues.
For years, Christian nationalists have made inroads into organizing Muslim and Arab parents in the Bay Area by manufacturing fear and outrage around queer and trans “influences” in schools. In the past year, as AROC has mobilized thousands of people to call for a permanent cease-fire and an arms embargo on Israel, we have also been engaging in deep political education and long conversations with our communities to point out the connections between various right-wing, fascist forces.
This past year has politicized many to call for Palestinian liberation. It has especially mobilized the SWANA families in AROC’s membership, many of whom have direct connections to the region that Israel is devastating. This past year has reemphasized that we need to deeply invest in grassroots organizing and basebuilding. This allows organizers and working-class people to work together to protect our communities from right-wing disinformation and come up with real solutions that can transform lives.
When the attacks on Gaza began last October, AROC was able to provide the space and container for our parents, youth, and activists to identify key issues and leverage our power locally. We got the cities of San Francisco and Oakland to adopt resolutions for an immediate and sustained cease-fire. Through those processes, we saw our community really engage with democratic processes and understand the power of civic engagement. Through organizing, we build trust and are able to inoculate the harmful disinformation coming from white Christian nationalists and other right-wing forces. This is key to winning our communities away from right-wing influences and building a stronger anti-fascist movement.
Grassroots organizing is how we build the power of our movement! Power means we can shift conditions in society and in our own lives. Power means we can end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and block the rise of far-right fascism.
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New Right-Wing Owner to Baltimore Sun Reporters: 'Go Make Me Some Money'
"The Sinclair TV owner bought The Baltimore Sun for the same reason Elon Musk bought Twitter," opined one critic. "Power."
Jan 17, 2024
New Baltimore Sun owner and right-wing media executive David D. Smith raised eyebrows and ire in media circles and beyond following a Tuesday meeting at which he reportedly insulted journalists at his new acquisition and told them to focus on profit.
Smith, the multimillionaire head of the Sinclair Broadcasts Group—a network notorious for its fealty to former U.S. President Donald Trump—purchased the Sun, along with a bevy of other Maryland papers, last week for what The New Republicdescribed as an "unspecified, nine-figure" amount from Alden Global Capital, an investment firm known for its cost-cutting ways.
Sinclair started out in Baltimore and the Sunreported that it's the first time in nearly four decades that the paper will be locally owned. However, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik atold "All Things Considered" host Juana Summers that Sun staffers left the meeting with Smith "fairly on edge."
Smith "said he's only read [the Sun] about four times, which is kind of astonishing for a guy whose family has been there for more than a half-century," Folkenflik said, adding that the new owner also argued that the paper "just isn't offering people news that is holding local government actors accountable."
"This," Folkenflik added, "for a newspaper that, you know, revealed corruption by the then-mayor of Baltimore that led to the Sunwinning a Pulitzer just a few short years ago."
The once-venerable Sun has, in fact, won 16 Pulitzer Prizes over its storied history.
Folkenflik, who once worked for the Sun, noted:
It has a really proud heritage going back to 1837. The story of the Sun, nonetheless, is kind of the story of modern American newspapering. Alden is the latest in a string of big corporate owners that has, you know, time after time, decade after decade, whittled down or slashed its staffs and its ambitions. The paper has shrunk pretty sharply.
Media accountability advocates expressed alarm and concern over Smith's purchase of the Sun. Popular Information publisher Judd Legum noted that the paper's new owner is a donor to far-right groups including Project Veritas, Turning Point USA, and Moms for Liberty.
"Sinclair Broadcasting, which is controlled by the Smith family,
forces nearly 200 local TV affiliates to run right-wing pro-Trump political commentary," Legum said. "Sinclair affiliates have also promoted right-wing conspiracy theories, including claims that [Democratic National Committee] staffer Seth Rich was murdered by a hitman as payback for sharing sensitive emails to WikiLeaks."
Sinclair and Smith have been closely aligned with the Trump family. Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner has admitted that the former president and 2024 GOP front-runner's campaign
struck a deal with Sinclair in 2016 for access in exchange for more favorable coverage.
"We are here to deliver your message," Smith
told the Trump campaign. "Period."
Smith is also openly inimical toward the mainstream media—including the
Sun. According toThe Baltimore Banner, he told New York Magazine in 2018 that he viewed print media to be "so left-wing as to be meaningless dribble."
Pressed during Tuesday's meeting whether he still believed this, Smith answered in the affirmative. Asked if that included the paper he just bought, he replied, "in many ways, yes."
Sun staffers present at Tuesday's meeting told Folkenflik that their new boss seemed especially focused on the paper's bottom line.
"Smith told his new staffers that, you know, the
Sun was profitable but that he meant to make it more profitable," Folkenflik told Summers.
According to the Banner, he told them to "go make me some money."
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'I Was Mostly In It for Her': New Details in Rape Probe Embroiling Top GOP Official, Moms for Liberty Co-Founder
Amid charges of gross hypocrisy and many celebrating the possible downfall of a powerful far-right couple following revelations about their private sexual activities, the severity of the accusations led one Florida Democrat to remark, "None of this is funny."
Dec 03, 2023
New details made public over the weekend via police documents of a rape investigation have added fresh fuel to the political firestorm surrounding the chair of the Republican Party of Florida, Christian Ziegler, and his wife Bridget Ziegler, co-founder of the far-right Moms for Liberty, which engages in book-banning efforts, attacks on public education, religious moralizing, and the promotion of fascist ideology in chapters nationwide.
After an unnamed longtime associate accused Christian Ziegler of rape last week, the emergence of a police search warrant and associated affidavit showed that the alleged victim said she had engaged in consensual three-way sexual relations with the Zieglers in the past but on the day of the assault, on Oct 3., tried to call off the encounter because Bridget would not be there to participate.
"Sorry I was mostly in for her," the victim said, according to text messages quoted in the affidavit.
The high-profile political work of the Zieglers—who rail against the sexual identities and lifestyle choices of others and who have been openly hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, often suggesting queer people are somehow deviant or morally problematic—has resulted in cries of hypocrisy and calls for Christian's resignation.
"Allegations of rape and sexual battery are severe and should be taken seriously," said Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried in a statement on Thursday. "I applaud the accuser's bravery in coming forward against a political figure as powerful as Christian Ziegler, and I trust that the Sarasota Police Department will conduct a thorough investigation into these allegations of criminal behavior."
Given the severity of the allegations against him, Fried called on Christian Zeigler to resign from his post, a call echoed later by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican currently running for the GOP presidential nomination.
Fried said that "what happens behind closed doors is Christian and Bridget's personal business," but added that she did "find it interesting that two people who are so obsessed with banning books about gay penguins might be engaged in a non-traditional sexual relationship," referring to a children's book about gay parents which has been targeted by Republicans for banning in schools in Florida and elsewhere.
"As leaders in the Florida GOP and Moms for Liberty," said Fried, "the Zieglers have made a habit out of attacking anything they perceive as going against 'family values'—be it reproductive rights or the existence of LGBTQ+ Floridians. The level of hypocrisy in this situation is stunning."
According to the Washington Post:
News reports emerged several days ago about the allegations of rape, but more records were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request late Friday and reported by several Florida news outlets. They include details of recorded conversations via Instagram and phone calls between the woman and Christian Ziegler that detectives obtained. Police have filed search warrants for Ziegler’s phone, email and other devices. The Sarasota Police Department did not reply to several requests for comment.
Christian Ziegler's attorney, Derek Byrd, said in a statement Thursday that his client "will be completely exonerated." Byrd and Ziegler did not respond to requests for comment Saturday about the details in the affidavit.
"It's certainly deeply, deeply troubling," state Rep. Spencer Roach, a member of the Florida GOP executive committee, told the Post in an interview. "I would describe this as just an absolute body blow to the Republican Party. Everyone that I've talked to about this is in an absolute tailspin."
Paulina Testerman, a co-founder of the nonprofit Support Our Schools, which defends public education, spoke to The Daily Beast about the allegations of rape in the context the Ziegler's political activities in Florida.
"Many of us have stood at the podium of countless school board meetings and listened to Mrs. Ziegler drag the LGBT+ community, so it's natural to want to celebrate when bullies get what's coming," Testerman said. "But we must remind ourselves that there are many victims in this story. An alleged rape victim is the obvious victim, but our LGBT children and all marginalized children have all been the victim of the Zieglers and their hate machine. We are hopeful that their reign is over, and our community can start healing."
Bridget Ziegler—who reportedly confirmed to detectives she and her husband did have a consensual sexual relationship in the past—is not named in the affidavit, but Moms for Liberty defended her in a post on X following the initial revelations last week.
"#StrongWomen scare those that seek to destroy our country," the group stated. "We stand with Bridget Ziegler and every other badass woman fighting for kids and America."
But critics like Anne-Marie Principe and others pushed back on that.
"The hypocrisy is real," Principe tweeted. "First, they engaged in the sexual freedoms they want to deny others. Second, the alleged sexual assault of their threesome partner is not only denigrating women, it's a crime. So, I guess you are only about YOUR liberties. #WrongWomen not strong ones."
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