Archive | August, 2021

From Assata’s story, we are able to learn what it means to be motivated by a deep love for the people and the struggle for freedom—and what it means to embody a determined and unbreakable spirit in the face of crackdowns and government repression designed to stifle and destroy the movement.

The task includes planting 54 million mu of trees and 46 million mu of grass each year, said Zhang Wei, head of the ecological protection and restoration department of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA).

‘The increased atomization of society and associated political economy of capitalism justifies the logic of reductionism’. – Richard Lewontin

The Supreme People’s Court published a set of labor-related disputes to clarify legal standards of working hours and overtime wages.

“Except for Palestine” is a remarkable little book. Within it, the authors Hill and Plitnick present the larger picture that the self-proclaimed progressive “universal” values of the United States are argued for in many troubled spots of the world, except for Palestine.

The Supreme Court callously ended the CDC’s eviction moratorium, but the pandemic has already shown the most effective way to fight back: direct actions.

The United Nations issued a “code red for humanity” warning earlier this month with over 3,000 pages of scientific documentation saying that the climate crisis has reached a point where we can expect extreme weather including heat waves, flooding and droughts to happen with more frequency and intensity.

Where there is smoke, there is fire, goes the popular saying. Most Brazilians and world public opinion know that Brazil is governed by a man of fascist convictions. Bolsonaro always praises the torturers of the military dictatorship implanted in Brazil in 1964 and regrets that “at least 30,000 subversives” were not shot.

A wealth tax would raise badly-needed revenue. More importantly, it could reduce the fortunes—and power—of billionaires.

I am active with the Prison for Women (P4W) Memorial Collective which has been fighting for a Memorial Garden at the site of the now closed Prison for Women, and a Gallery where the women’s art and writing can be seen in order to give some context to their lives and deaths. We also agitate to improve prison and parole conditions as a harm reduction tactic in order to alleviate some of the suffering, but always within the context of the abolition of prisons and capitalism as the goal, the light that guides us through the darkness.

Purge of ally in power base Zhejiang Province sends shudders across country.

Friends and colleagues of Dick Lewontin are sharing their stories and reflections.

U.S. attack on Nicaragua targets its Black community.

Criminologist Andrés Antillano examines a high-profile security operation to neutralize criminal activity in the Cota 905 district in July.

If the U.S. wants to be a world leader, it has to match China in investing in knowledge generation for future technology. Why then is the U.S. taking the sanctions route? Sanctions are simpler to implement; building a society that values knowledge is much more difficult. This is the crisis of late capitalism.

Economists typically use GDP per capita to assess how rich a country is. It is basically a measure of the average income per person. If journalists cared to be at all precise when they say that Venezuela had once been “rich,” then that’s a statistic they’d cite.

Speaking on the impact of the climate crisis on First People, Gavin Singleton from the Yirrganydji traditional owners explained that ‘From changing weather patterns to shifts in natural ecosystems, climate change is a clear and present threat to our people and our culture’.

One key factor in spreading suspicion that the coronavirus might have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is media’s early and ongoing politicization of the World Health Organization’s investigation into the pandemic’s origins. Much of this politicization weaponizes Orientalist tropes about China being especially, perhaps genetically, untrustworthy—the sort of people who would unleash COVID-19 on the world.

The report explicitly states that incremental change is not a viable option. It states that individual behavioural changes alone are insignificant. It states that justice, equity and redistribution are essential to climate policy.

The United Church of Christ resolution calling Israel’s continued “oppression” of Palestinians a “sin” has alarmed the American Jewish Committee and for good reason: Other Protestant churches are sure to follow, with measures that pose a real threat to apartheid.