Educate!
Education is the foundation of political change. In this section we provide news and analyses of current events that you won’t likely read or hear in the corporate media. Our sources are from organizations and independent media outlets free of corporate and government propaganda. We strongly encourage you to share these articles by email and social media so that together we create an echo chamber that overcomes the influence of the oligarchy. You will find large social media sharing buttons on the left side of each article when you open the article to read.
According to a headline in The Hill newspaper, which takes a position typical of U.S. corporate media, “New Year’s attacks fuel fears of extremism in military.”
In other words, an institution openly dedicated to mass killing and destruction may have fallen victim to infiltration by “extremists.” As if there could be something more extreme than a military.
The reason for this approach is that two U.S. military veterans attempted mass murders that made the news on the same day — and their status as veterans (or in one case active duty) made the news. The fact that those guilty of mass shootings in the United States are, and have long been, very disproportionately veterans is, and has long been, strictly avoided by U.S. corporate media, including in reporting and commenting on these new incidents.
Journalist Could Face Prison For Refusing To Give Passwords To Police
January 3, 2025
Stefania Maurizi, Il Fatto Quotidiano.
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Journalism, Legal System, Police, Press Freedom, Privacy
It is an unprecedented case. And it risks triggering an unprecedented threat to journalism. The UK police have repeatedly tried to obtain the passwords to the phones of the British independent journalist, Richard Medhurst, the first reporter arrested in London under Section 12: his analyses and comments on Israel’s bloodbath in Gaza – which Amnesty International has characterised as genocide – have been interpreted by the police as support for organisations banned from the UK, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
The son of two UN peacekeepers, Medhurst was arrested last August at London’s Heathrow Airport
Psychiatry’s Latest Insane Magic-Bullet Treatment For Depression
January 3, 2025
Bruce E. Levine, Counter Punch.
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Depression, Drugs, FDA, Health Care, Ketamine
Clinics offering ketamine infusions and injections for “treatment-resistant depression” are today claiming 24-48 hours remission, and ketamine is also being marketed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorder.
“Between 500 and 750 ketamine clinics have cropped up across the United States,” NPR reported early in 2024 (“The Ketamine Economy: New Mental Health Clinics are a ‘Wild West’ with Few Rules”). This may be an underestimation, as Psychiatric News reported later in 2024, “More than 1,500 intravenous (IV) infusion clinics have proliferated nationwide.”
Trump’s Second Term Is Around The Corner
In less than one month, the horrific term of U.S. President Joe Biden will be over. His will be a legacy of genocide, of the annihilation of the international system of law, and the hobbling of political norms around basic principles of human rights, state sovereignty, and the unbridled use of force.
Unfortunately, the departure of this president who has set new standards for bloodthirstiness and utter lack of principle does not augur an era where matters are likely to improve.
With Donald Trump taking the White House for the second time, we enter a new phase of uncertainty, with a self-interested, mercurial, authoritarian in the White House.
Israeli Demolition Campaign Intensifies In Southern Lebanon
January 2, 2025
News Desk, The Cradle.
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Ceasefire, Israel, Israeli Imperialism, Lebanon, Occupation, Wars and Militarism
Israeli troops advanced into and heavily attacked the southern Lebanese village of Beit Lif on 2 January, in violation of the fragile ceasefire that Tel Aviv has been continuously breaching since it took effect in late November last year.
“The Roumieh area between Beit Lif and Yater was subjected to enemy artillery shelling,” Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday afternoon, coming as Israeli forces entered and searched homes in the area.
According to Al Manar’s correspondent in the south, the Israeli army pushed into Beit Lif with several Merkava tanks, military hummers, a bulldozer, and infantry forces and began demolitions in the town.
Ukraine On The Verge Of Defeat
In 2023 the situation in Ukraine had developed into what looked like a stalemate. But 2024 proved that bigger things had been in the making. In 2024, after taking Avdivka, the Russian forces began to deliberate and steadily move forward.
The introduction of FAB bombs, precision ammunition delivered from airplanes flying outside Ukrainian air defenses, broke the Ukrainian defense fortifications. Russian infantry, covered by ample artillery and with the help drones, infiltrated and overwhelmed Ukrainian lines. An ever increasing shortage of Ukrainian troops helped to increase the tempo of progress.
Trump Has Promised To Build More Ships
January 2, 2025
Nicole Foy, ProPublica.
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Deportations, Donald Trump, Immigration, Military Industrial Complex, Worker Rights and Jobs
Early last year, President-elect Donald Trump promised that when he got back into the Oval Office, he’d authorize the U.S. Navy to build more ships. “It’s very important,” he said, “because it’s jobs, great jobs.”
However, the companies that build ships for the government are already having trouble finding enough workers to fill those jobs. And Trump may make it even harder if he follows through on another pledge he’s made: to clamp down on immigration.
The president-elect has told his supporters he would impose new limits on the numbers of immigrants allowed into the country and stage the largest mass deportation campaign in history.
How Vouchers Harm Public Schools
January 2, 2025
Hilary Wething, Economic Policy Institute.
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Education, Privatization, Public schools, Report, School Vouchers
Voucher programs for schools are rapidly expanding across the country. Under these programs, public budgets provide funding to parents to either send their children to private school or homeschool them.
These programs’ growing popularity raises the question of whether letting public money leave the public school system and subsidize private forms of schooling is a way to improve children’s access to an excellent education. EPI’s analysis shows that vouchers harm public schools.
To illustrate the damage, EPI has developed a tool that estimates fiscal externalities—the dollar costs to school districts from students leaving public schools with a voucher.
The Homelessness Crisis Is About To Get A Lot Worse
January 2, 2025
Chloe Atkinson, Counter Punch.
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Affordable Housing, Donald Trump, Homelessness, Housing Crisis
With just weeks to go before Donald Trump waltzes back into the White House, America has an additional problem on its hands.
The homelessness rate has surged, rising by 18% in 2024 compared to last year.
According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual assessment report, more than 770,000 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. Nearly 150,000 children experienced homelessness on a single night in 2024, a whopping 33% increase from 2023.
The number of homeless older Americans also rose, with more than 140,000 people over the age of 55 going unhoused in the U.S. this year. Nearly half of these older Americans reported living in places not meant for humans.
American-Century Flight
January 1, 2025
Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News.
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Donald Trump, Liberal class, McCarthyism, Radicals
When McCarthyism visited the United States with the conservative-liberal backlash — the McCarthy–Nixon cohort on the right and President Truman in the center — the work the Oppens had done legally was effectively made illegal. I published the essay years after my book, Finks, was published, and this was because it took so long for my F.O.I.A., or Freedom of Information Act request to the government, to be fulfilled. But that essay set the tone for those that followed.
Many of the essays were written during Trump’s first term, when liberals seemed to partially reenact this maneuver of Cold War suspicion of foreignness.
A Palestinian Year In Review: Genocide, Resistance And Unanswered Questions
January 1, 2025
Ramzy Baroud, Counter Punch.
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Genocide, Israel, Palestine, Wars and Militarism, West Bank
The story of the Israeli war on Gaza can be epitomized in the story of the Israeli war on Beit Lahia, a small Palestinian town in the northern part of the Strip.
When Israel launched its ground operations in Gaza, Beit Lahia was already largely destroyed due to many days of relentless Israeli bombardment which killed thousands.
Still, the border Gaza town resisted, leading to a hermetic Israeli siege, which was never lifted, even when the Israeli military redeployed out of much of northern Gaza in January 2024.
Beit Lahia is largely an isolated town, a short distance away from the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel.
Abductions, Extra-Judicial Killings Mount In Syria Under HTS Rule
January 1, 2025
News Desk, The Cradle.
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Ethnic cleansing, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Syria, Terrorism
Nine civilians were kidnapped and executed by unknown gunmen in the Syrian cities of Homs and Jableh, as revenge killings continue in the wake of President Bashar al-Assad's ousting earlier this month, Sputnik News reported on 31 December.
Local sources speaking with Sputnik stated that "six civilians were kidnapped in the Abbasiya neighborhood in the city of Homs on 29 December by unknown gunmen. Their bodies were found after they were executed by firing squad on the outskirts of the city of Homs. Five of them were from the same family."
The ‘Ghost’ Of Guantanamo Is Freed
In welcome news, the Pentagon has announced that it has repatriated from Guantánamo Ridah Al-Yazidi, 59, a Tunisian prisoner held without charge or trial since the very first day of the prison’s operations nearly 23 years ago, on January 11, 2002.
Although almost completely unknown to the outside world, because of the mainstream media’s persistent lack of interest in investigating the mundane lawlessness of so much of the prison’s operations, Al-Yazidi’s case is one of the most outstanding cases of casual injustice at Guantánamo.
The Cuban Five Victory: Reflections 10 Years Later
January 1, 2025
Diana Block, Orinico Tribune.
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Cuba, Cuban 5, Economic Blockade, Solidarity, US Imperialism
I can remember clearly the rush of joy I felt when I heard the almost unbelievable news that the last three members of the Cuban Five, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, and Ramón Labañino, had landed in Havana on December 17th, 2014, after 16 years of unjust incarceration in U.S. prisons. (The other two members of the Five, Fernando González, and René González, had been released previously at the end of their prison terms.) I had corresponded with Gerardo while he was in prison and seeing the pictures of him embrace his wife, Adriana Pérez, who was about to give birth to their daughter Gema, made it all seem even more miraculous.
Don’t Deify Jimmy Carter
December 31, 2024
Chris Hedges, Scheer Post.
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Chris Hedges, Jimmy Carter, Palestine, US Foreign Policy
Jimmy Carter, out of office, had the courage to call out the “abominable oppression and persecution” and “strict segregation” of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” He dedicated himself to monitoring elections, including his controversial defense of the 2006 election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and championed human rights around the globe. He lambasted the American political process as an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.”