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December 2016

Newsletter: The Movement Matters Most

December 31, 2016 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org , , , , , , , ,
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. While some people are calling 2016 the worst year ever, we are optimistic that we are on track for transformational change. Of course there are significant challenges ahead, but there are also important opportunities. We knew all along that no matter who won the elections this year, they would be plutocrats, and we, the people, would have to organize and resist. If we look at the big picture, 2016 was a time of progress in political education, movement building and reaching national consensus. These are all elements that are necessary in successful social movements. If we continue to make progress in the years ahead, then our work collectively will have a greater long-term impact than the incoming administration and Congress.

Tripwires For The Trumpsters

December 31, 2016 Ralph Nader, www.blog.nader.org
By Ralph Nader for The Nader Page - The Trumpsters are coming to town—led by a failed gambling czar, corporate welfare king and major tax escapee—and they are hell bent on unmaking Washington, D.C. With all three branches of government dominated by Republican members of Congress and Republican appointees—due to a mixture of abysmal deficiencies in the Democratic Party and the interloping luck of the atavistic Electoral College—the wrecking crew of Trump’s nominees to high cabinet and other positions brings with it a host of politically perilous baggage. First, the Trumpsters have vowed to dismantle various government programs.

Can North Carolina’s Moral Mondays Movement Spark New Civil Rights Fire?

December 31, 2016 William Barber II, www.ebony.com , ,
By William Barber II for Ebony - Donald Trump’s triumph across the South and Midwest, which won him the Electoral College and the White House, did not extend to Governor Pat McCrory in my home state of North Carolina. After fighting his loss with false accusations of voter fraud, McCrory finally conceded in early December, becoming the only incumbent GOP governor in America to lose reelection. But partisan extremists in the North Carolina legislature called a special session last week to strip power from McCrory’s opponent, Democrat Roy Cooper.

2016 And Beyond: Justice Jumping Genres

December 31, 2016 Brian Bienkowski, www.environmentalhealthnews.org , ,
By Brian Bienkowski for Environmental Health News - A historic year for environmental justice saw government failures in Flint, a resurgent Native voice, and a merging of movements. We're watching where it’s headed in the new year. There I was in a mid-March snowstorm riding shotgun in a truck heading south through the Crow reservation in Montana. I made a stupid comment to break the silence: “Man, there is nothing out there.” Crow member and my guide for the day, Emery Three Irons, politely corrected me: “There’s a lot out there.” I saw an empty vastness. Three Irons saw a landscape of history and culture, and all of the splendor and pain attached to both.

On World Day Of Peace, Recognizing Those Who Work For Nuclear Disarmament

December 31, 2016 Gail DeGeorge, www.globalsistersreport.org , , ,
By Gail DeGeorge for Global Sisters Report - In observance of the World Day of Peace January 1, we at Global Sisters Report join in prayer for peace in all regions, for all victims of war and for women religious around the world who dedicate their lives to helping them and to build peace. Sr. Megan Rice, a member of the Holy Child Jesus sisters, was released in May 2015 after serving more than two years in prison for trespassing on a Tennessee uranium enrichment facility. In December 2015, GSR had an interview with Rice about her peacemaking work. Sr. Martha Ann Kirk, a Sister of the Incarnate Word, has researched pockets of tolerance in hostile parts of the Middle East.

11 Million Could Lose Health Coverage If Expansion Of Medicaid Repealed

December 31, 2016 Jesse Cross-Call, www.cbpp.org ,
By Jesse Cross-Call for Center on Budget and Policy Priorities - Congressional Republicans indicate they will repeal key sections of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) early next year, including its Medicaid expansion. Repealing the Medicaid expansion would eliminate health coverage for up to, and quite possibly more than, 11 million low-income Americans in the 31 states (plus the District of Columbia) that have taken up this option. It would also cut off the possibility of gaining coverage for the 4 million uninsured people in the remaining 19 states who would become Medicaid-eligible if their state expanded.

Why I Answered The Call For Veterans To Go To Standing Rock

December 31, 2016 Kevin Basl, www.otherwords.org ,
By Kevin Basl for Other Words - At Standing Rock, for the first time, I felt like I was finally serving the people. I lay among friends, huddled and cold in our sleeping bags. We listened to the lashing wind and the drums and prayer chants coming from the sacred fire, and we reflected on why we, four Iraq War veterans, were here. Police floodlights shone from the drill site of the Dakota Access Pipeline, scheduled to cross under the Missouri River, the water source for millions of people. Members of the Standing Rock Sioux, concerned not only about polluted water but also the desecration of sacred sites, began resisting the pipeline in 2014. In mid-2016, finally...

Get Ready For All-Out Assault On Social Security

December 31, 2016 Dave Lindorff, www.thiscantbehappening.net ,
By Dave Lindorff for This Can't Be Happening - The first assault of the new Trump administration and Republican Congress upon Social Security has been launched. It comes in the form of release of a new report by the Congressional Budget Office, which of course these days is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Congressional Caucus. Using some financial sleight-of-hand, this CBO report pushes forward by two years the date at which its ideologically driven experts claim Social Security benefits will exhaust the Trust Fund, and since the Social Security program is required to be self-financing, the date at which, barring adjustments by Congress in the program’s funding and/or benefit payment levels, promised benefits would have to be cut by what the CBO claims will have to be 31%. Such a cut would clearly be a staggering blow to the finances and livelihoods of nation’s retirees, dependents and the disabled.

200 DHS Employees Accepted Nearly $15M In Bribes

December 31, 2016 Andrew Emett, www.ecowatch.com ,
By Andrew Emett for Nation of Change - A recent New York Times investigation found that almost 200 employees and contract workers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were caught accepting nearly $15 million in bribes and betraying their oath of office within the last 10 years. Besides turning a blind eye to drug smuggling and human trafficking, many of these DHS employees also illegally accessed databases, sold green cards, and provided sensitive law enforcement information to drug cartels. “It does absolutely no good to talk about the building of walls or tougher enforcement if you can’t secure the integrity of the immigration system...

We Are Not Living In ‘Post-Truth’ World, We Are Living Lies Of Others

December 31, 2016 Robert Fisk, www.independent.co.uk ,
By Robert Fisk for The Independent - Nigel Farage is not a Nazi and nor is Donald Trump. But what is terrifying – and deeply akin to fascism – is our ability to ‘think’ our way from truth into lies. We do not live in a “post-truth” world, neither in the Middle East nor in the West – nor in Russia, for that matter. We live in a world of lies. And we always have lived in a world of lies. Just take a look at the wreckage of the Middle East with its history of people’s popular republics and its hateful dictators. They feast on dishonesty, although they all – bar the late Muammar al-Gaddafi – demand regular elections to make-believe their way back to power. Now, I suppose, it is we who have regular elections based on lies. So maybe Trump and the Arab autocrats will get on rather well.

Snowden Document Reveals What NSA Knew About Previous Russian Hacking

December 31, 2016 Sam Biddle, www.theintercept.com , , ,
By Sam Biddle for The Intercept - TO DATE, THE only public evidence that the Russian government was responsible for hacks of the DNC and key Democratic figures has been circumstantial and far short of conclusive, courtesy of private research firms with a financial stake in such claims. Multiple federal agencies now claim certainty about the Kremlin connection, but they have yet to make public the basis for their beliefs. Now, a never-before-published top-secret document provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden suggests the NSA has a way of collecting evidence of Russian hacks, because the agency tracked a similar hack before in the case of a prominent Russian journalist, who was also a U.S. citizen.

Is The Pilgrim Pipeline Protest The Next #NoDAPL?

December 31, 2016 Lorraine Chow, www.ecowatch.com , ,
By Lorraine Chow for Eco Watch - Is this the next #NoDAPL? The Ramapough Lunaape tribe in the township of Mahwah, New Jersey are protesting the interstate Pilgrim Pipeline, a proposed 178-mile dual pipeline that would carry fracked Bakken shale oil from Albany, New York to the Bayway Refinery in Linden, New Jersey. While it is not yet finalized, the preliminary route crosses five counties and 30 municipalities in New Jersey and five counties and 25 municipalities in New York, as well as the Highlands region, where the groundwater and surface water are the direct source of water for more than 4.5 million people in both states, according to the Coalition Against Pilgrim Pipeline.

Another, More Beautiful America Is Rising. Trump Will Be Resisted

December 30, 2016 Rebecca Solnit, www.theguardian.com
By Rebecca Solnit for The Guardian - American people will stand up for ideals of humanity, from lawyers and tech workers to the Californian senate. The time when you don’t need hope is when your hopes have been fulfilled. Hope is for when you don’t have what you need and for when things are not OK. It is the belief that liberation might be possible that motivates you to make it more possible, and pursuing hope even when it doesn’t lead to the ultimate goal can generate changes that matter along the way, including in yourself. A dozen years ago I talked about hope to a roomful of working-class community college students in Washington...

The Twelve Days (And Months) Of Climate Justice Day Two

December 30, 2016 Winona LaDuke and John Foran, www.resilience.org , ,
By Winona LaDuke and John Foran for Resilience - It’s 2016 and the weight of American corporate interests has come to the Missouri River, the Mother River. This time, instead of the Seventh Cavalry or the Indian police dispatched to assassinate Sitting Bull, it is Enbridge and Dakota Access Pipeline. In mid-August, Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II was arrested by state police, along with 27 others, for opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline. In the meantime, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple called for more police support. Every major pipeline project in North America must cross indigenous lands, Indian Country. That is a problem.

Controlling The Narrative On Syria

December 30, 2016 Louis Allday, www.mrzine.monthlyreview.org
By Louis Allday for MR Zine - Since 2011, the torrent of ill-informed, inaccurate and often entirely dishonest analysis of events in Syria has been unremitting. I have written previously about the dangers of using simplistic explanations to make sense of the conflict, a problem that has surfaced repeatedly over the past five years. However, there is a greater problem at large. The mainstream discourse on Syria has become so toxic, detached from reality and devoid of nuance that anyone who dares to even question the constructed narrative of ongoing 'revolution', or opposes the arguments of those who advocate for the imposition of a no-fly zone by the West, can expect swift retribution.
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