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.
A coalition of press freedom and First Amendment organizations have demanded that the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office abandon felony charges against a Stanford University student reporter.
Dilan Gohill, a freshman, covers student protests for the university’s newspaper known as The Daily. He was arrested on June 5, along with 12 demonstrators, after they engaged in an act of civil disobedience against the Stanford’s investments in companies “that provide material and logistical support to Israel’s current military campaign” in Gaza.
The letter [PDF] from the coalition to the local prosecutor indicates that police jailed Gohill for 15 hours. He could be charged with “felony burglary, vandalism, and conspiracy, according to his lawyers and the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.”
The Air In Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ Is Even Worse Than Expected
June 22, 2024
Naveena Sadasivam, DeSmog.
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Cancer, Cancer Alley, EPA, Health Care, Human Rights, Louisiana, pollution
Since the 1980s, the 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that connects New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has been known as “Cancer Alley.” The name stems from the fact that the area’s residents have a 95 percent greater chance of developing cancer than the average American. A big reason for this is the concentration of industrial facilities along the corridor — particularly petrochemical manufacturing plants, many of which emit ethylene oxide, an extremely potent toxin that is considered a carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency and has been linked to breast and lung cancers.
Is The Reign Of The Dollar Coming To An End?
June 21, 2024
Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
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BRICS, De-dollarization, Global Economy, Wall Street
In early June, a rumour began to circulate – which was widely reported in the Indian press as true – that the government of Saudi Arabia had allowed its petrodollar agreement with the United States to lapse. This agreement, made in 1974, is quite straight-forward and fulfils various needs of the US government: the US purchases oil from Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia uses that money to buy military equipment from US arms manufacturers while holding the income from the oil sales in US Treasury Bills and in the Western financial system. This arrangement to recycle oil profits into the US economy and the Western banking world is known as the petrodollar system.
‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 258: Threat Of All-Out War Rises
June 21, 2024
Qassam Muaddi, Mondoweiss.
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Gaza, Genocide, Hezbollah, Israel, Palestine, Wars and Militarism
CNN quoted from unnamed U.S. officials that Israel informed Washington of its intention of transferring “resources” to its northern border in preparation for a war against Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
According to reports, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told an Arab official that Israel seems determined to attack Lebanon, while the Arab official told Blinken that Hezbollah will not end its attacks on Israel unless it ends its war in Gaza.
Tensions rose after a week of unprecedented escalation between Hezbollah and Israel. Last week, Israel killed a senior Hezbollah commander in a strike on southern Lebanon.
Top US Law Schools Present Undeniable Evidence Of Israel’s Gaza Genocide
June 21, 2024
Kit Klarenberg, MintPress News.
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Gaza, Genocide, Human Rights, International Law, Israel, Palestine, University Network for Human Rights (UNHR)
On May 15, the University Network for Human Rights (UNHR), a U.S.-based advocacy group training undergraduates in human rights law at colleges and universities worldwide to counter abusive state, corporate, or private conduct, published a 105-page analysis of international law and its application to Israel’s military actions since October 7, 2023. Drawing on extensive evidence and historical legal precedents, the findings leave no doubt that Israel has committed horrific breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention in Gaza.
A collaborative effort by some of the West’s most prestigious law schools, the report has now been submitted to the United Nations.
Venezuela Edges Closer To Losing CITGO As Corporations Submit Offers
June 21, 2024
Ricardo Vaz, People's Dispatch.
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CITGO, ConocoPhillips, Juan Guaido, Sanctions, Sanctions against Venezuela, US Imperialism, US Sanctions, US sanctions against Venezuela, US Treasury Department, Venezuela, Venezuelan opposition
The second and final round of bidding in a court-mandated auction of Venezuela’s US-based oil subsidiary CITGO has concluded.
Several corporations submitted binding offers by a June 11 deadline as part of a process organized by a Delaware District Court to satisfy a number of claims against the Caribbean nation totaling US USD 21.3 billion.
In October 2022, Judge Leonard P. Stark set in motion the sale of shares belonging to PDV Holding (PDVH), CITGO’s parent company. The process was brought forward by Canadian miner Crystallex.
The auction procedure will pay 18 creditors, which are looking to collect on international arbitration awards on a “first come, first serve basis,” based on when the court approved their writs.
Russia’s Fifth Offer To Negotiate With US On Ukraine
June 21, 2024
Jeffrey Sachs, Consortium News.
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Peace Negotiations, Russia, Ukraine, Wars and Militarism
For the fifth time since 2008, Russia has proposed to negotiate with the U.S. over security arrangements, this time in proposals made by President Vladimir Putin on June 14.
Four previous times, the U.S. rejected the offer of negotiations in favor of a neocon strategy to weaken or dismember Russia through war and covert operations.
The U.S. neocon tactics have failed disastrously, devastating Ukraine in the process, and endangering the whole world. After all the warmongering, it’s time for Biden to open negotiations for peace with Russia.
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. grand strategy has been to weaken Russia.
Chiquita Case Exposes Failure Of Voluntary ‘Social Responsibility’
June 21, 2024
Manpreet Kaur Kalra and Anna Canning, In These Times.
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Accountability, Bananas, Chiquita, Corporate Responsibility, Human Rights
Last week, Chiquita Brands International — one of the world’s largest banana distributors — was found liable in a Florida court for financing a Colombian paramilitary group. The ruling marks a landmark moment for corporate accountability: It is the first time a U.S. corporation has been held liable for human rights violations abroad in connection to their business operations. As momentous as this victory is in its own right, it also illustrates the ineffectiveness of voluntary corporate social responsibility initiatives — and the need for strong civil society institutions to protect human rights.
Chiquita Brands International has vast banana plantations throughout Colombia.
Supreme Court Decision In Starbucks Case Will Impact Labor Movement
June 21, 2024
Alexandra Martinez, Scheer Post.
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National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Starbucks, Supreme Court, Unions, Worjer Rights
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 13 in favor of the Starbucks Corporation in the landmark case Starbucks v. McKinney, a devastating blow to union organizers that narrows the authority of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to seek remedies for terminated union activists.
The case, which marked a significant victory for Starbucks and could hinder future labor organizing, centered on whether the NLRB should have the authority to swiftly issue injunctions under Section 10(j) of the National Labor Relations Act aimed at halting employers’ alleged unfair labor practices.
“The main reason we submitted the brief was so that the Supreme Court could hear directly from the Starbucks workers who are affected by issues that the court was considering,” said Daniel Rosenthal.
The Problem With Juneteenth
The fact that members of the United States Senate voted unanimously to make Juneteenth a federal holiday proved that the commemoration is of no political value. Turning what was a peoples’ celebration into an occasion for opportunism and window dressing has actually damaged the cause of Black liberation and the understanding of history.
On June 19, 1865 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas and issued General Order Three, a declaration that slavery had ended. The fact that this event occurred two months after the Civil War ended took on an understandably mythic quality, including a belief that the news had been deliberately kept from enslaved people, or that the person carrying the message had been killed.
The Asian American Foundation’s ADL Partnership Is A Betrayal
June 20, 2024
Sharmin Hossain, Mondoweiss.
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Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Asian American Foundation, Israel, Palestine, Racism, Zionism
Currently entering its ninth month, Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza continues to cast fault lines in U.S. politics. Students, activists, and voters have challenged the complicity of the U.S. government, universities, and corporations in enabling the mass destruction of Gaza and the genocidal violence that has taken over 40,000 lives and counting. For some Asian American activists, the movement in defense of Palestinian lives has raised some surprising revelations about the influence of Zionism in Asian American movement spaces.
Nowhere is that influence clearer than in the case of The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), the $1 billion philanthropic organization founded in May 2021 amidst rising national attention to an increase in anti-Asian hate incidents.
Hunter Biden’s Charge Of Lying Under Oath
June 20, 2024
Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News.
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Accountability, Congress, Corruption, Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden Emails, Joe Biden
One reads regularly in the mainstream media, when events force them to report on the question, that the U.S. House Oversight Committee has hit a wall as it investigates Hunter Biden’s schemes to leverage his father’s power and Joe Biden’s potentially impeachable role in his son’s unseemly doings.
The House hearings have stalled, or fizzled, or reached a dead end: This has been the standard theme in corporate media for months now.
“Wouldn’t you know it,” Michael Goodwin asked in The New York Post as far back as March, “CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico and others on the left all reached exactly the same conclusion at the same time.”
The US List Of Countries Allegedly Sponsors Of Terrorism
June 20, 2024
Alfred De Zayas, Scheer Post.
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International Law, US Imperialism, US Sanctions, US State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSoT)
In the US State Department’s toolkit, unilateral coercive measures (UCMs) are used to blackmail, bully and intimidate States that do not readily accept US hegemony. Placing a country in the US list of countries sponsors for terrorism is intended to lend some phony legitimacy to UCMs imposed against targeted States.
Unilateral Coercive Measures are not “sanctions”, since the US has no legal or moral right to sanction or “punish” other states. Nor do the American UCMs satisfy the legal criteria to be considered “retorsion” or “countermeasures” for purposes of the International Law Commission’s code on State responsibility.
Russia And North Korea Sign Strategic Partnership Agreement
June 20, 2024
People's Dispatch.
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DPRK, International Relations, Multipolarity, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine, US Imperialism
As a result of June 19 talks, Russia and North Korea have signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement. The agreement provides for mutual military assistance in the case of aggression against either country. Russia also denounced the “indefinite restrictions regime” of sanctions imposed on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) by the United Nations.
“Overused Western propaganda tropes can no longer hide their aggressive geopolitical intentions, including in Northwestern Asia,” Putin said in signing the agreement. The DPRK re-emphasizes its support for Russia in the war in Ukraine.
This development follows Putin’s first visit to North Korea in 24 years.
Competing Global Economic Initiatives: A Tale Of Two Routes
June 20, 2024
Mohamad Zreik, Orinoco Tribune.
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BRICS, China, Global Economy, IMEC, Multipolar World, Trade
In recent years, two major economic initiatives have emerged in Asia, particularly in West Asia: China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). These initiatives represent a strategic contest between global powers vying for influence and economic dominance in a rapidly changing world.
The Belt and Road Initiative, conceived by Chinese President Xi Jinping, is a modern resurrection of the ancient Silk Road. This initiative aims to connect China to the rest of the world through extensive infrastructure investments, including ports, roads, railways, and industrial zones.