Subjects Archives: Human Rights

Glen Ford spent more than four decades delivering the news from a Black perspective on a national scale.

Hale released a total of 17 documents, of which 11 were marked secret and top-secret. One exposed that during one five-month period of the operation, civilian casualties constituted over 90% of the victims of drone strikes.

On 23 July 2021, a full-page appeal appeared in the New York Times calling on United States President Joe Biden to withdraw the vindictive U.S. blockade against Cuba.

To legitimize slavery and its atrocities, western imperialism birthed racism, idea of superiority of whites over Black people.

Public opinion has been shaken by the ‘discovery’ of unmarked graves of children who died in residential schools. The word ‘discovery’ has to be placed in quotation marks because Indigenous communities have been saying for many years that terrible things happened at these places. The time has come to call this what it is–a genocide.

In the last dozen years after the 2008 world food price spike, the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has become an inclusive forum for civil society and corporate interests to debate how best to advance food security. Unsurprisingly, CFS has long addressed food systems.

Social movements and scientists are staying out of the UN summit because it represents big agribusiness interests.

Over 40% of Black and Latinx households pay more than 30% of their income on rent, compared with 25% of white households.

The Grayzone reports from Nicaragua on the 42nd anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. Nicaraguans discuss their improved quality of life, President Ortega condemns the dictatorial U.S. “empire that wants to dominate all countries,” and Vice President Murillo declares poverty an imperialist “crime against humanity.”

Don’t believe everything you read on social media.

Sebastian, in his writings in The Fight to Win Rights, is direct, and honest, unafraid to state unpalatable facts. Blunt and matter-of-fact, his words seem to be deliberately chosen to appeal to the conscience of people, his mode of expression reflecting his commitment to justice and the truth.

Michael Ratner personally changed human rights law, and in doing so he let go childhood views of Israel. “I thought of [Israel] as the home of my people. I had my bedroom ceiling painted with the seven wonders of the world and a huge map of Israel. I had no idea how my view of Israel would change later in life.”

The current Black-centered Cuban protest operation is very well orchestrated and if Black people in this country are not careful, they will end up amplifying the dictates of U.S. imperialism.

The United States was never satisfied with having lost the Cuba subjected to its ambitions. Therefore, shortly after the victory of the guerrillas of the Sierra Maestra, they tried to invade the island with mercenary troops. They were defeated in April 1961. The following year, President Kennedy decreed the blockade of Cuba, which continues to this day.

With deep sadness and respect, Organizing Upgrade is sharing a few more tributes to movement elder Betita Martinez, who died June 29. In her 95 years she lived many lifetimes, and brought her commitment, wit and political clarity to several of the most significant social movements of our day.

Director Werner Herzog’s documentary ‘Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World’ (2016) begins with “Internet pioneer” Leonard Kleinrock, who welcomes us into the, yes, actual laboratory where it was “born”! To Wagnerian strains in the soundtrack, Kleinrock complacently calls the place “a holy shrine”–quite a revealing phrase for this acolyte of possibly the last of the false religions.

While there are plenty of reasons for ordinary Cubans to currently feel disenchanted about life on the island, there are also strong suspicions that these protests were not quite the grassroots uprising they were made out to be in the U.S. press.

Over eight days, from June 25-30, Haiti had been subjected to increasing state-sponsored, imperial and gang violence. Massacres killed almost 60 people in Port au Prince, including in Cité Soleil, Delmas and Pétionville, as well as on on Rue Magloire Ambroise.

FoodForward SA closes branches nationwide because of insecurity.

As rioters target supermarkets, activists call on the government to help those who cannot survive amid rising prices and mass unemployment.