Today’s celebration of D-Day takes on new meaning this year. Once again we are faced with the challenge of fending off and defeating a rising fascist threat here at home and worldwide. But this time the main field of struggle, unlike 80 years ago, is the current elections where Biden and other Democratic candidates face off against Trump and other Republicans.

The outcome of this existential struggle will turn, not on the weapons of war as it did seven decades ago, but the energy, unity, and political acuity of an expansive coalition (which it should be emphasized has the Democratic Party in its middle) and its success in educating and activating tens of millions to vote on election day for Biden and other Democrats running for office.

Each of us, I believe, can and should find a practical way to assist in this effort. Nothing wrong with rhetorical broadsides against Trump and MAGA on social media, but such broadsides are no substitute for the seemingly drab, out of view work to register and mobilize tens of millions of voters to use their voting power to defeat Trump and MAGA in November.

The protracted nature of the war between Russia and Ukraine is an argument to restart negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. A failure to do so runs the danger of a further escalation of the war, including the likely introduction of new and more devastating weapons and the triggering of a wider conflict.

Realpolitik — a sober estimate of the state of the fighting between the two warring countries, one, Ukraine, defending its homeland, the other, Putin’s Russia, invading a neighboring country, equipped with its superior military and financial resources — is an imperative at this moment.

Justice, of course, lies on the Ukrainian side, but in this war the superior weaponry of one side and the ruthlessness of its leader is an inescapable reality that can’t be assumed away. It’s a shame as well as an expression of analytical and moral bankruptcy that significant sections of the U.S. peace movement would reduce the fighting between an expansionary, immoral, and imperial power on one side and a state and people fighting for their independence on the other to no more than a “proxy war” between Russia and the United States.

The great and ever exuberant Bill Walton is gone, but still refuses to fade away!!! Tip my banner to the big redhead!. Walton attended over 1000 Grateful Dead concerts. Once he took his Celtic teammates —- Bird, McHale, Parish. Johnson, et all —- to a Dead concert in Worcester, near Boston. And they loved it!

By the way, Fade Away was written by the Great Buddy Holly.

Trump and the MAGA crowd, encamped in Christian churches and colleges, legislative halls and courts, the media and social media, and insurrectionary and proto brown shirt groups, see this moment as “their moment” to transform the state, society, and country into a white nationalist, Christian neofascist fortress.

What is more, in their calculus, electing Trump is the necessary gateway and once in a lifetime opportunity to realize their vision. What should we do in the face of this existential threat and challenge? Simply said, engage the American people and do the sweated labor and unsung work to get out the vote on Election Day.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel — closely connected to Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) — has called on “conscientious people, organizations, and unions around the world” not to engage with Standing Together, describing it as an “Israeli normalization outfit that seeks to distract from and whitewash Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

How ridiculous! This is divisive and sectarian posturing, disguised as anti-colonialist radicalism. Unless challenged, it can easily impede the broadening and deepening of the movement/coalition in the U.S. for a just peace in this longstanding conflict and struggle. Actually, STA is an organization of Arabs and Israelis, heavily on the young side, who in words and deeds work for peace, full equality and national rights for the Palestinian people, and mutual security for both peoples. Not many mix justice and unity into an organic whole as well as ST. Currently, ST is defending aid workers and shipments into Gaza from Israeli right wing extremists.