Structural Violence

Capitalists Should Be Removed From All Our Systems

December 19, 2024 Paul Street, Counter Punch. Strategize! Capitalism, Health Care, Public Services, Structural Violence

Imagine that your household was regularly broken into by a sadist who systemically beat-up everyone in your home. He’d start by punching folks in the stomach. Then he’d smack people on the both sides of their heads. Then he’d kick your legs out from underneath you and pound you all on your backs and necks before kicking you all in the jaw and punching your noses. In forming a response to this outrageous oppression would you tell this monster that the next time he breaks into your home with his fists balled he’s going to have to forgo one of the shots he takes at people – say, the head smacks.

This Pride Month, There Is Hope In Fighting Back

June 6, 2023 Ezra Brain, Left Voice. Resist! History, Legislation, LGBTQ, LGBTQ Rights, Pride Month, Structural Violence

This Pride Month comes amid a rising wave of anti-trans policies across the country. Over 500 anti-trans bills have been proposed in the past year, state after state is banning gender affirming care for trans minors, and many are beginning to also severely limit it for trans adults. With the recent presidential announcement of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, it’s clear that these anti-trans politics aren’t going anywhere soon. Right-wingers are harassing and attacking queer people, corporations are abandoning even the most self-serving attempts at inclusion, and the response from the Biden Administration has been limited to paying the most insultingly insufficient lip service.

The System Is Causing Food Crisis, Not The War

August 19, 2022 Adele, Consortium News. Educate! Farming, Food and Agriculture, Structural Violence, Zambia

Worsening harvests, infertile soil and increasing food poverty are affecting the majority of small farmers across the globe, especially in the Global South. But the climate and food crises are not isolated phenomena. They are the result of a global capitalist system – and a neoliberal agenda – that has prioritised big corporate agricultural profits over people and the planet. “Most farmers can no longer produce adequate food for their families,” says Vladimir Chilinya. “Profit-making entities control our food systems… including the production and distribution of seed.” Chilinya is a Zambian coordinator for FIAN International, an organisation that campaigns for the democratisation of food and nutrition.

Italian Students Are Rising Up Against Exploitation

April 3, 2022 Andreas Petrossiants And Giulia Sbaffi, ROAR Magazine. Organize! Italy, Structural Violence, Student organizing, Students

On January 21, 18-year-old Italian high school student Lorenzo Parelli died after being hit by a heavy metal beam while working at a factory in Lauzacco, a small town in northern Italy. The accident happened on the last day of Lorenzo’s alternanza scuola-lavoro (“school-work alternation”) internship as part of a mandatory work-placement program for high school students. In an attempt to individualize the responsibility for this tragedy, investigators are now wasting time and resources to determine who is to blame for Lorenzo’s death. Meanwhile, they are letting the neoliberal capitalist death machine that legitimized a program that forces young students into dangerous factory work off the hook. However, for the students who have been organizing throughout the country since his death, the real culprit of this tragedy is clear: “Lorenzo did not die. He was killed by the state through the alternanza scuola-lavoro,” as Niccolò De Luca, a member of the recently formed student movement La Lupa (“The Wolf”) put it.

The Ongoing American Genocide Against Indigenous Women And Girls

June 18, 2019 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Canada, Indigenous Rights, MMIWG2S, Structural Violence

Canada issued a report two weeks ago on thousands of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) calling them victims of Canadian Genocide and connecting a root cause to colonization, racism, and sexism. This report came after decades of pressure by families of the victims and validates what indigenous communities have been reporting as a major problem. We speak with Annita Lucchesi (Cheyenne), a founder of the MMIW Database, who organizes to track these cases, raise their visibility and change policy throughout the Americas. She recently started the Sovereign Bodies Institute. as a home for the database. Lucchesi discusses what it will take to protect indigenous women and girls and how everyone can play a role in this movement.

Disarm Cops First. Reflections On Narratives Of Exceptional And Systematic Violence After Parkland Shootings

March 3, 2018 Staff, Twincitiesgdc.org Strategize! Mass Shootings, Police, Structural Violence

On February 18th, 2018, A nineteen year old white man entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with his rifle, and murdered 17 people. He was later arrested peacefully by police. The shooter’s social media profiles indicate a racist obsessed with white nationalism and a hatred of women, and a promoter of fascist messages and imagery. He was reportedly obsessed with guns, and his behavior had been reported to law enforcement repeatedly. Law enforcement never took action, which has itself been widely criticized. The reasons for this inaction are not hard to pin down for those willing to look: Cruz, the shooter – was a white man with a gun, and therefore not a threat. In the aftermath, a Neo Nazi organization calling itself the Republic of Florida claimed Cruz as a member.

Mothers For Justice United Joins Students’ Protest Of Racism

May 25, 2016 Mothers for Justice United,www.popularresistance.org Petitions and Online Actions Education, Police Brutrality, Racism, Structural Violence

By Mothers for Justice United. Seattle, Washington - The Matteo Ricci College (MRC) Coalition of Seattle University is standing against racism and oppression felt by students in the Humanities program. The MRC Coalition has presented five demands to University leadership that they feel will improve the undergraduate experience by eliminating racism at the institution. As the sit-in and take over of the Seattle University Casey Building continues, mother and social justice activist Maria Hamilton, joined the students in their protest. Maria Hamilton is the mother of slain Milwaukee man Dontre Hamilton, who was killed by former Milwaukee Police Officer Christopher Manney on April 30, 2014.

Banks Did More Damage To Baltimore Than So-Called Rioters

May 13, 2015 Emily Foster, www.ourfuture.org Educate! Baltimore, Banking, Housing, Structural Violence

The death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore is not just a story of police brutality or the lack of socioeconomic mobility for the urban poor. It’s also a story of how deregulation allowed corporate banks to strip middle-class families of their financial stability and walk away, leaving behind payday lenders and check-cashing stores to plunder low-income and minority communities. To better understand and communicate that story, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Economic Policy, and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform took their Middle Class Prosperity Project to Baltimore on Monday. It was the latest in a series of forums that started in February to focus “congressional and public attention on challenges faced by the middle class.”

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