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.
For the first time in its 248-year existence, the United States government investigated its own Federal Indian Boarding Schools, a genocidal element of the racist settler colonial project by which the country was formed. From the passage of the Civilization Fund Act in 1819 up until 1969, the U.S. government stole Indigenous children from their parents, and separated and killed family members as part of a broader policy to steal territory and sever the cultural, economic and spiritual ties between Indigenous peoples.
Children were forced into boarding schools to assimilate to the European settlers’ way of life.
Biden Declares ‘National Emergency’ Over Threat Posed By Tiny Nicaragua
November 26, 2024
John Perry, Popular Resistance.
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Joe Biden, Nicaragua, US Imperialism, US Sanctions
In the dying days of his administration, President Biden must have needed a reminder by his officials on November 22. He had to decide whether Nicaragua still poses an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States”. Presumably he agreed that it does, because he renewed its status as a “national security threat” for a further year, repeating the designation that first began under the last Trump presidency.
As figures from the Latin America Security and Defense Network show, this “threat” comes from a state which spends less of its national income on defense than almost any other country in the hemisphere.
Alliance To End Plastic Waste Members Created 1,000x More Plastic Than They Cleaned Up
November 25, 2024
Paige Bennett, EcoWatch.
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False Solutions, plastic pollution, Plastics, pollution
In 2019, a group of major companies from around the world agreed to form the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), an alliance that set out to reduce the amount of plastic flowing into the environment by around 15 million metric tons by the end of 2023.
But according to a new report by Unearthed, a Greenpeace investigative journalism team, the initiative members have actually produced more than 1,000 times the amount of plastic than they’ve cleaned up in the 2019 to 2023 timeframe.
The report found that the initiative was established by American Chemistry Council (ACC), a trade association, and a PR company. According to Unearthed, the project aimed to “change the conversation – away from short-term simplistic bans of plastic.”
Imperialism And The Destabilization Of The Alliance Of Sahel States
November 24, 2024
Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report.
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Africa, Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Burkina Faso, Imperialism, Mali, Niger
Since the formation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, during 2023, the governments of France and the United States along with their surrogates have sought to undermine the political and economic objectives of these developing nations.
When the military Committee for the Safeguard of Our Homeland (CNSP) took power in Niger last year on July 26, Paris and Washington sought to have members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) stage a military intervention into this uranium-rich country to reimpose the French and U.S.-backed ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.
Anti-Union Captive Meetings Are Now Illegal
November 24, 2024
Bob Funk, Portside.
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Donald Trump, NLRB, union busting, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs
On Tuesday of last week, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that mandatory meetings in which employees are forced to listen to employer diatribes concerning their labor rights are unlawful. The mandatory meetings are often referred to as “captive audience meetings.” Designed to halt union organizing momentum and scare workers into voting against unions, such meetings are a key tactic in bosses’ anti-union playbook and devastating for organizing workers trying to better their lives.
In 2022, NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a memo in which she announced that she would ask the NLRB to find captive audience meetings unlawful.
Wall Street Took Over A Vital Sign Language Service
November 24, 2024
Sarah Lazare, In These Times.
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Interpretation, Privatization, Sign Language, union busting, Unions, Wall Street, Worker Rights and Jobs
“Do no harm” is the guiding principle of American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters’ professional code of conduct. But when Joe Klug, 28, worked as a Video Relay Service (VRS) interpreter for a Twin Cities metro area office of Purple Communications, he says this principle was routinely violated.
The VRS field, which allows Deaf and Hard of Hearing people to make phone calls by video interfacing with interpreters, is difficult and fast-paced work. While some calls are social, others can be serious: medical emergencies, job interviews, jargon-heavy discussions with lawyers or sensitive conversations with doctors.
Biden Leaves Office But Risks War with Russia
November 23, 2024
Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report.
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Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Russia, Wars and Militarism
While every Donald Trump utterance is given great attention and dissected for proof of nefarious intent, dangerous actions taken by Joe Biden are minimized or go unreported altogether. The corporate media have never investigated the likelihood that Biden and his foreign policy team sabotaged the NordStream pipelines in 2022 in order to cut European allies’ connection to the Russian gas they depended upon. Two years went by before the New York Times reported that Turkiye hosted peace talks between Russia and Ukraine which might have ended the proxy war before thousands of lives were lost.
US-Israeli Barbarity In Lebanon
November 23, 2024
Craig Murray, Consortium News.
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Israel, Lebanon, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism
I could not tell the easy, comforting lie.
“No,” I told the woman, her traumatised children clinging to her legs, “I can’t say you are safe here; not one of us is safe. The Israelis are genocidal. But in Lebanon so far, I don’t think they have bombed a school.”
I was with 67 families, with 215 children, who are living as refugees in a small school at Ain Rumaila in Southern Beirut. The area borders the evacuated suburb of Dahiya which the Israelis are systematically demolishing, and bombings rattle the windows of the school every day.
This woman is a school teacher when at home in Southern Lebanon, and her husband a retired soldier.
Why These New Russian Missiles Are Real Game Changers
In response to a U.S. decision to arrange for ballistic missile attacks from Ukraine into Russia, the great magician and President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin pull a rabbit from his hat.
Yesterday the six independent war heads of a new intermediate range ballistic missile hit the Yuzhmash missile plant in Dnipro Ukraine.
Until now the new missile and its mission profile had been unknown. It is the clear counter to decade long efforts of the U.S. to gain supremacy, especially in Europe, over Russia.
Missiles can be classified by the range they are able to achieve
As COP29 Winds Down, Poorer Nations Reject Wealthy Countries’ Offer
November 23, 2024
Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch.
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climate crisis, Climate finance, COP29, Global South
The COP29 United Nations Climate Conference extended into overtime on Friday, as the offer by the world’s richest countries of $250 billion annually by 2035 to assist poorer nations struggling with the most dire effects of the climate crisis was rejected as inadequate.
“I’m so mad. It’s ridiculous. Just ridiculous,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s special representative for climate change, as Reuters reported. “It feels that the developed world wants the planet to burn.”
Representatives from nearly 200 nations at the summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, have been given the goal of coming to an agreement on a financing plan to deal with climate change.
Creation Is A Political Action, And A Writer Is A Politicised Person
November 22, 2024
Tings Chak, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
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China, Feminism, History, People's Republic of China, Socialism
On 1 October, the People’s Republic of China celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary. Our institute’s director, Vijay Prashad, and I co-wrote an article looking back at these revolutionary decades. Ding Ling (1904–1986) was a writer, feminist, and one of the countless communists who contributed to the Chinese Revolution, especially in the battle of ideas. This art bulletin, originally published in People’s Dispatch and translated by Capire, looks back at her life and work on the 120th anniversary of her birth.
If twentieth century China was a century of revolutions, then legendary Chinese writer Ding Ling was forged out of those revolutions.
Israel: Beginning Of The End
November 22, 2024
Stefan Moore, Consortium News.
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Hezbollah, Israel, Palestine, Wars and Militarism
Contrary to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s bellicose July 24 speech before a joint session of the United States Congress pledging to achieve “total victory” over Hamas, Israel is being decisively defeated – militarily, economically and as a society.
On the battlefield — despite Israel’s genocidal campaign of bombing, mass starvation and assassinations — the prospect of victory over Hamas and Hezbollah is now seriously disputed by many of Israel’s former and current military and intelligence officials.
“The country really is galloping towards the edge of an abyss…losing more and more soldiers as they get killed or wounded,” wrote former General Yitzhak Brik in Haaretz.
Israel’s Genocide Day 412: Israel Kills 87 Palestinians In Gaza
November 22, 2024
Qassam Muaddi, Mondoweiss.
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Benjamin Netanyahu, Gaza, Genocide, International Criminal Court (ICC), Israel, Jenin, Palestine, Yoav Gallant
Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians in a military raid on Jenin that lasted more than 48 hours between Wednesday and Thursday. Local residents told Mondoweiss that Israeli forces entered the industrial area in Jenin late night Wednesday and headed towards the city’s refugee camp, where they clashed with Palestinian fighters. The Israeli army also took over several rooftops and installed snipers on the refugee camp’s perimeter.
Shortly before the start of the invasion of the refugee camp, Israeli forces raided the village of Kufr Dan, to the west of Jenin city, where the Palestinian Red Crescent said that its teams treated a Palestinian man wounded by a live bullet in the chest.
Why Did The FBI Show Up At Alison Weir’s Door?
November 22, 2024
Robert Inlakesh, MintPress News.
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FBI, Intimidation, Israel, Journalists, Palestine, State Repression
Journalist and author Alison Weir has raised concerns over what she describes as an unsettling visit from the FBI, alleging that agents showed up at her home unannounced to question her.
In a public statement on November 18, Weir revealed that she was approached by agents who informed her the visit was connected to a matter involving Press TV, the Iranian state-owned news outlet. She said she asked agents to allow a family member to be present before continuing the discussion, during which she learned the agents had been directed by one of their offices to “check in with certain people.”
G20 Knocks Out G7 Agendas
November 22, 2024
Pepe Escobar, The Cradle.
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Brazil, China, G20, G7, Global South, India, Indonesia, Poverty, South Africa, Ukraine
The G20 summit in Rio earlier this week offered the quite intriguing spectacle of a deeply divided world, geopolitically and geoeconomically, trying to put on a brave ‘holiday in the sun’ face.
There was plenty of fluff to amuse attentive audiences. French President Emmanuel Macron surrounded by a beefy security detail strolling on Copacabana beach near midnight; European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen barefoot in the sand, stunned by the lapping waves; the White House lodger, US President Joe Biden – with his expiry date in less than two months – missing the G20 family pic because he was talking to a palm tree.