Progressive Political News

In my role as an ecology professor for the past twenty years, I’ve thought a lot about climate change and ecosystem collapse, which naturally makes me a fun person to be around. I’ve also voted in every election since I turned eighteen. My experience and education give me faith in the power of small acts. At this moment, that faith is badly needed. 

Let me explain by giving the example of an acorn. With the proper nurturing, an acorn can sprout, grow and, in time, become an oak tree. A single small oak keeps a location cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It improves the air and water by absorbing pollutants and reduces atmospheric carbon by approximately 400 pounds a year. 

An oak tree is also the base of the food chain and a keystone species. The tree provides food to our native insects, which in turn provide nutrition for birds. Planting native oak trees feeds at least 100 vertebrate species and 500 insect species. Caring for a tree is a simple, concrete act that helps make the world a little better.

Voting and writing letters to one’s fellow citizens are also simple, concrete acts. This year, as part of an effort by a group called Vote Forward, I wrote non-partisan letters urging other Americans to vote. Each letter contained a sentence or two on why I vote. I mentioned my children, their rights, and the world I want for them. 

In some letters, I talked about how women have not had the right to vote for long—best not to squander it. In others, I talked about democracy and how leaders should be chosen by the people. In some, I talked about kindness and empathy, and how I wanted leaders who had these characteristics. 

Waking up the morning of November 6, I felt like nothing would ever matter again. But as an ecologist, I know that systems that seem dead may simply be in a season of dormancy. I know that fires can leave a landscape blackened but are necessary for certain critical habitats to flourish. 

In North Carolina, Kate Barr ran for state senate in the district where she lives. Her campaign website states, “District 37 is so gerrymandered I don’t stand a chance. But we deserve to have two names on the ballot.” Amen. Her campaign was a small act of defiance. Its uniqueness, grace, and humor attracted national media attention to the issue of gerrymandering. 

We all need to practice small acts of defiance and hope—now more than ever.

One thing I know as an ecologist is that indirect effects and ripple effects are very real in nature. If one tree matters, perhaps one good politician matters, or one act of kindness. Kate Barr, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton—they all have influenced this big complex experiment we call America in indirect ways.

To be sure, we face a challenge that is new in our nation’s history. A storm is coming, and we should prepare. But part of how we stay strong is through these small acts. 

One tree can’t withstand a hurricane, but a grove of trees may. Storms require us to come together as a community to rethink, restore, and reinvent. We should embrace the spirit of the writer Wendell Berry, who in one of his most famous poems advises, “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” 

As we stagger forward in this bewildering time, we need to keep the faith. There are good, kind people in our country. As Thoreau wrote, “Convince me that you have a seed there and I am prepared to expect wonders.” Keep planting seeds.

This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.

In October, streaming giant Netflix quietly announced that it would be removing a category of films on the platform known as “Palestinian Stories,” a curated collection that included award-winning films like Annemarie Jacir’s Salt of this Sea and Golden Globe-winning director Hany Abu-Assad’s film Omar, which took the Jury Prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. As of this writing, the collection’s landing page still appears on the Netflix website but is empty. 

“Instead of deleting Palestinian content, Netflix should be promoting Palestinian stories,” Sunjeev Bery, executive director of the nonprofit organization Freedom Forward, said in an email to The Progressive. Bery’s organization was one of more than three dozen signatories on an October 25 letter to Netflix executives that said the platform’s move “will further marginalize Palestinian voices at a time when over two million Palestinians in Gaza are being subjected to genocide by the Israeli military.” 

The campaign went viral, with some 1.4 million people viewing Bery’s post on X which listed the deleted films. Among the groups amplifying the post was SAG-AFTRA & Sister Guild Members for Ceasefire, whose members include several prominent actors such as Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon. In March, the group issued an open letter to Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), the entertainment industry’s leading guild, saying that its members could not “stand idly by as our industry refuses to tell the story of Palestinian humanity.”  

Lizbeth McManus, an organizer with SAG-AFTRA & Sister Guild Members for Ceasefire in the Washington, D.C., area, tells The Progressive that, despite including broadcast journalists among its members, the guild has yet to condemn Israel’s killing of reporters and other media professionals in Gaza. In October, the watchdog organization Reporters Without Borders said more than a hundred Palestinian journalists had been killed in the preceding year. Israel has also barred entry to the besieged strip by international media organizations, leading to a near-total media blackout.          

Despite the international outcry over its removal of Palestinian films, Netflix took weeks to respond to critics, who contend that the sudden removal of so many titles at once was likely the result of a pressure campaign. Netflix asserts that the purge resulted from the end of a three-year licensing contract signed in 2021. One industry insider, who had helped distribute a Palestinian film previously featured on the platform, says the chances that all of the films’ licensing agreements had expired at once were slim to none. The source adds that filmmakers are typically compensated in a single lump sum when Netflix purchases a title, not by individual views. That means the streaming service has no financial incentive to take down a film if it is not being viewed by many. 

If anything, given Israel’s unrelenting onslaught—which has so far killed more than 40,000 people—it seems plausible that the platform’s famously secret algorithm could be registering growing interest in Palestinian stories. That the films’ removal coincided with the headlines out of Gaza has led activists to speculate that the move was a political, rather than a business, choice. Netflix shares scant information on individual titles’ play rate, typically by featuring its top films or shows in “most popular” lists organized by category. Still, with Gaza continuing to command headlines in the United States and abroad, it’s little wonder that more than 18,000 people have already signed a petition calling on Netflix to reinstate the deleted films. 

The petition, launched by CODEPINK, says the Netflix move is part of a “systemic erasure of Palestinian voices” that “prevents broader audiences from understanding the reality of Israel’s brutal occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and now, genocide of Palestinians.” 

“With the ongoing occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of the Palestinian people, it’s more important than ever to bring their stories to the world,” McManus said in a statement released by Freedom Forward. “As actors, artists, and media professionals, we hold firm in our solidarity with the people of Palestine, and condemn the systemic suppression of Palestinian voices.” 

Netflix did not respond to a request for comment from The Progressive. 

Jon Rainwater, executive director of Peace Action, adds that Netflix’s decision “denies Americans access to critical information and vitally important stories that can inform U.S. perspectives about a war that the U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for.” Last month, Brown University’s Costs of War project estimated that U.S. military aid to Israel in the past year stood at at least $17.9 billion, a figure that excludes spending on American troops and other assets sent to the Middle East to back Israel’s campaign.  

Americans are stockpiling reproductive health medications amid fears of restrictions under the next administration.

Governors Safeguarding Democracy will “catalyze collaboration across state lines,” says co-founder J.B. Pritzker.