Latest news with #RedDawn
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's tariffs could face more than one legal challenge
President Donald Trump now faces one legal challenge to his historic tariffs — and even more lawsuits could be on the way. A nonprofit legal group, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in northern Florida Thursday night, arguing Trump's use of a national emergency law to justify the 20 percent tariffs that Trump imposed on China earlier this year is illegal. The White House argued that China's supply of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals to the United States constituted a national emergency. Lawyers and representatives for various business groups are mulling similar challenges to the new duties the president unveiled Wednesday, which cited a national emergency due to the trade deficit, according to two people familiar with the discussions, granted anonymity to discuss strategies that have not yet been finalized. 'All options are being considered,' one of those people, a senior trade association executive, said. At issue is a nearly-50-year-old law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, that Trump is citing to impose both the duties on China and the global 'reciprocal tariffs' he announced this week. The 1977 law gives the president broad authority to respond to a national emergency. But Trump is the first president to use it to impose tariffs, which is a power the U.S. Constitution assigned to Congress. And legal scholars say it's possible a judge would find such a move illegal, unraveling the White House's bid to hit trading partners with duties not seen in a century. 'IEEPA has a long list of things that the president can do and nowhere does it say 'tariffs,'' said Liza Goitein, senior director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute. 'There is absolutely a basis on which to challenge the use of IEEPA for tariffs based on the Supreme Court's own jurisprudence,' Goitein added, and 'there's some likelihood of success on this lawsuit on that grounds.' John Vecchione, a lawyer for NCLA, which filed the lawsuit against the China tariffs on behalf of Emily Ley Paper Inc, elaborated. 'If this was 'Red Dawn' and the enemy was coming across the border and the president invoked IEEPA, he still can't put in tariffs,' Vecchione said. 'It's not what it's for. He can embargo [our enemies]. He can cut off their banking. He can do a lot under IEEPA, but tariffs are not in it.' 'One of the ways any normal person would know this, is it's been around 50 years since the Iranian crisis. No one has ever imposed a tariff under it,' Vecchione added. Pensacola-based Emily Ley Paper owns Simplified, a company that sells paper products and planners for women. It imports from China and has faced higher duties because of Trump's action. 'Under current plans, the new tariffs will impose hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs on Simplified,' the lawsuit says. 'If it moves its manufacturing operations away from China, this would impose further costs. Either course would require Simplified to raise its prices to its customers and either reduce its already small staff or not hire more staff.' The Retail Litigation Center welcomed the case. It is part of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents big companies like Target, Best Buy and Gap. "As the suit explains, Congress did not give the President the authority to unilaterally enact tariffs that so profoundly affect the economy and Americans' pocketbooks,' the RLC said. 'Before lasting damage is done to the economy and family budgets, leading retailers support timely judicial review of this abuse of authority from the White House." A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment. Some companies and trade associations believe Trump's national emergency declaration for his new reciprocal tariffs is on even shakier legal ground than the national emergency he declared for his China tariffs. 'It would appear that the new tariffs that were announced on Wednesday under IEEPA are the weakest link and the one most susceptible to a successful challenge,' said one industry representative, who was granted anonymity to discuss a matter still under consideration. 'They're also the most dramatic … I wouldn't be surprised to see one or more lawsuits coming on the tariffs that were announced on Wednesday.' Those tariffs haven't gone into effect yet, however, with the first tranche — a flat 10 percent duty on all foreign imports — due to be imposed early Saturday and a second round of higher duties on 60-odd trading partners set to go into force on April 9. It's unlikely any group will file a lawsuit until after the tariffs officially go forward. Vecchione said he disagreed that the case against Trump's fentanyl tariffs is weaker than a potential case against the new reciprocal tariffs. That's because IEEPA doesn't give the president the authority to impose tariffs, regardless of the emergency, he argued. Ley Paper and the NCLA are not seeking a preliminary injunction to immediately stop Trump from collecting the duties because such decisions can be appealed and slow down the case, Vecchione said. But they do hope for a ruling by the end of the year that Trump's action was unlawful and unconstitutional, he said. Some lawmakers agree that Congress has delegated too much of its power over tariffs to the executive branch. A bill filed this week by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) would end presidential tariffs after 60 days unless Congress votes to extend them. It gained several new Republican supporters on Friday, but is still unlikely to move forward in the Republican-controlled Congress, where most in the president's party continue to defer to Trump. Likewise, many business groups are deeply fearful of challenging Trump in public, particularly given the chance he could quickly scale back the tariffs. They point to Trump's swift reversal last month on tariffs targeting Canada and Mexico, which he largely paused amid an uproar from business leaders and even some Republicans. Vechhione said he thought fear was the main reason no one else has filed a case yet. "I think some in the profession are afraid. They're just afraid, and their clients are afraid. They're afraid of the administration," he said. Caitlin Oprysko and Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.
Politico
04-04-2025
- Business
- Politico
Trump's tariffs could face more than one legal challenge
President Donald Trump now faces one legal challenge to his historic tariffs — and even more lawsuits could be on the way. A nonprofit legal group, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in northern Florida Thursday night, arguing Trump's use of a national emergency law to justify the 20 percent tariffs that Trump imposed on China earlier this year is illegal. The White House argued that China's supply of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals to the United States constituted a national emergency. Lawyers and representatives for various business groups are mulling similar challenges to the new duties the president unveiled Wednesday, which cited a national emergency due to the trade deficit, according to two people familiar with the discussions, granted anonymity to discuss strategies that have not yet been finalized. 'All options are being considered,' one of those people, a senior trade association executive, said. At issue is a nearly-50-year-old law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, that Trump is citing to impose both the duties on China and the global 'reciprocal tariffs' he announced this week. The 1977 law gives the president broad authority to respond to a national emergency. But Trump is the first president to use it to impose tariffs, which is a power the U.S. Constitution assigned to Congress. And legal scholars say it's possible a judge would find such a move illegal , unraveling the White House's bid to hit trading partners with duties not seen in a century. 'IEEPA has a long list of things that the president can do and nowhere does it say 'tariffs,'' said Liza Goitein, senior director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute. 'There is absolutely a basis on which to challenge the use of IEEPA for tariffs based on the Supreme Court's own jurisprudence,' Goitein added, and 'there's some likelihood of success on this lawsuit on that grounds.' John Vecchione, a lawyer for NCLA, which filed the lawsuit against the China tariffs on behalf of Emily Ley Paper Inc, elaborated. 'If this was 'Red Dawn' and the enemy was coming across the border and the president invoked IEEPA, he still can't put in tariffs,' Vecchione said. 'It's not what it's for. He can embargo [our enemies]. He can cut off their banking. He can do a lot under IEEPA, but tariffs are not in it.' 'One of the ways any normal person would know this, is it's been around 50 years since the Iranian crisis. No one has ever imposed a tariff under it,' Vecchione added. Pensacola-based Emily Ley Paper owns Simplified, a company that sells paper products and planners for women. It imports from China and has faced higher duties because of Trump's action. 'Under current plans, the new tariffs will impose hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs on Simplified,' the lawsuit says. 'If it moves its manufacturing operations away from China, this would impose further costs. Either course would require Simplified to raise its prices to its customers and either reduce its already small staff or not hire more staff.' The Retail Litigation Center welcomed the case. It is part of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents big companies like Target, Best Buy and Gap . 'As the suit explains, Congress did not give the President the authority to unilaterally enact tariffs that so profoundly affect the economy and Americans' pocketbooks,' the RLC said. 'Before lasting damage is done to the economy and family budgets, leading retailers support timely judicial review of this abuse of authority from the White House.' A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment. Some companies and trade associations believe Trump's national emergency declaration for his new reciprocal tariffs is on even shakier legal ground than the national emergency he declared for his China tariffs. 'It would appear that the new tariffs that were announced on Wednesday under IEEPA are the weakest link and the one most susceptible to a successful challenge,' said one industry representative, who was granted anonymity to discuss a matter still under consideration. 'They're also the most dramatic … I wouldn't be surprised to see one or more lawsuits coming on the tariffs that were announced on Wednesday.' Those tariffs haven't gone into effect yet, however, with the first tranche — a flat 10 percent duty on all foreign imports — due to be imposed early Saturday and a second round of higher duties on 60-odd trading partners set to go into force on April 9. It's unlikely any group will file a lawsuit until after the tariffs officially go forward. Vecchione said he disagreed that the case against Trump's fentanyl tariffs is weaker than a potential case against the new reciprocal tariffs. That's because IEEPA doesn't give the president the authority to impose tariffs, regardless of the emergency, he argued. Ley Paper and the NCLA are not seeking a preliminary injunction to immediately stop Trump from collecting the duties because such decisions can be appealed and slow down the case, Vecchione said. But they do hope for a ruling by the end of the year that Trump's action was unlawful and unconstitutional, he said. Some lawmakers agree that Congress has delegated too much of its power over tariffs to the executive branch. A bill filed this week by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) would end presidential tariffs after 60 days unless Congress votes to extend them. It gained several new Republican supporters on Friday , but is still unlikely to move forward in the Republican-controlled Congress, where most in the president's party continue to defer to Trump . Likewise, many business groups are deeply fearful of challenging Trump in public, particularly given the chance he could quickly scale back the tariffs. They point to Trump's swift reversal last month on tariffs targeting Canada and Mexico, which he largely paused amid an uproar from business leaders and even some Republicans. Vechhione said he thought fear was the main reason no one else has filed a case yet. 'I think some in the profession are afraid. They're just afraid, and their clients are afraid. They're afraid of the administration,' he said. Caitlin Oprysko and Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.
New York Times
31-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Moon shots and mob movies: Jhonkensy Noel's bid to be Guardians' next big home run hitter
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On an overcast March morning, Jhonkensy Noel stood beside the batting cage near home plate on a back field. He stuck a white donut atop his bat, a powerful, merlot-colored stick with lilac-shaded tape wrapped around the handle. As he waited for Steven Kwan to wrap up his session, Noel bobbed his head, bounced his knees and mouthed some lyrics as 'Dance Monkey' by Tones and I blared from a speaker the size of a middle schooler. Advertisement Noel then stepped up to the plate and obliterated some baseballs. He sprayed line drives to the outfield and, with his final swing, punished a baseball that sailed just to the right of the forest-green batter's eye in center. He swapped places with Kwan again and returned to bobbing his head to the rapid bass of Sean Paul's 'Temperature.' Every day of Noel's life is the best day of his life. 'I've seen him mad, like, once,' Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said, 'and it's scary, so I'm glad he's a jolly person. He's always in a good mood. He loves baseball. He loves working. He loves playing.' His smile illuminates the clubhouse. This spring, he'd take his hacks and then head home to watch a crime-filled thriller movie. One day, 'A Bronx Tale.' The next, 'Casino.' 'Red Dawn' awaits. Noel controls his own destiny this year. The slugger, conservatively listed at 6 foot 3, 250 pounds, isn't sneaking up on anyone, not after the way he delivered for Cleveland's lineup last summer and in the most pivotal moment of the season in October. He's on everyone's radar: Guardians evaluators, opposing pitchers, the fans sitting in the left-field bleachers at Progressive Field, waiting for one of his moon shots to carom off the scoreboard and into their souvenir helmet full of chocolate soft-serve. He's a home run threat in any venue. During the Guardians' season-opening series in Kansas City, Noel dismissed the notion that Kauffman Stadium's spacious outfield makes life tough on those built like him. 'They say it's too big,' Noel said, 'but when you have power, nothing is too big for you.' If he hits, Noel, initially slated to share right field with Nolan Jones, should have no trouble earning more at-bats. Noel ranked among league leaders in bat speed and barrel rate last season. 'We know Jhonkensy could probably hit 50 homers,' teammate David Fry said. Advertisement The question, of course, is whether he'll make enough contact to stay in the lineup, whether he can resist pitches off the plate thrown only to tempt him. He ranked near the bottom of the league leaderboard in chase and whiff rates. 'They say if you love something, you have to work for it,' Noel said. So, that's what he's done, though it'll take some time to learn if he can be a more patient hitter. No one's expecting the 23-year-old to revamp his profile. He's a giant made to mash mistakes, though he noted, 'You're not always going to hit the ball 110 (mph) all the time,' so he needs a flexible approach. And that's why, he said, 'people don't know, but I love bloopers.' If he can demonstrate more selectiveness, it'll make him even more imposing. 'He's on a mission,' Vogt said. 'I'm excited to see the year he's going to put together.' Brayan Rocchio has a photo on his phone of him and Noel in the dugout at the club's complex in the Dominican Republic. Both were 16 years old, a couple of skinny kids who had no idea the challenges that a journey to the big leagues would present. The two bonded over the photo at a recent team gathering. They laughed about the youth in those kids' faces and marveled that they reached the majors together and both enjoyed postseason success as rookies. 'We both have a lot of confidence now,' Rocchio said, 'because the team knows what we can do in those moments.' Noel doesn't tire from watching the replay of his ninth-inning blast against the New York Yankees in Game 3 of the ALCS. He loves hearing about it from fans, especially the ones who recount how they left the game early only to hustle back to the turnstiles when he sent Luke Weaver's changeup spinning toward Lake Erie. JHONKENSY NOEL TIES IT WITH A PINCH HIT HOME RUN! BIG CHRISTMAS!!!! — Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) October 18, 2024 Rocchio commended Noel for staying prepared on the bench, for making himself ready to meet the moment at the most critical juncture of the game — and the season. Noel contends he doesn't typically crave the spotlight but has been humbled by how often he hears from strangers — at the airport, the supermarket, even walking around downtown Cleveland, where, thanks to his size and smile, he sticks out like a January heat wave. Advertisement He wears it as a badge of honor because when he was growing up in San Pedro de Macoris in the D.R., his childhood was divided into three components: 'School, baseball and home,' he said. When he was 12, his parents pulled him out of school and entered him into a baseball academy. 'Where I come from,' Noel added, speaking about his neighborhood, 'I'm the first person to make it to the big leagues.' Before that life-changing homer, Noel was swinging away in the batting cage beneath Progressive Field, adjacent to the Guardians' weight room. His swing felt fluid. It always feels powerful, he said — after all, he looks like Hercules waving a tree trunk. But he can feel in his hips and legs when he's on time and ready to pounce on a pitch. This particular session checked every box. 'I knew I was going to do something,' he said. When Lane Thomas battled back from an 0-2 count to extend the game with a double off the wall and offer Noel a chance at October immortality, Noel knew he could complete the only mission he was dispatched to accomplish. In the stands, Noel's father, Rafael, sat with the slugger's agent. It was Rafael's first visit to the United States, and he left with a memory he'll cherish forever. Noel doesn't like talking baseball with his dad, who tends to question swing decisions as if a split-second is ample time for a hitter to determine whether he can pummel a 92-mph slider on the outside corner. Over the winter, Noel and his dad watched games at a facility in the Dominican. A hitter waved at a fastball down the middle. Rafael said, 'Come on, man.' Noel replied, 'You see? It's not easy. Go hit yourself.' 'Baseball can drive you crazy,' Noel said, laughing. He would know. He carried a .935 OPS into September in his rookie season, only to go 6-for-51 in September and then 1-for-15 before he calmly strolled to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth of Game 3. Advertisement Noel is hoping his October heroics put an end to all father-son second-guessing. Even without his father in his ear, he knows his swing decisions will determine whether he can carve out a regular role with the Guardians. 'When he hits a big home run, he's not smiling,' Vogt said. 'It's, 'I did my job. Here we go. Let's keep going.' Off the field, he's very smiley and engaged, but he knows how to lock it in and that's what makes him great.' That's why, for Noel, it's all about baseball and becoming a more threatening hitter — at least, when he's not watching mob movies. 'That's how I'm learning to hone in,' he said. 'Do my best, put my clothes on and go home and watch a movie. Today, I'm gonna go watch 'The Godfather.''
The Guardian
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The ugly truth of American violence has never been plainer
Among my hazier memories of early adolescence in Qatar is a screening, at a friend's home, of an obviously pirated Betamax copy of Red Dawn. My friend's father – most everyone's father or mother or uncle, whoever – would, while on business trips overseas, visit the occasional video store or flea market and return with whatever films or books or albums they happened to find. It's a haphazard, incomplete thing to consume the culture of a faraway place in this manner, like trying to divine the contours of a mouth from the texture of spittle. Red Dawn is a bad movie. Bad in a special, sincere kind of way. It's about a bunch of teenagers who fight back against a Soviet invasion of the United States. Released in the early 80s, it belongs to a large fraternity of films in which scrappy underdog Americans fight back against the seemingly insurmountable but of course ultimately very surmountable power of the Soviet empire. In a couple of decades, the Russians would pass the baton of villainy to people who look like me, though in our case there was no real empire to speak of, and so we were mostly small-batch insidious, our specialty less tank-and-jet and more suicide-bomb-level violence. It didn't much matter; Red Dawn with Arabs instead of Soviets for villains would have still been shit. Read the Guardian's Q&A with Omar El Akkad here In 2012, almost 30 years after I first watched the original, someone decided to remake Red Dawn. This time, there was no Soviet empire to invade the mainland, and so instead the Chinese would have to do. Again, it didn't much matter – the point isn't geopolitical fidelity, the point is 90 minutes of rah-rahing American tenacity in the face of overwhelming odds. Never back down, never surrender, that sort of thing. Problem is, China is a big market for movies. And so, at the last minute, for fear of missing out on millions in potential box office returns, the producers decided to change the villain. In the final cut of the Red Dawn remake, it's North Korea that invades the United States. It's always the sign of a well-crafted movie when you can change a central narrative beam in post-production and it doesn't make any difference at all. I'm reminded of a guy in one of my old writing groups who, fearing his story didn't have enough female representation, did a find-and-replace and changed every instance of 'Sam' to 'Samantha', then went through and changed the pronouns accordingly, leaving everything else the same. Again, it didn't much matter. Except that it does, over time – this glaring disconnect between cultural self-image and pragmatic reality. In a 2016 essay, the writer and former soldier Roy Scranton describes watching Star Wars while stationed in Baghdad. He is forced in that moment to confront the reality that so much of the American self-image demands a narrative in which his country plays the role of the rebel, the resistance, when at the same time every shred of contemporary evidence around him leads to the conclusion that, by scope and scale and purpose of violence, this country is clearly the empire. A central privilege of being of this place becomes, then, the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts simultaneously. The first being the belief that one's nation behaves in keeping with the scrappy righteousness of the underdog. The second being an unspoken understanding that, in reality, the most powerful nation in human history is no underdog, cannot possibly be one, but at least the immense violence implicit in the contradiction will always be inflicted on someone else. I've seen this person many times – they occupy a hallowed place in American culture, catered to by so many of the nation's dominant cultural forces, from Monday Night Football to the Country Music Awards to the entirety of AM radio. It's the person who in self-image professes to be a rule-breaker, untamable, wild – and in the next breath sides unquestioningly with every facet of state power. I've seen the Punisher decal on the bumper, the stylized American flag denoting the thin blue line: I'm an outlaw; also, anyone who disobeys the cops deserves to be killed. My first impulse is to mock the contradiction, but there's no contradiction, not really, because the bedrock of this particular identity isn't conformity or nonconformity – it's self-interest. Anyone who buys into both the narrative of American rebelliousness and the reality of American authority understands that both have been created to serve them. The man in the action movie looks one way, the man the cops just shot in a traffic stop another. Toward the end of December 2023, the South African government brings charges of genocide against Israel at the international court of justice. The case rests on Israel's wholesale destruction of health facilities and the blocking of aid as evidence that what is being destroyed here isn't a single terror organization, but a whole people. Much of the initial South African brief relies on the words of Israeli officials themselves, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's referencing of the complete destruction of Amalek in the Bible. Among those who have been calling for an end to the relentless killing, the development inspires a set of conflicting emotions. First, there is the basic relief of watching some official entity – any entity – do something. Time and again, in conversation with friends, some of whom have lost family members in this killing spree, there is a sense that one must be going mad: to see so plainly the destruction, the murdered children filmed and presented for the world to look upon and then to hear the leaders of virtually every western nation contend that this is not happening, that whatever is happening is good and righteous and should continue and that in fact the wellbeing of the Palestinian people demands this continue – it's enough to feel like you're losing your mind. Second, there is the realization that of course it would be a country like South Africa that would take this step – a country deeply versed in the ugly mechanics of apartheid, for whose citizens checkpoints and forcefully sealed-off towns are not abstractions, but the very recent past that, from the safety of the present, everyone now claims they always opposed. Beyond relief and recognition, there is a more complicated thing – an understanding that the machinery of the west has never had much of a capacity for self-diagnosis. Who does? Who that achieves power of this scale ever does? Waiting on a western judicial institution to cast judgment on a killing spree financed and endorsed by the west means, inevitably, watching a disjointed ballet of impossible reconciling. The narrative – as enshrined in countless constitutions and declarations and charters which are so often held up as the differentiating marker of superiority of this world over the other – demands moral purity, opposition to injustice, adherence to the principle that all innocent lives are equal and deserving of dignity. The reality is that an ally of the west is killing civilians by the tens of thousands and it would be politically inconvenient to call this wrong now when for months, years, decades it has been deemed perfectly fine. And so we must watch the impotent pantomime of a Canadian prime minister declaring that while his government absolutely supports the international court of justice, it doesn't support the premise of the South African case, whatever that tortured rhetorical construction is supposed to mean. We must watch the German government – whose police forces, in the name of fighting antisemitism, arrested Jewish protesters calling for a ceasefire – come to Israel's defense at the court. In time there will be findings of genocide. There will be warrants issued, even. The structures of international law, undermined at every turn, will nonetheless attempt to operate as if law were an evenly allotted thing. As though criminality remains criminal even when the powerful support, bankroll, or commit the crime. It's no use, in the end, to scream again and again at the cold, cocooned center of power: I need you, just this once, to be the thing you pretend to be. There is an impulse in moments like this to appeal to self-interest. To say: these horrors you are allowing to happen, they will come to your doorstep one day; to repeat the famous phrase about who they came for first and who they'll come for next. But this appeal cannot, in matter of fact, work. If the people well served by a system that condones such butchery ever truly believed the same butchery could one day be inflicted on them, they'd tear the system down tomorrow. And anyway, by the time such a thing happens, the rest of us will already be dead. No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness? Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul. In the summer of 2014, I began writing the first draft of my debut novel, American War. It's a piece of speculative fiction set in the 2070s and covers the aftermath of a second civil war. I never thought of it as a particularly American book, but rather an attempt to superimpose stories from the other side of the planet onto the heart of the empire. It didn't seem like a particularly clever narrative trick on my part. Three weeks or so after I finished the first draft, Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president. The novel would end up being published in April 2017 and come to be almost universally read as an exclusively American story, a literal prediction of where this country might be headed. A bidding war breaks out for the film rights. Time and again, various production company executives tell me how perfectly the novel has managed to capture this moment in American life, and I can't help but think that the exact opposite is true. Something of American life has captured the novel. The word 'dangerous' is used quite often, always as a compliment. Then, in January 2024, I receive an email from the director who was set to work on the American War adaptation, letting me know he and the production company are stepping away from the project. 'Prudence suggests this is not the time for making movies about freedom fighters or terrorists (no matter which side of that argument one is on),' he writes. A few weeks earlier, a novelist I know tells me her appearance at a small book club has been canceled – the organizer tells her it's because they 'stand with Israel'. My friend is an American of half-Egyptian, half-Scottish descent. A Palestinian artist's retrospective at the University of Indiana is shuttered. People who call for a ceasefire are demoted, fired, called antisemites and terrorist-supporters. It all feels so petty, the stakes so low. On the other side of the planet entire bloodlines are being wiped out and here in the sheltered world we are subject to relatively pathetic indignities – loss of income, disinvitations, cold shoulders from people who in a different time might have been quite proud of themselves for having a Brown friend. Every now and then we hear about those instances when the stakes turned out not to be so low, when this passive punishment transformed into something much more active, sometimes deadly. But for the most part it's just a constant trickle of reminders of one's place in the hierarchy – and it is precisely because of this that it becomes so tempting to just shut up, let what's going to happen happen to those people over there and then, when it's done, ease into whatever opinion the people whose approval matters deem acceptable. I start to see this more often, as the body count climbs – this malleability of opinion. At a residency on the coast of Oregon, I read the prologue to this book; a couple of days later, one of the other writers decides to strike up a conversation. 'I'm not a Zionist,' she says. 'But you know, I'm not anti-Zionist either. It's all just so complicated.' I have no idea what to say. I feel like an audience at a dress rehearsal. There's a convenience to having modular opinions; it's why so many liberal American politicians slip an occasional reference of concern about Palestinian civilians into their statements of unconditional support for Israel. Should the violence become politically burdensome, they can simply expand that part of the statement as necessary, like one of those dinner tables you lengthen to accommodate more guests than you expected. And it is important, too, that this amoral calculus rise and fall in proportion to the scale of the killing, so that one might always be able to say, 'Well, we could never have known it would get this bad, but now, now everything has changed.' It's almost refreshing, then, when one is faced with the ugliest and yet most honest face of western apathy, the face that knows full well the scale and severity of the horror but believes it to be absolutely justified, absolutely necessary. I know this face, too. It appears on talk shows and atop opinion pieces stating, euphemistically or not, that the same world in which you can buy avocados all year round and your iPhone keeps getting more powerful and you never have to live in fear of an occupying force obliterating your family with missiles is the world in which an insignificant group of people you'll never meet simply have to die. And whatever disgust this equation, laid bare, might inspire, many know it to be true. This is the world we've created, a world in which one privileged sliver consumes, insatiable, and the best everyone else can hope for is to not be consumed. It is not without reason that the most powerful nations on earth won't intervene to stop a genocide but will happily bomb one of the poorest countries on the planet to keep a shipping lane open. How long can the fabric of a pleasing story hold? Presented the facts of the situation without label, without real-world anchor, like actors asked to read the screenplay and pick a role, how many Americans would instinctively choose that of the Palestinian calling for an end to occupation? The South African calling for an end to apartheid? The Haitian calling for self-rule? How many would want to believe, as so much of the culture here has always strained to believe, that they side with the underdog, the downtrodden who refuses to give up, the rebel in the face of empire? And then, should the scenes be transposed back to the unforgiving reality of the world as it is, how many, knowing the limitations of the stories we tell ourselves, would just as instinctively retreat into the comforting fold of empire? One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad is out now in the UK published by Canongate. It will be released tomorrow, 25 February, in the United States by Knopf, and in Canada by McClelland & Stewart. Spot illustrations by Ben Hickey
