A few weeks ago, I stood in front of the SLO County government building in downtown San Luis Obispo alongside fellow Code Pink activists to mark the anniversary of the Nakba and to mourn the more than 15,000 Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces. Some of us held signs bearing the names of the children. Others carried shrouded dolls labeled with causes of death—starvation, hypothermia, or bullets.
It was lunchtime, and workers from nearby government offices and courtrooms filtered past us. A few paused to read our signs or take an informational handout. Most moved on, polite but disengaged. One sharply broke the quiet: a well-dressed man glanced at our signs and called out, “Jew haters.”
How have we reached a point where mourning dead children and protesting war crimes are equated with antisemitism? This kind of moral confusion is not just intellectually lazy—it is dangerous. And it’s mild compared to what New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani has faced: threats, slurs, and relentless attacks for daring to criticize Israel’s conduct.
But Mamdani is not alone. A recent Data for Progress poll found that nearly 70 percent of Democrats now hold a negative view of Israel’s government. Among Jewish Americans, another poll reveals that 30 percent overall—and 38 percent of those under 44—believe Israel is committing genocide. Even Matthew Miller, a former spokesperson for the Biden administration and longtime Israel supporter, recently acknowledged that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza.
If New York can produce leaders like Mamdani who are unafraid to speak the truth, San Luis Obispo’s elected Democrats can too. It’s time for our representatives to stop hiding behind outdated narratives and start reflecting the values of their constituents. That means publicly opposing arms sales to Israel and voting accordingly.
We also need our local Democratic leadership to step up to the plate, including nonpartisan groups like Indivisible. So far, they have ignored requests by pro-Palestinian groups to champion their cause.
We do not need polite indifference. We need moral courage.
Jill Stegman
Grover Beach
This article appears in Jul 3-13, 2025.
Genocide is Genocide regardless who conducts it.
America can not be a party to this and still fly our flag proudly
Thank You for this excellent letter.
AIPAC, Netanyahu and Trump are distorting the meaning of “anti-semitism” to help damage to our Educational System, and move us closer to an Authoritarian State with false white nationalist history, and will lead us down a slippery slope into Censorship and dictatorship.
Trump and Netanyahu are both narcissists and intent on destroying their own democracies, judicial systems and Rule of Law in both of their countries, to keep them out of prison for their continued corruption.
And as we all know, Netanyahu continues his Genocide, which Trump supports.
Both are using “antisemitism” as a distraction and distortion of the word antisemitism’s actual meaning.
They both have been taking lessons from Putin..
They are all working to destabilize the Democratic Western World to broaden the club of Despotic Dictators.
The favored progressive narrative is that Israel is causing the suffering of the people of Gaza. Is that true?
Last Thursday, the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry of Gaza issued the statement: “It is strictly forbidden to deal with, work for or provide any form of assistance to the American organization (GHF)., or its local or foreign agents”. They then threatened “legal action” including the imposition of the “maximum penalties” for any violation of this order.
GHF is the joint American-Israel organization distributing food aid in Gaza directly to residents, instead of using Hamas controlled agencies. Several international organization, including the UN, have joined in denouncing GHF, but do not have their own food distribution systems in place.
Hamas has previously looted food aid and sold it to Gazans, and apparently is not happy about being cut out as the middleman, as well as the public relations boost to the US and Israel from distributing aid. They are willing to starve the Gazans to enforce their will.
Gazans are a tool the domestic and global left rally around in order whitewash their own sins. Just look at the US and what left wing, not sensible, policies have done. Rather than have a fully funded, public, free, healthcare system, we have bogus “public/private” options. We have a stratified Obamacare system. They just can’t do it, even todays “left” is beholden to the same capital controlling RINOs.
Lastly, let’s not forget who started the debacle in Israel and Gaza: HAMAS. You don’t get to fly hanggliders into Israel, machine gun teenagers, kidnap old women in wheelchairs, and gleefully escape back into Gaza without paying a price. Well, Palestinians are getting what they payed for. Sure hope it was worth it.
Californians, let’s NOT look to New York. New York was the home to this country’s biggest oligarchs and home of Tammeny Hall. If anyone needs to be deported, let’s begin with New Yorkers. You don’t know racism until you know a Boomer New Yorker. They look at us and anybody west of the Hudson River as provincial bumpkins. Don’t believe me? Look at this iconic cover of The New Yorker magazine:
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/new-yo…
TOSHOGU:
And when can we fly our flag proudly? The world is a dangerous place. Would you tell veterans from your parent’s generation, after winning WWII, they couldn’t fly out flag proudly because we dropped two a-bombs on Japan? You can’t sit in the lap of luxury yet at the same time criticize the flag of the country that provided you everything. What have you personally done for your country other than take from it that gives you the right to criticize it? I’m poor and I’ll stay fly my flag. If it bothers you so much, just return your social security check to the government or stop paying taxes. God knows the country could use it. That flag you mock, gave you and your family everything you have. Love it or leave it.
“I’m poor and still fly my flag?”
Cry me a river! If you are so poor why do you seem to have ample time to spew hundreds of words of repetitive drivel on this website?
“Are there no workhouses?”
Allow me to summarize the literally hundreds of posts by Fly/Shanti:
He’s poor despite having a college education (in history–no wonder). He can barely feed himself and his family and regularly purchases discount flour so he can make his own bread in a bread maker.
He’s convinced the U.S. economy (all $28 trillion of it) is about to collapse (whatever that means) and all of us will be eating out of trash cans soon. He blames the Democrats and baby boomers for all this. That generation squandered the wealth and goodwill of their forefathers (never mind that GDP today is more than 100 times higher than it was when his beloved FDR died).
Russia is a good country and is within its rights to invade a democratic neighbor and conquer them. The U.S. should not help, and, in fact, the U.S. should basically abandon any military presence in the world and destroy DOD. And those pesky Dems brought us close to apocalypse with their support of Ukraine, forcing him to take his kids to a bunker under the train station next to his house to avoid the fallout from the world war that seems to pervade his mind.
He’s a veteran who flies the flag and hates immigrants who have come to this country without documentation. Why? Maybe he really aspires to be a lettuce picker or a gardener and these brown skinned folks are hampering his dream. Who knows?
I guess I’m just as pathetic for being able to catalogue that. Above all, this is no criticism of the man’s character. I’m sure he’s a good guy. I’m just sick of reading his tripe. I guess maybe I’m the one who should move on. Enough said.
Michael:
You’re still stuck in the 50s where a college degree would open the doors to a pretty comfortable life. Yes, I have a college degree, but unlike the era you still exist in, it is basically the equivalent of a high school degree.
I work two low paying jobs and have never received any public assistance. I’m not ashamed of being poor, it is what it is. It’s not my fault either, it’s structural. There’s millions of people just like me.
The dollar has lost close to 11 percent of its purchasing power in the last 6 months. The US borrows close to a trillion dollars every 90 days. The dollar is about to lose its reserve currency status. The housing market is on the verge of collapsing. They’re having trouble finding buyers at Treasury auctions of our national debt instruments.
You are going down with the rest of us. Not to get biblical, but isnt it written that haughtiness goes before destruction? You are standing pretty tall, sir. You might want to learn about the concept of humility before it is forced on you, lol. And considering our economy, you will.
If you’ll pardon me, I’m going to go use that flour and make some pizza dough. We don’t have a lot, but we do eat well.