There Haven’t Been This Many Conflicts Since WWII

Queridas lectoras,

Quiero desearles a todos un feliz Mes de Herencia Hispane y Latine. Sé que somos mas que un solo idioma, pero es una de las cosas que nos unen a muchos de nosotros. Eso y tambien siglos de opresión. Un tema para un día diferente 🤷🏼‍♀️.

In today’s newsletter, we look at the attacks in Lebanon, learn more about Project 2025’s plans for the planet, and celebrate a new world record holder.

In love and Spanglish,

Shannon Melero

WHAT’S GOING ON

One more war: According to Vision of Humanity, there are 56 ongoing armed conflicts right now around the world—more than at any time since World War II. And over the last few days, one of them, the conflict in Lebanon, has become more deadly, with strikes from the Israeli military rattling the country. Nearly 600 people have been killed, including 50 children; nearly 2000 have been injured, and thousands more are now being displaced by violence.

Israel says it is targeting the militant group Hezbollah, but the casualties are mainly civilian, and this should surprise no one—90 percent of wartime deaths are. And just as in every other zone of conflict, it is the women and children of Lebanon who will endure the brunt of Israel’s latest offensive. (If Hezbollah’s threats of revenge are to be believed, Israeli women will suffer as well.)  It is an endless cycle that has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 women and children since October 7, not to mention the multitude of displaced Palestinians who will soon be joined by their Lebanese counterparts in refugee camps and asylum programs across the globe.

It is untenable for Israel and its allies (like the United States) to sustain all these running conflicts, not just from an economic and political perspective, but from a human cost perspective. Women are the main drivers of most economies, but they cannot do that when they’re dead, displaced, or saddled with the disproportionate “secondary and lasting effects of war and conflict,” left behind to raise the orphans, to heal the wounded, to teach at the rubble that was once a school.

Last week at Free Future 2024, Dr. Salamishah Tillet explained the paradox of expecting women to end gender-based violence this way: “Women have this unfair burden of being the primary community that’s victimized and then that’s also held responsible for stopping the violence. So that paradox is impossible; it means we’re never gonna end the problem because we’re busy healing from the trauma…so if we’re going to end this epidemic, you actually need men and boys central to the movement.”

She was speaking of personal assault and not war, but the analogy holds: What we all need now is for the men and boys sitting in war rooms to finally come to the decision that human lives—women’s lives—are worth the strenuous effort it takes to choose the route of diplomacy and compromise.

AND:

• On Saturday, Tara Dower, an endurance athlete, broke the supported Fastest Known Time for the Appalachian Trail. Dower completed the trail—which spans 14 states, from Maine to Georgia—in 40 days, 18 hours, and five minutes. Just to put that into perspective for you: It takes anywhere from five to seven months for the average person to complete the AT. Dower’s record-breaking thru-hike raised $21,076 for Girls on the Run.

DOWER AT THE END OF HER THRU-HIKE (VIA INSTAGRAM)

• Arielle Samuelson and Emily Atkins, the brilliant journalists behind the climate newsletter HEATED, have been covering Project 2025’s overlooked (and really strange) environmental plans. And this week’s subject caught me so off guard I thought I was reading a satire. Apparently, Republicans have been slowly but surely painting Democrats as enemies of *pause for dramatic effect* dishwashers and washing machines. And in order to protect voters from, as Rep. Van Drew (R-NJ) described them, “Democrats who want to take the damn refrigerator away,” Project 2025 suggests repealing a Reagan-era law that mandates water- and electricity-saving regulations for household appliances.

• And since we’re already talking about Republicans and their “wordsmithing,” there’s a new episode of Anti-Abortion Glossary with Jessica Valenti waiting for you, and this time she’s exploring the sneaky phrase “minimum national standard.” Which, Valenti explains, is just a really wordy rebrand for abortion ban—something Republicans have figured out most Americans don’t support.

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