A Cursory Examination of Modern-Day Policing and the Consequences it Poses for the Marginalized
by Levi Gonzalez / April 28th, 2021
Since the brutal murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police at the onset of last summer, there has been a resurgence of political energy amongst the American population centered on significantly reforming policing in the United States. Ranging from demilitarization to defunding, there has been no shortage of policy proposals issued by an endless assortment of governmental bodies, academic institutions, think tanks, non-profits, etc., as a means to promote greater accountability amongst a public institution that has fully exerted its monopoly on violence upon the American people. A …
On April 21, police in Elizabeth City, North Carolina executed Andrew Brown. According to a private autopsy, he was shot five times, including the “kill shot” to the back of his head whil;e his hands were on the steering wheel of his car. Seven officers equipped with body cameras were at the scene but only a 20-second snippet was provided to the family. Based on what we know so far, the official story has zero credibility.
This unfolding story, along with many others, prompts me to once again pause and think about the metaphor, “The Arc of the Moral Universe is …
Non-profit and for-profit charter schools are privatized, marketized, corporatized education arrangements that appeared 30 years ago in the U.S. They are legal in 45 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam. About 3.3 million youth are currently enrolled in roughly 7,400 charter schools.
Charter schools openly embrace “free market” ideology and siphon billions of public dollars a year from public schools, many of which are chronically under-funded. Their academic track record is unimpressive and often very poor. Many do not provide employee retirement programs. Like a private business, charter schools …
At a recent virtual J Street Conference, US Senators, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren broke yet another political taboo when they expressed willingness to leverage US military aid as a way to pressure Israel to respect Palestinian human rights.
Sanders believes that the US “must be willing to bring real pressure to bear, including restricting US aid, in response to moves by either side that undermine the chances for peace,” while Warren showed a willingness to restrict military aid as a “tool” to push Israel to “adjust course”.
Cranston at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival in 2018 Your Honor is an American mini-series starring Bryan Cranston
*This article contains spoilers*
A well-meaning New Orleans judge, Michael Desiato, finds himself in a frightening situation when he discovers that his son, Adam, was in a hit and run accident with a son of the local mafia boss, Jimmy Baxter. Adam had been visiting the site of his mother’s death when approached by local guys. He drives off at speed only to drop his inhaler …
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / April 28th, 2021
A psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in power.
? Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle, October 1962
For good or bad, COVID-19 has changed the way we navigate the world.
It is also redrawing the boundaries of our world (and our freedoms) and altering the playing field faster than we can keep up.
Owing in large part to the U.S. government’s deep-seated and, in many cases, top-secret alliances with foreign nations and global corporations, it has become increasingly obvious that we have entered into a new world …
Those madly titillated by conflict have become bolder of late in the corridors of the isolated Australian capital. In such spaces, insanity can be nurtured with a sickening attention to detail, much of it fictitious. One of the most powerful bureaucrats of the Australian Public Service has made a contribution to a war dance he regards as virtually unavoidable. Mike Pezzullo, Home Affairs Secretary, is keen to shed some blood in combating the China Menace if needed.
The outcome of this wish is always vicarious: others die so that bureaucrats may shuffle papers, consult minutes and scoff the scotch. This is …
Disclaimer: This is not a traditional mainstream or even left-stream book review. However, Steven C. Markoff’s book does play as the impetus and linchpin to my essay, more of an analysis/reaction to his book. I give The Case Against George W. Bush, high marks. Read Steve’s book. Press your respective legislators to push for an investigation of W.’s crimes. Markoff sets out in the book about how those crimes …
When you are too close to something, someone, you are not the best analyst. Your feelings get in the way. You reveal more about who you are than who or what you love/hate. But you can see better from afar. That sums up Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who, despite accurately predicting the collapse of the Soviet Union, and being instrumental in achieving that, was deeply flawed in his understanding of his nemesis, provided really bad advice on how to extricate the huge Eurasian, multinational entity from its many crises, and contributed …
Over the years as an animal activist I’ve shown many films of graphic animal cruelty, both in class rooms and out in the streets. Except for the granddaddy of them all, 1981’s The Animals Film, there is very little art about them. Mostly, they’re just blood and guts.
And I’m a big believer in showing blood and guts because if they are left out completely — as in The End of Meat (2017) or Eating Animals (2018) — the films don’t engage the emotions and are forgotten about the next day. Without the suffering and killing there’s no sense of urgency …
Let’s make no mistake, we are already in WWIII. A more noble term is “The Great Reset” – the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) eloquent description of a devastated worldwide economy, countless bankruptcies and unemployment, abject misery, famine, death by starvation, disease and suicide. Hundreds of millions of people have already been affected by this “collateral” damage of the “covid-19” fear-propaganda bio-war, with a death-toll maybe already in the tens of millions, but which in reality cannot even be assessed at this time.
And this only one year into this criminal madness, a diabolical elite of multi-multi billionaires has pushed upon us, …
Esopus Creek
The road led up the hill between houses until it came to the lake where it ran between the lake and the woods and the thought of people disappeared if he was lucky. He was sick of people, especially those he saw in masks because of their obsessive fear of death. They ran in packs. They seemed insane to him, as if germs might fly through the country air and infect them with a virus in a reversal of the way the insects were starting …
Attributing names to the brutal acts humans are capable of inflicting upon each other is never without problems. There are gradations of terror, hierarchies of atrocity and cruelty. In these, the pedants reign. Disputes splutter and rage over whether a “massacre” can best be described as a crime against humanity or a counter-measure waged with heavy sorrow against a threatening enemy. Scratch the surface of such arguments, and the truth is bleakly common: apologists for murder will be found.
With the Armenian Genocide, terms acutely matter. The treatment of the Armenians by the Turks as the Ottoman Empire was running out …
The immediate context that makes such shocking developments possible — indeed, inevitable — is the continuing drift of Israeli politics toward the nationalist extreme right. What was formerly considered ‘extreme right’ — Netanyahu’s Likud — is now the center, with even more extreme forces to its right. The followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose earlier party (Kach) was made illegal, are now not only in the parliament (Knesset) but inside the governing coalition (the Religious Zionism electoral bloc and in particular the Otzma Yehudit — Jewish Power …
Image Source: Unsplash
It’s impossible to ignore the effects of our actions on the environment. According to NASA, we’re dealing with rising global temperatures, warming oceans, glacial retreat, and many other environmental concerns that will have a lasting negative impact on our planet.
Because of this, more companies are taking the initiative to be more sustainable and reduce their carbon footprints. As consumers, getting on board with those companies can make a big difference.
Doing so requires an understanding of which kinds of companies and brands …
The US role in the defeat of leftist Andrés Arauz in Ecuador’s presidential contest on April 11 was not overt because it did not need to be, according to a high-ranking Latin American diplomat. We met with the diplomat and others on an official election observation delegation with CODEPINK. Names of some sources remain anonymous due to a hostile political environment towards progressives.
This setback for the Citizens Revolution movement, founded by Rafael Correa, will have profound implications for Ecuador and beyond, fortifying the US-allied reactionary bloc in Latin America.
Former President Correa left office with a 60% approval rating. He had …
The very word is chilling, but has become normalised political currency in Denmark. Since 2010, the Danish government has resorted to generating “ghetto lists” marking out areas as socially problematic for the state. In 2018, the country’s parliament passed “ghetto” laws to further regulate the lives of individuals inhabiting various city areas focusing on their racial and ethnic origins. The legislation constitutes the spear tip of the “One Denmark without Parallel Societies – No Ghettos in 2030” initiative; its target: “non-Western” residents who overbalance the social ledger by concentrating in various city environs.
The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.
— Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)
Definition: An ecological bridge between land and sea … the wrack line.
I’ve been looking at the unimagined biological and genetic effects on planet earth caused by “better living through chemistry” capitalist mentality. While Rachel Carson’s seminal work, Silent Spring, catalogued just one aspect of the plethora of physiological effects on animal life, in 2021 we can confidently state there is so much evidence of all the pollutants, …
If you were born in the 1950’s or even a bit later, you more or less grew up with her. She wasn’t an outlier; Jeane Dixon was a syndicated newspaper personality. She graced the covers of popular magazines and floated on the airwaves of radio and TV. Her presence wasn’t confined to the masses; she was consulted by the elite, including at least one U.S. President (Richard Nixon) and possibly influenced a second (Ronald Reagan). She claimed a transcendent ability to see future events and her predictions were actively followed for decades.
It’s not likely you grew up with Edgar Cayce, but …
The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa and Global Counterterrorism held a hearing on April 15, 2021, on “10 Years of War: Examining the Ongoing Conflict in Syria.” As is customary of American exceptionalism, the feasibility of regime change in Damascus was not left undiscussed.
Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who is the top Republican on the subcommittee, explicitly called for President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster. “The Assad regime is illegitimate and should be replaced,” said Wilson. Omar Alshogre, Director for Detainee Affairs at the Syrian …
He seemed frustrated. While Scott Morrison’s international colleagues at the Leaders Summit on Climate were boastful in what their countries would do in decarbonising the global economy, Australia’s feeble contribution was put on offer. Unable to meet his own vaccination targets, the Australian prime minister has decided to confine the word “target” in other areas of policy to oblivion. Just as the term “climate change” has been avoided in the bowels of Canberra bureaucracy, meeting environmental objectives set in stone will be shunned.
Ahead of the summit, Nobel Prize laureates had added their names to a letter intending to …
To conceal the economic and social decline that continues to unfold at home and abroad, major newspapers are working overtime to promote happy economic news. Many headlines are irrational and out of touch. They make no sense. Desperation to convince everyone that all is well or all will soon be great is very high. The assault on economic science and coherence is intense. Working in concert, and contrary to the lived experience of millions of people, many newspapers are declaring miraculous “economic growth rates” for country after country. According …
By now, the world knows all about the decision by Japan to dump tritium-laced radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. According to Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, the treated and diluted water will be “safe to drink.” Furthermore, he claims the country should have started releasing it into the ocean earlier. ((“China to Japan: If Treated Radioactive Water From Fukushima is Safe, ‘Please Drink It’”, Washington Post, April 15, 2021.))
In response to Deputy PM Aso, Chinese Foreign Minster Lijian Zhao replied “the ocean is not Japan’s trashcan” and furthermore, since Japan claims it’s safe to drink, “then drink it!”
A new round of disinformation and threats against Russia is being staged by the NATO military powers and their state and corporate media outlets.
The backdrop is the continued military occupation and aggression by Ukraine in sections of the Donbas region in the east of the country, combined with the Ukrainian government’s ongoing refusal to implement the ceasefire and peace measures of the 2015 ‘Minsk 2’ agreement, Minsk 2 was signed by Ukraine and the pro-autonomy forces of Donbas, with the governments of Russia, France and Germany agreeing to act …
President Joe Biden likes to say, “I’m a union guy.” Unfortunately, as Vice President from 2009 to 2017, his boss, Barack Obama wouldn’t let him be a “union guy.” Even with large Democratic majorities in Congress and control of the White House, worker needs went unmet.
Setting records for raising Wall Street campaign cash, Obama reneged on his 2008 promise to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.50 per hour by 2011. He reneged on a promise to the AFL-CIO to push for “card check” to facilitate workers wanting to form a union. He did nothing to preserve traditional …
Why is Saudi Arabia, a Sunni absolute monarchy, enthusiastically supported by the West, considered a global promoter of “democracy”? This question is rarely asked. The apparent mismatch between liberal democracy and religious fundamentalism is hastily airbrushed when the matter is about oil trade and arms deals. This attitude is not an expression of mere hypocrisy on the part of the West; it is deeply rooted in a historical process whereby Saudi Arabia was propped up by major powers as an outpost of imperialist interests and a bulwark against revolutionary …
The campaign to oppose illegal Israeli military recruitment in Canada has received a significant boost. A parliamentary petition calling for an investigation into IDF recruitment has quickly surpassed the number of signatures required to be presented in the House of Commons.
Submitted by Rabbi David Mivasair and sponsored by NDP MP Matthew Green, the petition “calls upon the Minister of Justice to undertake a thorough investigation of those who have recruited or facilitated recruiting for the Israel Defense Forces, and if warranted lay charges against those involved in recruiting …
Over 30 years ago, a real estate bigwig in Manhattan (no, not him) was convicted of tax evasion. Her name was Leona Helmsley, the famous Queen of Mean. Even more famous, lasting approximately forever, were six words she let slip: “Only the little people pay taxes.”
The words are far from true—the big people have always paid the lion’s share of taxes—but they point to a truth that’s finally getting the attention it deserves. Here it is, in a different six words:
The big people hugely evade taxes.
They consistently and significantly under-report their incomes. According to The Internal …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / April 22nd, 2021
Biden with NATO’s Stoltenberg (Photo credit: haramjedder.blogspot.com)
President Biden took office promising a new era of American international leadership and diplomacy. But with a few exceptions, he has so far allowed self-serving foreign allies, hawkish U.S. interest groups and his own imperial delusions to undermine diplomacy and stoke the fires of war.
Biden’s failure to quickly recommit to the Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA, as Senator Sanders promised to do on his first day as president, provided a critical delay that has been used by opponents to …
