In Ireland, the history of boycott is a mixed one. The term has its origins in an episode in the Land War, a series of agrarian struggles in Ireland in the 1880s. Captain Charles Boycott, the agent for Lord Erne in County Mayo, sought to evict tenant farmers for nonpayment of rent. The farmers, organized [...]
Even non-connoisseurs are reeling from the miserable second-quarter GDP numbers released this morning. Between the first and second quarters of this year, GDP was off 33 percent after adjustment for inflation. That’s by far the biggest decline since quarterly numbers began in 1947. That 33 percent figure is at an annualized rate, meaning GDP would [...]
Almost five months into South Africa’s lockdown, new studies are finally indicating the extent of economic devastation it has caused. An estimated 3 million people lost their jobs in the early stages of the lockdown, and once the rest of the lockdown period is factored into future studies, the numbers are bound to increase. Unemployment already [...]
In recent weeks, the lawfare waged against Ecuador’s former president Rafael Correa reached new levels of viciousness — and desperation. On July 20, Ecuador’s national court ratified its previous decision sentencing Correa to eight years in prison in the “Bribes Case,” alleging that the left-wing president had operated a web of corruption during his time [...]
Den småborgerlige, nationalkonservative identitetspolitik har påvirket alle de seneste 20 år. Selv Uffe Elbæk kan mærke dens åg på hans skuldre.
Indlægget Uffe Elbæk: Get used to it, Dansk Folkeparti! blev først udgivet på
Strawberries, a symbol of British summertime, have long been tainted by the myriad human rights abuses that take place before they arrive on our supermarket shelves. In the summer of Covid-19, these abusive practices have reached their apex. The supply chains of supermarkets like Tesco and Marks and Spencer trace back to Huelva, in southern [...] 
Af David Rovics, musiker “Når jeg har set mig omkring gennem disse to måneder, særligt på en god dag, ser jeg så megen energi og så mange mennesker, som vi nogensinde har set under Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, protesterne mod ICE’s børnebortførelser og de unge klima- og antimassakre bevægelser gennem de seneste år [...] It would be tempting to describe last week’s nuclear scandals — in three states — as something out of the Wild West. But Al Capone’s Chicago would be a more accurate analogy. While no actual shots were fired, some pretty powerful metaphorical ones were, warnings that engaging in criminal racketeering and fraud to fleece ratepayers More
The name Homeland Security grates on a lot of people, understandably. Homeland isn’t really an American word, it’s not something we used to say or say now. It has a vaguely Teutonic ring – Ve must help ze Fuehrer protect ze Homeland! – and Republicans must always be on guard against sounding Teutonic. –Peggy Noonan The federal More
Patients and visitors to Sutter Health’s shiny new hospital in Santa Rosa, Calif., are greeted with large banners, “Heroes Work Here.” This no doubt is true. At Kaiser Permanente’s hospitals we learn much the same, the giant HMO has awarded itself Five Stars for service. And this of course is all about Covid-19. California’s new spike in Covid cases is [...]
White supremacy is not only white over black, it is also the small number of rich whites over the much larger number of poor and working class whites. In return for a guarantee that the latter group of whites will suffer the many calamities of life afflicting working people in a capitalist society less intensely and less frequently than do [...]
If you protest against police brutality in America, you are definitely going to get brutalized by the police. And lately, federal marshals, homeland security, ICE officers, and assorted militarized federal goons and thugs will pile on. If you led a movement against police brutality in Rochester, NY in 2006, like Rev. Joy Powell did, you More
Microbes do not recognize borders. We are all safe only when everybody is safe. In a pandemic, to attack the only body we have for global cooperation endangers everyone. That is why the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) is dangerous not only for the United States, but for all of the world. More
The saving rate hit a record 25.7 percent level in the first quarter, indicating that few of the pandemic checks were spent. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shrank at a record 32.9 percent annual rate in the second quarter. While almost all the major categories of GDP fell sharply, a 43.5 percent drop in consumption More
As illegal Jewish settlers increase their attacks on Palestinian civilians in the occupied city of Al Khalil (Hebron), the people of the Palestinian city continue to mount a campaign of popular resistance. One of the channels of resistance is Human Rights Defenders, “a grass-roots, non-partisan Palestinian organization, working to support nonviolent popular resistance through popular More
Whether you consider the appalling death toll or the equally unacceptable rising numbers of Covid-19 cases, the United States has one of the worst records worldwide when it comes to the pandemic. Nevertheless, the president has continued to behave just as he promised he would in March when there had been only 40 deaths from More
Public health messages addressed to the general population should be clear and unambiguous. This is particularly important in times of a pandemic like that caused by the coronavirus. Millions of lives are at stake. One of the messages, “social distancing,” widely used by public health authorities during the present pandemic, exemplifies this shortcoming. It should More
Only time will tell whether Chesa Boudin, the current San Francisco DA, really walks the walk and talks the talk in the tradition of legendary DA Terence Hallinan. But after six months in office—he took over in January 2020—Boudin is off to a good start. Hallinan, who died on January 17, 2020, would surely approve of More
The recently released Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest Service (HLCNF) plan is a huge disappointment by recommending only 153,000 acres out of 1,500,000 eligible aces of the forest for new wilderness. The Forest Service did not recommend wilderness for many deserving areas like the Elkhorn Mountains, Teton/Blackleaf along the Rocky Mountain Front, Camas Creek in More
Years ago, Elizabeth Brennan Moynihan told me about her disgust with the Democratic Party’s outside consultants. These consultants were not competent. They were arrogant, costly, and looking out first for their interests, not the candidates they were supposed to advance. She threw them out and personally took over her husband, Senator Daniel P. Moynihan’s successful More
Six months into a global pandemic, the US economy just took its most grievous hit on record, while Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook only added wealth. In just three months, April through June, so many workers were furloughed, laid off or forced to work and school from home, that the economy shriveled by 32.9% or More
New hydropower project would harm Little Colorado River and endangered species Washington, D.C. — A coalition of conservation groups filed a motion to intervene today to oppose a preliminary permit for a hydropower project near the Little Colorado River by the same company that proposed two similar projects last year. Earthjustice is representing Save the More
Udsendelsen 1. august 2020 Tilbage fra sommerferie kommer vi både ind på, hvad der er gået galt i plejesektoren og 75 året for atombomben og kommer med lidt indtryk fra årets sommerlejr og når også at tale om hvem der skal betale for, at alle skal til at tage masker på i den offentlige trafik. [...] The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a political anomaly. Ruled by a Communist Party but spurned by the Eastern Bloc following the 1948 Tito–Stalin split, this federation of six republics was held together under Tito’s banner of an inter-ethnic, inter-religious, and international “brotherhood and unity.” Subsequent to its repudiation by the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia [...]
Last month, Labour leader Keir Starmer announced that all Labour staff members, including himself, would undergo compulsory unconscious bias training. This comes after the criticism he received following a BBC Breakfast interview where he described the Black Lives Matter movement as a “moment” and dismissed one of the fundamental aims of the movement — defunding [...]
Seven years ago, two teams from England’s North West went down to Wembley Stadium to play out one of football’s great David-and-Goliath stories. In the final moments of the FA Cup Final, Ben Watson’s bullet header won the game for plucky Wigan Athletic against cash-rich Manchester City, whose two strikers cost four times more than [...]
After stepping down from the Mexican presidency in December of 2018, Enrique Peña Nieto has been having a swell old time. Following his divorce from Angelica Rivera, the soap-opera star who stayed by his side just long enough for him to complete his term, Peña Nieto has been flouncing around the world in the company [...]
Praised for his lyrical ability, Cormega might not have gotten the commercial success of some of his peers, but he’s more than made up for it in respect and acclaim. Listeners might have first encountered him when he was shouted out on Nas’s “One Love” or for his brief spell as a member of The [...]
When Isabel Telinhos left her apartment all dolled up on January 13, 1975 — high heels, tight skirt, fake eyelashes, and a curly blond wig like Marilyn Monroe — she had no idea what would happen next. “I brought my kid with me and everything, like all these other women. It was supposed to be [...]
Efter flere ugers eskalering med politiovergreb på demonstranter i Portland, Oregon, indgik delstaten i denne uge en aftale med de føderale politiagenter, om at de skulle stoppe besættelsen af byen og trække sig ud af centrum. Til gengæld lovede delstaten “at opretholde sikkerheden”. Svaret fra Præsident Trump var en trussel om at indsætte National Garden, [...] On its face, the scandal currently embroiling Canada’s Liberal government looks like a fairly pedestrian conflict-of-interest story. In brief: back in April, the government unveiled a new, $912-million student grant program which would pay students up to $5,000 for volunteer work. On June 26, prime minister Justin Trudeau announced that the program would be administered [...]
On the streets of Portland unidentified men in full body armor and military style uniforms pulled people into unmarked cars in a manner that was all too similar to the behavior of authoritarian regimes. This paramilitary operation in an American city was carried out by the US Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Rapid Deployment Force [...]
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has stood firm against intensifying pressure to avert massive budget cuts by raising taxes on the many billionaires who live in his state. As that campaign to tax billionaires got a recent boost from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York’s Democratic state legislative leaders, Cuomo has insisted that he fears [...]
This week, a House subcommittee held a high-profile hearing interrogating the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google about their growing market power. But as more congressional Democrats scrutinize corporate America’s monopolistic business practices, their party may end up giving the vice presidential nomination to a lawmaker who previously expressed misgivings about antitrust enforcement when [...]
“Det eneste der hjælper er flere ressourcer og flere hænder. Der skal ryddes op og gøres noget nu”. Af Gert Stenholt Madsen, SOSU-hjælper Jeg er SOSU-hjælper og er ligesom mange andre rystet over de optagelser, der har vist overgreb på ældre på plejehjem. Rystet men ikke overrasket. Man kan ikke udsulte en sektor i årtier, [...] 
It’s all too easy to dismiss the current ‘culture wars’ as frivolous and tedious diversions from the real issues at hand. But behind the Twitter fights and think pieces lies a brutal economic logic with very real – and harmful – consequences. Simply put, culture war is – or perceives itself to be – a [...] A specter is haunting Italy’s highways: the specter of Chavismo. “Highways: the Venezuelan model has won,” claimed journalist Nicola Porro in a video addressed to his 700,000 Facebook and 400,000 Twitter followers. Porro is a famous face on Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset TV stations and deputy editor of the tycoon’s newspaper Il Giornale; and within just [...]
On the 59th night of BLM protests on July 25th at the federal courthouse, I was one of the thousands of protestors who went there. It took me a while to struggle through my fears of getting infected with the virus and the limits to my mobility due to old age and hip arthritis. More
The political success of Russiagate lies in the vanishing of American history in favor of a façade of liberal virtue. Posed as a response to the election of Donald Trump, a straight line can be drawn from efforts to undermine the decommissioning of the American war economy in 1946 to the CIA’s alliance with Ukrainian fascists in 2014. In 1945 [...]
They came for Portland and Portland didn't back down in the face of extreme state-sponsored violence. Instead, the resistance grew every night. The Feds got their asses kicked, here and in Seattle. Let's hope it provides a model for the people of Cleveland, Chicago, Kansas City, and ABQ. More
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“Space is now a distinct warfighting domain,” says the U.S. Defense Space Strategy. Last week, corporate media repeated U.S. military propaganda: that Russia had “tested new technologies that could lead to so-called ‘killer satellites’” (ABC); the U.S. and Britain “accused Russia of testing a weapon-like projectile in space that could be used to target satellites More
Even before Donald Trump and his trophy bride rode down that gilded escalator in Trump Tower, launching his campaign for the White House by denouncing “Mexican rapists,” it was plain as day that he was, at best, a sick joke, unfit for the office he would go on to win in the Electoral College after More
Better late than never, I suppose. I am referring to the flood of recent references in liberal mainstream media to Donald Trump as a fascist. It is remarkable. In the last two months, I’ve read essays and seen television segments and online posts by numerous liberal luminaries describing Trump as an agent and example of More
In 1967, Chester Himes wrote, “Police brutality toward black people in the United States is of such common usage and longstanding to have attained acceptance as proper behavior.” On the one hand, not much has changed. Every day we see the virulent and repressive state violence against Black Lives Matter protestors marching, occupying space, and More
Capitalism, as Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century shows, relentlessly worsens wealth and income inequalities. That inherent tendency is only occasionally stopped or reversed when masses of people rise up against it. That happened, for example, in western Europe and the U.S. during the 1930s Great Depression. It prompted social democracy in Europe and More
It’s possible someone finally persuaded President Donald Trump that sending to Portland federal agents outfitted in military camouflage to confront civilians with tear gas and other devices during two months of nightly street demonstrations won’t win him voters beyond his followers. It’s good bet his supporters, allies, followers, cultists, white supremacists, the “some very good people” More
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is America’s environmental charter. Signed into law by Richard Nixon, it has three central tenets. First, federal agencies must look before they leap and examine the full environmental impacts of most major actions that receive federal funding, including the direct, indirect, and cumulative effects those actions will have. Second, More
The police killing of George Floyd on May 25 provoked demonstrations worldwide. The United Nations Human Rights Council on June 17 debated a draft resolution introduced by the “African Group” of nations that condemned “structural racism endemic to the criminal justice system in the United States.” The African nations were responding to a letter from More
On the sweltering morning of August 2, 1980, a powerful explosion blew apart the central train station in Bologna, Italy, killing 85 people and wounding 200 more. To this day, it is uncertain exactly who is behind the deadliest terrorist attack in modern Italian history. It is clear that right-wing extremists including neo-fascists, Italian secret More
As the American left forces itself to reckon with its neglect of the minority underclass in its central planning of democratic socialism, a similar reckoning should be happening in relation to China and its treatment of the Muslim minority population and its increasing reach in Africa. Under the guise of economic empowerment for the upper More
As an international public health consultant, I have carried out several public health missions for the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Latin America and the Caribbean. I am aware of WHO’s shortcomings, but also of its contribution to world health. President Donald Trump’s remarks and More
For the last five weekends, I and my dozen BLM sign-waving, curbside cohorts—mine now has an addenda (“Trump’s Latest Crime: Secret Police in PDX”)—do hour-long shifts on a traffic-heavy corner of Portland’s Holgate/Caesar Chavez Boulevards. We’re one of several groups dotting the city with our post located nearly five miles East from Trump’s notorious secret- More
On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law. This crowning achievement was both the culmination of a decades-long effort to attain guaranteed universal health insurance and the first step in the quest for Medicare for All. In the 55 years since the legislation was signed into law, both programs More
President Trump christened the activist authority behind the recent protests in his 4th of July Mount Rushmore speech: “We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and people who in many instances have absolutely no clue what they are doing” (Annie Karni and Maggie More
The book of hours on Julian Assange is now being written. But the scribes are far from original. Repeated rituals of administrative hearings that have no common purpose other than to string things out before the axe are being enacted. Of late, the man most commonly associated with WikiLeaks’ publication project cannot participate in any More
When International Court of Justice (ICC) Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, confirmed last December that the Court has ample evidence to pursue a war crimes investigation in occupied Palestine, the Israeli government responded with the usual rhetoric, accusing the international community of bias and insisting on Israel’s ‘right to defend itself.’ Beneath the platitudes and typical Israeli More
Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” is a play featuring two characters waiting for a character, Godot, who never arrives. As such, it is a useful metaphor for the goings-on of the European Union (EU). Observers of the EU’s evolution in the capital of Brussels have witnessed a Godot-like experience of the promised arrival of the More
While Trump pumps his private gestapo into cities like Portland and Seattle, Ohio’s homegrown fascist legions launched a blitzkrieg of their own. On Saturday, July 18, about a thousand heavily armed militia members, white nationalists and Trump supporters showed their lack of color at a statehouse rally in downtown Columbus. The “Stand for America 2020” More
In his fifth State of the Nation (SONA) address on July 27, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte tried to live up to his old form: by turns menacing, double-talking, cursing, dripping with cynical humor, digressing, and irreverent. Instead he came across as uninspiring, unimaginative, and perhaps overwhelmed by the realization that a formula which might have More
When will the organized Bernie Sanders base lose patience with the Democrats and strike out on its own? That question has captivated the independent left in the US since the 2016 election. Now, in the wake of Bernie Sanders’s second presidential primary loss, and as hopes of progressives taking over a largely impervious Democratic Party More
Dean Kuipers’ 2019 book, The Deer Camp: A Memoir of a Father, a Family and the Land that Healed Them, is a book about Michigan. Its unique forests, its lakes and rivers, its settler population descended from Calvinist Dutch men and women, and that population’s stubbornness. Like a Jim Harrison novel featuring a hopelessly ornery More
History, ancient and modern, is littered with corpses, intolerance and hatred of others. One of my most shocking discoveries was reading about Roman Catholics in sixteenth century Europe who went on a rampage against Calvinist Protestants to rip their tongues out for singing the Psalms. We are a blood-thirsty and often cruel species. The words More
The only good thing to say about covid is that it caused carbon emissions to drop. Not enough to save humanity from catastrophic climate change, but significantly. At the height of the global lockdown, carbon emissions fell 17 percent – when the whole world basically stopped driving and flying. According to Eric Holthaus’ new book, More
Trump was already tweeting in 2012 that it was ‘time to get out of Afghanistan’ (1), though it remains to be seen if he will manage any better than Barack Obama: 18-year-old US soldiers setting off to fight there today were not born when the war started. Every attempt to disengage the US militarily — from More
“When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out “stop!” When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable, the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.” — Bertolt Brecht In war-torn Yemen, the crimes pile up. Children who bear no responsibility for governance or More
As a regular commentator for PressTV (Iran) I am asked to give my perspective of American government, culture, and foreign policy. I am always identified as a former Green Party candidate for Congress. For the record, I have never praised their government, as I oppose all theocracies, whether they be Iran, Israel, or the state More
It pinched my nose from the inside, burning deep in my nasal cavity. My throat slammed shut as my body tried to block out the fumes. My eyes burned, oozed tears, and clamped closed. “I can’t see,” my fiancé screamed in panic. “I can’t breathe,” I yelled back. Men with weapons and armor charged forward, More
Losing badly to the Coronavirus—now topping 150,000 deaths in America— Herr Drumpf, the “winner” who “hates to lose,” unleashes unmarked Federal stormtroopers to storm the streets of Portland, injuring and kidnapping peaceful protestors, distracting the media, exciting his base and horrifying the rest of us. Seriously, is this Oregon or Iraq? No real bombs or More
At breakneck speed Brooke Pinto has gone from virtually unknown to one of only 13 DC councilmembers, who, along with the mayor, oversee the city’s $8.5 billion budget. As the dust settles on Pinto’s stunning win, questions about the 28-year-old are growing. Now there’s a new one to add to the mix: What’s Pinto’s connection More
This is the part of the horror movie where the plot collapses beneath the weight of one too many clichés. Having already gruesomely dispatched all the more promiscuous teens, the knife wielding masked psychopath has cornered the chaste final girl in an old dilapidated farmhouse. The backdoor is seemingly wide open, but instead of making More
Our landlord doesn’t read my letters, as far as we know, but it feels like it’s only fair to write a letter each month, if we’re not going to be paying the rent. Dear landlord, Well, hello again. This is the fifth full month in the pandemic, and the fifth month of the suspension on More
Our nation is in a perilous place when federal agencies refuse to comply with federal court orders. Yet, that’s just what Trump’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) did in its rush to destroy sagebrush, juniper, and limber pine habitat in the Iron Mask area of Montana’s federally-designated Elkhorn Wildlife Management Area. I’m glad to announce More
The great problem of legislation is, so to organize the civil government of a community . . . that in the operations of human institutions upon social action, self-love and social may be made the same. – John Quincy Adams, Society and Civilization Herewith the questions of the week for savvy readers to ponder and, perhaps, More
The British government, regulators and global agrochemical corporations are colluding with each other and are thus engaging in criminal behaviour. That’s the message put forward in a new report written by environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason and sent to the UK Environment Agency. It follows her January 2019 open letter to Werner Baumann, CEO of Bayer CropScience, More
The elders, the Old Ones, always believed that in the end, there would be justice for those who cared for and who had not forgotten the original teachings, rooted in a relationship with the land…Justice is sometime seven generations away. And it is inevitable. – Joy Harjo,”Indian Country’ Gets Its Due,” NY Times, 7/15/20 Someone More
On August 3, 2019, a man who had driven hundreds of miles across Texas to the city of El Paso carried out his plan to kill as many Mexicans as possible. Armed with an assault rifle, the killer opened fire at the Cielo Vista Walmart, slaughtering mothers and fathers and sons and daughters. Grandparents, cousins More
Joe Emersberger interviewed Justin Podur regarding his new book about a conflict few understand thanks to, among other things, “Africanist” scholars. Joe Emersberger: Your book is aimed at understanding the war in the DR Congo that killed an estimated 5 million people since 1998. Justin Podur: I see it as about a fifteen year event More
I just finished reading Zachary Carter’s book, The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, and I will agree with the general assessment. It is an outstanding book that brings together much useful material on the life and influence of Keynes. While I am of course familiar with Keynes’ history More
Relics of America’s harrowing past are facing new scrutiny, and rightfully so. Statues are falling. NFL teams are renamingthemselves. Even syrup brands are being discontinued. Some critics worry that we’ll “forget our history” if we remove these racist symbols. But here’s a better idea: What if we actually taught that history in our schools? If More
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) celebrated its 30th birthday this July. Three decades ago, the ADA represented a huge step forward for the rights of people with disabilities. In 2020, I think it’s time to advance even further. The ADA offers people with disabilities the right to “reasonable accommodation” so long as it does More
As a long-time fan of Nordic Noir detective stories, I never expected to see a home-grown version. You might call Michael Elias’s “You Can Go Home Now” Queens Noir since it is set mostly in that dreary stretch of two-story houses and strip malls that will be familiar to anybody who has left Manhattan on More
This past May 18th marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death Elisha Cook, Jr. at the age of 91. In the two-and-a-half months, I’ve been revisiting some of Cook’s films. Here’s my 1995 obituary as a tribute of renewed admiration for his achievement. In Praise of Elisha Cook In the opening scene of Roman Polanski’s More
Om du er syg eller nedslidt skal du arbejde til du segner. Til det formål er bl.a. efterlønnen undergravet og forringet på alle leder og kanter til at blive en ikke-mulighed. Der er angiveligt ikke råd til en værdig tilbagetrækning som en ret for alle efter arbejdslivet, mens der bliver postet milliarder ud i støtte [...] 
National security discourse is a serious business for serious people, or so those engaged in it would have us believe. In reality, that seriousness is rarely more than a veneer, concealing layers of self-serving ideology, wrapped around a core commitment to state power, rather than public safety. The way the political class talks about Vladimir [...] On July 25, the federal moratorium on evictions ended. This Saturday, August 1, rent will come due for tenants across the country, just as the $600 weekly supplement to unemployment benefits expires for out-of-work renters. As of early July, over 17 million people were receiving unemployment benefits; millions more are still waiting to access them, [...]
The clashes between authorities and protesters that have taken place in downtown Portland for more than sixty days have been described as authoritarian, dystopian, fascistic. And they are all of these things. Yet at times, one can’t help but feel a sense of absurdity, too. In front of the heavy steel fence that separates the [...]
This is not your typical recession. Back in the old days, meaning three or four decades after the end of World War II, there was a textbook pattern to the business cycle. After a few years, an expansion would mature, the stock market would get exuberant and frothy, labor markets would tighten (meaning wages would [...]
MARION, Va.—“I'm going to tell y’all right now, these people want any reason they can find to shoot you in the head,” Arron Rashad said, referring to a crowd of counterprotesters.
Rashad was speaking to about 200 demonstrators in support of Black lives and the LGBTQ community in the small Appalachian town of Marion on July 3.
Support for the Black Lives [...]
Journalist John Ware has declared he is suing the former leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, along with several ‘alt-left sites and individuals who lie’. Ware himself admits that in launching these libel cases he has broken an “unwritten code” that says journalists, who “hold free speech sacrosanct”, shouldn’t sue over criticism. To me, [...] In 1856, the black minister Henry Highland Garnet, who had escaped from slavery as a child, returned to the United States after some years in the Caribbean. He found the nation transformed, noting with awe and appreciation “the great spread and intensification of Anti-Slavery feeling at present . . . The most promising sign of [...]
Nine months after much of Western media hailed the “return of democracy” in Bolivia, the transitional government led by Jeanine Áñez has again put off the planned presidential elections. Despite the violent military coup that overthrew Evo Morales in November, in recent weeks the candidate for his Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), Luis Arce, had been [...]
Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest member state, is currently in the fourth week of the largest anti-government mobilization in years. Despite fears surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, tens of thousands of protestors are taking to the streets every night in the capital Sofia and other cities. They are demanding the resignation of attorney general Ivan Geshev [...]
Somehow, Congress couldn’t find the time last week to renew extended unemployment benefits or the federal moratorium on evictions. Congress had something more pressing to think about than 30 million unemployed Americans: the Pentagon budget. On July 21 and 23, the House of Representatives and the Senate approved their versions of the Pentagon’s annual spending More
The consequences are still reverberating three decades on, obviously in Iraq and the Middle East but also further afield, after Saddam Hussein became the first Arab leader to invade another Arab nation. On Thursday, August 2, 1990, at about 2am, 100,000 Iraqi troops and 700 tanks smashed through Kuwaiti border posts. Saddam then announced that the emir of Kuwait had been deposed [...]
I traveled to Israel and the Occupied Territories in the early 2000s with the progressive group Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. We made an effort to gain insight into most of the players in the conflict, and so a series of interviews was arranged with members of the Israeli right wing. I remember that one of More
I have been a resident of Portland, Oregon since 2007. So I have been hearing from more people than usual lately, all asking the same question: what’s going on in Portland? I find myself struggling to give any kind of an answer to this question. As with any substantive answer to a question, so much More
I don’t trust you. Don’t take it personally. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a friend or a stranger. I don’t care about your identity or your politics, where you work or if you work, whether you wear a mask or carry a gun. I don’t trust you because you are, for the time being, a More
Today, the Internet is everywhere. Well over half of the planet’s entire population either likes to be on the Internet or has to rely on the web for business, work, and social engagement. People read the news, send notes to loved ones, birthday cards, do their job – increasingly via Skype and Zoom. Others seek More
Something remarkable is happening in the US in 2020 in terms of public awareness of race. The George Floyd uprising, two months in duration so far, has brought formerly fringe ideas into the mainstream, shifting the entire frame of discourse to the left. The breakthroughs we are experiencing this summer might feel sudden, but they More
“Hitler had his Brown shirts and Mussolini had his Black shirts, now Donald Trump has his camouflage shirts.” Thus began a statement signed by 15 distinguished interdenominational religious leaders in Chicago that I joined, including ministers, priests, and rabbis. Comparisons to Hitler are always explosive, but the comparison is apt. “Hitler’s bullyboys,” the statement continues, More
Late last week Donald Trump and the Republican Party he leads pulled the plug on their national convention in Jacksonville, Florida. It was supposed to be an extravaganza of praise and adoration for the president, papering over the harsh reality that he has failed the nation in the face of mounting calamities. Yet, while cancelling More
Moderna, a relatively new biotech company, has generally been seen as the leading U.S. contender to develop a coronavirus vaccine, although it trails several Chinese companies. Whether or not its vaccine pans out, it should certainly get an award for milking the government. It was the big winner in initial contracts, getting $483 million back More
I Hedehusene er boliggiganten Dansk Totalentreprise i gang med at opføre boliger og en ny forretning til COOP under helt uacceptable arbejdsforhold. Nu har murersjakket fået nok! BJMF – Bygge-, Jord og Miljøarbejdernes Fagforening skriver: Kom og støt op om vores kollegaer. Togstationen i Hedehusene ligger 7 minutters gåtur fra byggepladsen. I Hedehusene er [...] A successful meeting and street protest in Wilmington, California, a neighborhood near the LA Harbor, highlighted harbor area efforts for Black Lives Matter and efforts to end the US blockade of Cuba. The meeting held at the Wilmington Machinists Union hall was opened by International Association of Machinists Local 1484 President Kevin Kucera saying “It gives More
“There is but one freedom, to put oneself right with death. After that, everything is possible.” – Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1942-51 For those of us who grew up watching Charlton Heston films, we can recall enactments of heroic courage, both in the early development and later downward decline of human civilization. Heston gave us a More
Læserindlæg af Poul Andersen Nu hvor de mange nye studerende er blevet optaget på landets universiteter er det atter blevet gjort tydeligt, at der i katastrofal grad mangler ungdomsboliger i København. En af de ting der ligger lige for, som kan afhjælpe manglen på ungdomsboliger, er at skrotte den umulige ghettolov. Her er der lagt [...] It is night, the type of bleak, starless night where one can make out the forms of great clouds, vast palls of blackness hovering over the London skyline like so much choking, toxic smog. Below, the river slashes through the sleeping city, a twisting gash of black-bubbling water, hissing with the corpses of the diseased More
Trinidad, CA On Wednesday morning, Green Diamond Resource Company began road work north of Tsurai (Trinidad) in a second-growth redwood rainforest that has been protected from harvest since 2012 by non-violent forest defenders and tree-sitters. After work began, Green Diamond published a press release requesting the public to avoid the popular hiking trail that leads More
Af APK, Arbejderpartiet Kommunisterne Hvorfor skal vi arbejde længere og længere og pensionsalderen stige og stige? For de ufaglærte er det arbejdsløsheden og ikke levealderen med gode sunde år der stiger. Mens de rige og de højtuddannede lever 7 år længere og forskellen vokser. Hvorfor skal man nægtes retten til pension før man er er [...] Der har for nylig været en opblussen i konflikterne mellem Armenien og Aserbajdsjan. Iagttagere mener, at flere centrale spillere vil tage godt imod Rusland som mægler i konflikten.
Indlægget Rusland som den gode mægler i Armenien-Aserbajdsjan striden blev først udgivet på
Nationwide uprisings against anti-Black racism and policing have forced the concept of abolition into the mainstream. This ideal is rooted in the principle that prisons and policing are punitive systems that dole out harm and worsen social injustices. We need to dismantle these systems and replace them with social goods like healthcare, education and after-school programs that can address the [...]
Santa Fe, New Mexico A coalition of 42 government representatives, groups, and businesses representing Indigenous and minority voices across New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, and Arizona sent a letter today calling on New Mexico’s Oil Conservation Division to put peoples’ health first and put the brakes on plans to adopt new rules governing the use of toxic oil More
On July 16, thanks to a story by Oregon Public Broadcast (OPB), the world learned the saga of Mark Pettibone. Pettibone had been leaving protests that OPB described as calm. While departing, he was warned that camouflaged men were snatching protesters off the street and throwing them into civilian cars. Shortly after, Pettibone himself fell [...]
In 2014, during one of Israel’s deadliest assaults on Gaza, Seth Rogen was among two hundred Hollywood entertainers who signed a statement in defense of Israel. But this week, on Marc Maron’s podcast, Rogen, a prominent Jewish actor and comedian, said the State of Israel makes no sense to him. “I don’t understand,” Rogen said. [...]
When the news broke last week that Phara Souffrant Forrest defeated incumbent Walter Mosley in New York’s 57th assembly district primary, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) proudly announced a full sweep. Five DSA-endorsed candidates, all of them open socialists and members of the organization, set their sights on Albany together. And now, having won [...]
As Senate Republicans this week push to slash unemployment benefits for millions of workers, they are offering a lucrative gift to Washington lobbying groups for huge corporations: access to a program meant to help small businesses and their employees survive the pandemic. The move could deliver an infusion of government cash to business groups, helping [...]
On Monday, the platform committee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted 125-36 not to include Medicare for All in the party’s platform. Faced with a pandemic that has revealed the catastrophic irrationalities of the United States’s profit-driven health care system, it’s sad, but not surprising, that the billionaire-bought Democratic Party establishment remains more loyal [...]
Jordan Osserman was knocking on doors in his east London apartment block in late April, asking his neighbours about their rental situations during the pandemic, when he noticed he was being filmed by a security guard hiding behind a stack of boxes. A few days later he was holding a banner saying “food not rent” [...] In 1965, Kwame Nkrumah described the paradox of neocolonialism in Africa, in which “the soil continue[s] to enrich, not Africans predominantly, but groups and individuals who operate to Africa’s impoverishment.” He captured what continues to be an essential feature of Africa’s political economy. Enforced through neoliberalism in the contemporary period, many African states remain dependent [...]
In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, there was a momentary fear on the Left that the Trump administration could seize on the crisis to lethal political effect. With news of a federal evictions freeze and initial buzz about massive stipends to the unemployed, would the Republican Party, traditionally sycophantic towards its corporate paymasters, [...]
Trump’s climate denial has made the United States an environmental “pariah state” in a global community committed to addressing the problem of climate change. Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris accord made the United States the only nation in the world to reject the climate accord. The two original outliers—Syria and Nicaragua—have joined, and Nicaragua stayed out initially because the agreement [...]
On July 24, 2020, Tesla’s Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that a second U.S. “government stimulus package is not in the best interests of the people.” Someone responded to Musk soon after, “You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? The U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.” [...]
The UK parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), drawn from MPs and peers of all parties, last week published its report on possible Russian interference in UK politics. The report’s release had been delayed by 9 months after it had been blocked by Boris “BoJo” Johnson in the run-up to the December 2019 general election. More
Seldom do situations provide so much self-evident clarity that only few words are needed. We are now in such a situation or would be if what words mean had not returned to a new Tower of Babel. There is an anarchy in our thinking and our chosen twittering that makes it difficult to rid ourselves More
When an event is unexplained, it can’t be repeated. Cuba’s astonishing internationalism, the “good news” of the pandemic, is talked about (outside Cuba) as if a miracle, without cause. Support grows for the Nobel Prize nomination but the justification for the Henry Reeve Brigade, established in 2005, is left out. The explanation is ideas. It More
“We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work. We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended More
“These are anarchists, these are not protesters,” US president Donald Trump said on July 20th, defending his decision to unleash Department of Homeland Security hooligans on anti-police-violence demonstrators in Portland. Anarchist-bashing — referring to “radical left-anarchists” in Minneapolis, “ugly anarchists” in Seattle, etc. — has become a consistent Trump campaign theme since May. Does Trump More
On July 11, a video footage which showed a popular Israeli TV celebrity demeaning Palestinian children from the Bedouin community in the Naqab area went viral on social media. “Let’s feed a Bedouin. Don’t you want to feed a Bedouin?” Israeli Children TV host, Roy Oz, repeatedly asks his children, who were seated in the More
In the slums of Mumbai where I grew up, the grocery store in our neighbourhood would fill up every evening, around 6 p.m. The year was 2000. Small buyers crowded the big shop – for a quarter kilo rice, red chilli powder and salt for one rupee, cooking oil worth a rupee or two, black mustard seeds More
In assembling a book on reading Habermas as learning theorist over the last couple of years, I discovered, perhaps more deeply than previous readings, that our human capacity to learn to solve problems at micro-and-macro-levels, as well as stepping back and reflecting on our condition, carries hope forward into the not-yet future. One of our More
Malaysia’s politicians were crowing. “We are confident that we are securing more money from Goldman Sachs compared to previous attempts, which were far below expectations,” stated Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz. “We are also glad to be able to resolve this outside the court system, which would have cost a lot of time, money and More
The phrase “thinking about the unthinkable” has always been associated with the unthinkable cataclysm of a nuclear war, and rightly so. Lately, though, I’ve been pondering another kind of unthinkable scenario, nearly as nightmarish (at least for a democracy) as a thermonuclear Armageddon, but one that’s been rolling out in far slower motion: that America’s More
No Moaning for the Barr Trump is thy evening star, and when he calls for thee there will be no stopping of the Barr from bending at the knee. Night comes and voters bell and after that defeat and there will be no sadness of farewell when they retreat, for though from our country‘s place More
Kina vokser frem som USA- og NATO-imperialismens udpegede hovedfjende ved siden af Rusland. Af Jan R. Steinholt, Revolusjon, Norge Retorikken fra USA, NATO og EU har ændret sig mærkbart, især i månederne, siden NATO-topmødet i London i 2019. Det var første gang NATO direkte pegede på ’Kinas voksende indflydelse’ som en trussel. Pingpong om Hong [...] Til efteråret er der præsidentvalg i Hviderusland. Den siddende præsident, Lukasjenko, er kendt for at stække kandidaterne gevaldigt, men denne gang kan det blive mere besværligt.
Indlægget Præsidentvalg i Hviderusland: Kandidatlisten er klar blev først udgivet på
Now that the absentee ballots have been counted for the primary races, it’s clear that the New York State legislature is about to include five DSA-endorsed members, all of them committed socialists. There’s a historical precedent for this. In 1919, five socialists were elected to the New York State Assembly. They weren’t the first — [...]
When the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) formed in 1925 to organize the largely black workforce of Pullman Company sleeping car attendants, the union faced challenges from every direction. The staunchly anti-union Pullman Company had established a surveillance network to identify and fire union activists, and created a “company union” to fool the more [...]
When Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) announced that he would run in Mexico’s presidential election in 2018, many in Mexico’s scientific and arts communities enthusiastically supported his campaign. After twelve years of incompetent and neoliberal rule — first by Felipe Calderón (2006–2012) of the right-wing Partido Acción Nacional (“National Action Party,” PAN), who set off [...]
One of the ironies of anti-communism – an ideology that has killed millions since 1945 – is how many of those it chastised held views regarded as entirely legitimate in western Europe and North America. In Indonesia, from the 1960s General Suharto killed more than a million people, including feminists and trade unionists, in a [...] When the anti-racist protests erupted in the United States, social media in India was filled with expressions of solidarity for Black Lives Matter. But there has been hardly any self-critical scrutiny of racism or the abuses of the police in India itself. Although police brutality and impunity are familiar concepts in India, the country’s middle [...]
Senate Republicans copied key parts of New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s controversial corporate immunity law and pasted it word for word into their new coronavirus relief proposal released on Monday. The provision could shield health care industry CEOs, executives, and corporate board members from COVID-19–related lawsuits in the event that their business decisions end up [...]
When the Bolivian government’s electoral authorities nervously announced to the nation that elections were to be suspended for the third time in four months, the fear instilled in many seemed to suddenly melt away. It was replaced by a fury of a country whose working-class districts and rural areas were led to believe that free [...]
In response to the Trump administration’s unprovoked and illegal assault on peaceful demonstrators, many of whom are young individuals, Portland-area mothers decided to form the “Wall of Moms” (WOM). Organized by Bev Barnum, a Mexican-American woman, and dressed in yellow shirts and protective gear, the moms began putting their bodies on the line to safeguard protesters against aggressive law enforcement. [...]
If you take Donald Trump’s word for it, he’s “all there,” while his presumed Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, may not be. According to Trump, doctors at Walter Reed Medical Center found the president’s performance on a recent cognitive exam “unbelievable,” given the extent to which Trump “aced the test.” Trump told Sean Hannity on Fox News that the test refutes [...]
Capitalism is not, as its defenders like to claim, defined by “free” or “private” enterprises. Likewise, “free” or “unregulated” markets do not define capitalism. Politics and ideology drive its defenders to choose those definitions over clearly better, different definitions. The causes and consequences of conflicts over definition are part of today’s mounting battles over capitalism. More
Federal agents poured into Portland, Oregon this month to crack down on anti-racism protests. They beat up peaceful protesters and fired impact munitions at demonstrators, seriously injuring one of them. They drove around the city in unmarked vans pulling people off the street. Oregon officials at every level — the city, the state, and congressional More
COVID-19 has not only presented the global economy with its greatest public health challenge in over a century, but also likely killed off the notion of America’s “unipolar moment” for good. That doesn’t mean full-on autarky or isolationism but, rather, enlightened selfishness, which allows for some limited cooperation. Donald Trump’s ongoing threats to impose additional More
“An incorrect power analysis can lead people who want to end capitalism to think that small numbers of demonstrators occupying public spaces like parks and squares and tweeting about it will generate enough power to bring down Wall Street.” ― Jane F. McAlevey Winning is the primary task of any political organizing effort. Generally speaking, More
In 1948, Harry Truman pushed for a national nonprofit health insurance program in his successful, come-from-behind presidential campaign. When Truman’s plan was denounced as “socialized medicine” and “un-American” by the powerful American Medical Association, “Give ‘Em Hell Harry” stood his ground, defending his proposal as “simple Christianity.” In 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson secured passage of Medicare More
President Donald Trump’s recent reelection campaign advertisement is straight out of the plot of a horror movie. Just days after he deployed federal officers to the streets of Portland, Oregon, his campaign released a 30-second television spot featuring an elderly white woman watching on her television the news of activists demanding a defunding of police. More
That Russia paid the Taliban financial bounties to kill 18 U.S. and “coalition” soldiers in Afghanistan is in dispute to say the least. Both Democrats and Republicans cite various and conflicting official U.S. intelligence agencies on the veracity of this latest New Cold War episode. The July 9 New York Times reported, “The C.I.A. – More
