Articles
Articles
Dreams Outside the Hopes of the Neuronormal
Paul Haeder: "It is not for me to say whether we see best with the hand or the eye. I only know that the world I see with my fingers is alive, ruddy, and satisfying." -- Helen Keller, 1908, The World I Live In ... The legacy of a society is, well, how it treats its young, old, frail, infirm, sick, poor and those hobbled by structural and environmental injustice. ... well, you can image that young boys and girls with disabilities like Autism Spectrum Disorder or mental retardation or any number of other aspects of life dealt from a genetic and poison deck of cards will be a huge burden on families, medical services, schools, society in general...
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Feb 6, 2021, 11:47am
Articles
Radiation illnesses and COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation
Jayita Sarkar, Caitlin Meyer: In Indigenous lands where nuclear weapons testing took place during the Cold War and the legacy of uranium mining persists, Indigenous people are suffering from a double whammy of long-term illnesses from radiation exposure and the COVID-19 pandemic. ... The Diné are drinking poisoned water, putting them at risk for more severe coronavirus infections. ... From 1944 until 1986, 30 million tons of uranium ore was extracted on Navajo lands. At present, there are more than 520 abandoned uranium mines...
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Feb 5, 2021, 2:25pm
Articles
The Origins of America’s Secret Police
Cynthia Chung: When will the American people realise that the biggest threat to American freedom is not from without but from within its very own walls, where it has been prominently residing for the last 112 years... Those who seek wisdom and power have tended to also have an interest in the realm of “secret knowledge.” ... The Scottish Rite was formally organized in the U.S. in 1801, as a group of Tory partisans on the losing side of the American Revolution. ... If one is to understand what constitutes the “Morals and Dogma” of such a membership, to which J. Edgar Hoover entered the inner most circle, it will become clear that not only does the Rite act as an opposing church to Christianity, but that pledging one’s allegiance to this secret society is understood as coming before all else in this material world, including government and country. ...
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Jan 12, 2021, 12:11pm
Articles
Carceral Crisis in California
Citlali Pizarro & Shreya Chattopadhyay: Prison time -no matter how short- during a worldwide pandemic is an experimental death sentence. ... Two of the largest COVID-19 outbreaks in the country right now are happening in California prisons, but the Governor and the CDCR have continually denied the only effective means of stemming the outbreaks—that is, the mass release of prisoners. ... “It just boils down to too many people in prison, this idea for a long time in California and probably throughout the U.S. that if you’re in prison, you’re somehow not a full human, so therefore you’re not really entitled to real medical care, and we’re not going to invest in it,” .... we need to replace institutions that punish with ones that care...
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Dec 8, 2020, 3:12pm
Articles
Once-Ignored Promises to Tribes Could Change the Environmental Landscape
Alex Brown: Last month, Michigan officials announced plans to shut down a controversial oil pipeline that runs below the Great Lakes at the Straits of Mackinac. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel, both Democrats, cited several reasons for the decision, including ... an 1836 treaty in which tribal nations ceded more than a third of the territory that would become Michigan in exchange for the right to hunt and fish on the land in perpetuity. An oil spill from the pipeline would destroy the state’s ability to honor that right ... If Native treaty rights had been honored, the natural landscape of the U.S. might look very different today. ... In recent years, some courts, political leaders and regulators have decided it’s time to start honoring those treaty obligations...
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Dec 5, 2020, 4:11pm
Articles
‘It’s a sovereign place’
Stewart Huntington, Indian Country Today: RAPID CITY, S.D. — When Lakota activists set up a camp for homeless relatives in this Black Hills town last month, the police descended immediately and shut it down. ... The response? The activists quickly moved the encampment to trust land just outside of town. ... Today the camp, built on traditional values and teachings, is flourishing. ... “They’re giving the people a chance to have somewhere to sleep and live like they used to a long time ago, like the ancestors, you know? ” ... the camp is perched on some 90 acres held in trust for the Cheyenne River, Rosebud and Oglala Sioux tribes that used to be part of the shuttered Rapid City Indian Boarding School..
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Nov 15, 2020, 3:34pm
Articles
A Reset for Unprecedented Times - Buen Vivir
Natasha Chassagne: Zambrano and other Kichwa who inhabit the cloud forest in this mountainous region of the Andes, know that if their environment is destroyed, it will profoundly impact their ability to thrive. And so they are embroiled in an ongoing fight to protect it. Cotacacheños are guided by what they call Buen Vivir in Spanish, or sumak kawsay in the Kichwa language, which loosely translates as “the Good Life.” It is for them both a philosophy and a lived practice. ... A direct and critical response to Western ideas of sustainable development, Buen Vivir is about respecting the rights and responsibilities of communities to protect and promote their own social and environmental well-being by driving grassroots change...
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Nov 4, 2020, 12:01pm
Articles
What Good are Police on Patrol? An Analysis of Traffic Enforcement in Albuquerque
Ernesto Longa, David Correia, and Matias Fontenla: The police traffic stop is the most common way people come into contact with cops. ... In 2018, the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) made 44,132 traffic stops, an increase of 35 percent over the previous year. ... We examined the first 1,000 non-criminal traffic cases (e.g., infractions related to insurance, registration, licensing, moving violations, improper/faulty equipment ... Traffic stops, particularly those that include certain kinds of infractions, always result in the threat of arrest, suspension of driving privileges, additional and escalating fines and fees ... and incarceration ... The data show that enforcing traffic laws with armed police does nothing to enhance public safety...
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Aug 27, 2020, 2:33pm
Articles
Why I Love the Post Office (And You Should, Too)
Mindy Isser: The postal service isn’t just a service; it’s countless resources, opportunities, and livelihoods- and we cannot take it for granted. ... The United States Postal Service, as we know it today, didn’t exist until 1970, when postal workers in New York City went on an 8 day wildcat strike. Prior to their successful strike, postal workers were extremely underpaid, earning only slightly over $6,000 a year to start, and many survived on food stamps and other government assistance to fill the gaps. ... Defending the post office isn’t just about making sure seniors get their medication, or about protecting good union jobs, although it’s those things too. ... It’s about deciding that we want a society based on human connection instead of a society based on profit and atomized human misery...
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Aug 22, 2020, 3:10pm
Articles
The First Emancipation
Alan Johnstone and Stephen Shenfield: The first enactment – the first emancipation – came 80 years earlier (than the Civil War), during the War of Independence. And – this may come as a shock if you were raised on the “patriotic” version of American history – the “good guys” – the emancipators – were the British. ... Most Americans are unaware that slaves fought for their freedom on the side of the British. ... In November 1775, Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, promised freedom to any slave who deserted a rebel master and joined the British Army. ... Nearly 100,000 slaves came over to the British side. They risked their lives for a chance of freedom as slave-owners vowed to execute any who were recaptured.... Many ex-slaves also served as blacksmiths, coopers, tailors, carpenters, cooks, and guides....
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Aug 18, 2020, 10:55am
Articles
Nine Mile Ride: Why Police Reform Always Results in More Police Violence, Not Less
David Correia, Justin Bendell, and Ernesto Longa: It’s called a Nine Mile Ride in Albuquerque because that’s where the ride ends. ... Albuquerque cops grab someone from the International District near the Albuquerque Indian Center, a place they call the “War Zone.” That’s where the ride starts. ... “They’ve taken me out to the westside, Nine Mile Hill, handcuffed and beat my ass. Happened six months ago. Drove me out there in the dirt, handcuffed, beat me, and left me out there.” ... The Albuquerque Police Department is notoriously among the most lethal police departments in the United States. ... Five years of intense police reform and things are worse. ... We need alternatives to police and policing because more cops does not mean less crime. More reform does not end police violence...
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Aug 13, 2020, 3:45pm
Articles
How Did a Lawyer Who Took on Big Oil and Won End up Under House Arrest?
Rex Weyler: Eight years ago, Donziger and a team of Ecuadorian lawyers, on behalf of Indigenous and farmer plaintiffs, won the largest human rights and environmental court judgment in history, a $9.5-billion US verdict against the Chevron Corporation for massive oil pollution in Ecuador’s Amazon basin. ... Following the trial, Chevron removed its assets from Ecuador, left the country, and has refused to pay. ... Chevron launched a retaliatory campaign to attack the victims, discredit Ecuador’s courts, and “demonize” Donziger. ... Using US RICO statutes designed to prosecute organized crime syndicates, the firm filed a “racketeering” case against Donziger...
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Aug 11, 2020, 3:47pm
Articles
How Black Pullman Porters Waged a Struggle for “Civil Rights Unionism”
An interview with Eric Arnesen: - author of Brotherhoods of Color: Black Railroad Workers and the Struggle for Equality ... Led by A. Philip Randolph, black Pullman porters struggled against the exploitation of the company and the racism of the mainstream labor movement to win a fighting union. They secured dignity on the job — and laid the foundation for the modern Civil Rights Movement...
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Jul 28, 2020, 3:26pm
Articles
The Bonus Army Protest
Gary Olson: July 28 will mark almost the 90th anniversary of one of most controversial protests in U.S. history and yet it remains virtually unknown to most Americans. ... On that day, in 1932, 500 U.S. army infantrymen with loaded rifles, fixed bayonets and gas grenades containing a vomit inducing ingredient, 200 calvary, a machine gun squadron, 800 police and 6 M1917 army tanks, prepared to attack 17,000 unarmed men, plus thousands of their wives and children. ... The camp, nicknamed “Hooverville,” occupied by WWI veterans who were living in tents and shanties ... Some 4 million vets had returned from the war and found that others had taken their jobs at a considerably higher wage than the $1 per day soldier’s pay and expected more help from their government...
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Jul 24, 2020, 3:01pm
Articles
The Murder of Malcolm X
Joel Whitney: There was nothing J. Edgar Hoover feared more than a charismatic black radical who could inspire the oppressed to fight back. And that’s why, according to a compelling new series, the FBI had its fingerprints all over Malcolm X’s murder. ... Who Killed Malcolm X? features Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a journalist, father, and Malcolm admirer who, over six episodes, guides the viewer through his decades-long investigation to reveal that two of the three men convicted for Malcolm’s murder were innocent. He goes on to show that the FBI knew this but did not submit evidence to exonerate the men...
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Jul 17, 2020, 4:47pm
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