No, it was nothing that anybody here commented. I have a shitty hippocampus, and resultingly I regularly obsess over my unpleasant experiences even when they stopped being relevant years ago. I am sure that anybody who’s been reading my comments for about a year can guess which personal matter has been agitating me again. Sometimes it makes me want to avoid others as much as possible, so I stay inside a lot.
Occasionally I even consider trying something antisocial, but the potential consequences make me reluctant. The worst thing that I have done to complete strangers within the last five years was deliberately ignoring them when they say ‘hi’ to me. I haven’t made any rude gestures or yelled ‘fuck off’ at them, but it is mildly tempting.
As for the grim topics, at the risk of sounding counterintuitive I have to say that they don’t devastate me emotionally. They can be moderately depressing, but being so far removed from the experiences, they just don’t traumatize me like some of my personal experiences do.
You couldn’t tell by reading my content yesterday, but coincidentally after I posted this I wept and I wished that I had never been born.
I don’t understand why everybody is downvoting you. It’s a well known fact that throughout its 247 years of existence, the United States has literally never committed a single atrocity. I’m not saying the United States is perfect; maybe it committed an atrocity or two a couple of times, but nothing that was a big deal.
A day after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. agreed to a public discussion with Max Blumenthal on Israel-Palestine, his campaign walked back his words. RFK Jr. has pledged “unconditional support” to Israel while spouting vitriolic anti-Palestinian rhetoric. One day after Democratic presidential candidate Rober...
>Dore responded, “Ok, here’s what I would ask: just like Peter Hotez ducked you and Joe Rogan, I would love — because Max is the guy to talk to about this, not me. Would you do an interview with Max? Because he would be able to talk to you about this way better than I can.” > >“Yeah, I would love to talk to Max,” Kennedy said in a seemingly sincere tone. > >Within 24 hours, however, his communications director was frantically explaining why no such conversation could take place.
Typical Americans.
Reports in recent weeks from a whistleblowing Texas Department of Public Safety trooper have laid bare the state-sponsored, inhumane, anti-migrant policies confronting families seeking asylum at the Texas/Mexico border. An article in the July 3 Houston Chronicle disclosed previously unreporte
>The consequences of these terrorist directives include drownings of adults and children; a miscarriage by a pregnant woman caught in the wire; serious lacerations suffered by children and adults from the barbed wire; and children, among others, passing out from heat exhaustion, but then pushed back into the river by Texas National Guard soldiers.
…wow.
(Mirror.)
>Within Franco’s repressive system there was a specific procedure applied to Republican women (Espinosa 2002; González‐Ruibal 2014). They suffered a specific violence as consequence of their political activity during the Republic or because they were the wives, mothers, sisters or relatives of Republicans (Nash 2015; Sánchez 2009; Solé 2016). > >The different repressive strategies used against female groups by Spanish fascism were motivated by the perception of women as second‐class citizens and therefore inferior to men. > >According to Francoist ideologues like Juan Antonio Vallejo‐Nágera, women intellectually inferior and unreliable and used social revolutions to unleash their sexual appetite and cruelty (Vallejo‐Nágera and Martínez 1939). > >The consideration of women as subaltern led to the application of different types of punishment that not always implied death (Solé 2016). On the one hand, it could be physical, through the execution, torture and rape of women (Richards 1999; Preston 2011) first during the war and later in Franco’s prisons (Rodrigo 2008). > >On the other, it could also be psychological, by eliminating aspects of their femininity through the shaving of their hair and their public exposure after having ingested castor oil, which caused them severe diarrhoea — the alleged purpose was to ‘throw communism out of their bodies’ (Richards 1999, 58–59). > >Republican women were caricatured as prostitutes (Gómez 2009), due to their efforts to achieve emancipation and equal rights during the Republic and their struggle against patriarchal culture and Catholic morality (Nash 2015). After the war, many women that had been left destitute and were marginalized due to their Republican credentials were driven to prostitution (Casanova 2002). > >[…] > >According to the available testimonies, a priest went to the site with the new authorities in order to give extreme unction to the detainees. For that purpose, he placed a crucifix in front of each of the victims to be kissed. When the priest asked Josefa Fernández Catena, known as ‘La Galla’, to kiss the crucifix, she refused to do so. > >In response, the priest hit her mouth with the cross and broke her teeth. In the group of civilians executed in the Romanzal stream at least two women were pregnant: > >>“La Galla” had her teeth broken […] she was pregnant […] she said when she was going to be executed: “you will not kill one, you will kill two”5 >> >>“We do not know if the child was born dead or not. They said the child was born dead, but we never found out”6
(Emphasis added.)
---- Events that happened today (August 8):
1881: Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist, Axis field marshal, worsened life with his presence. 1940: Wilhelm Keitel signed the ‘Aufbau Ost’ directive. 1944: The Third Reich executed Axis field marshal Job Wilhelm Georg Erwin Erdmann von Witzleben for planning to murder the Chancellor. Coincidentally, the Allies successfully killed Waffen‐SS tank commander Michael Wittmann and his crew. 1945: France, Imperial America, the United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics signed the London Charter, establishing the laws and procedures for the Nuremberg trials. 1969: Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, Axis eugenicist who misinformed students (including Josef Mengele) for a living, finally perished. 2003: Dirk Hoogendam, SS officer, finally dropped dead.
Reading these horrific anecdotes I couldn’t help but be reminded of when I learned about the Third Reich’s abduction of Slavic children for Germanization. Doing some research, the similarities were striking: entrapment in unpleasant boarding schools, replacement of the original identities, lengthy separation from parents, punishments for speaking Polish, inadequate meals—the only obvious difference is that the German Fascists were pickier about the children’s ‘racial traits’.
Compare:
They’d call us ‘you damn dirty Indians’
German supervisors felt nothing but hatred for them because they were nothing but little ‘Polacks’
…to give only one example. I know that this is a little off‐topic, but given that the conquest of the Americas was one of the Third Reich’s inspirations, it would be very surprising if the similarities between the “Indian boarding schools” and the “SS Home Schools” were entirely coincidental.
Anti-pipeline activists took credit for shutting down "2 different pipeline valves...along the Line 5" pipeline route in the Great Lakes region. According to Unicorn Riot, this latest act of sabotage is part of an ongoing push against pipelines in the so-called Midwest: The Line 5 pipeline was built...
>It is with a heavy heart and hazy skies we announce that 2 different pipeline valves were turned off along the Line 5 route on Anishinaabae land in the great lakes region. This was done on the 13th anniversary of the Kalamazoo River oil spill. This was the 2nd largest inland oil spill in [Yankee] history, dumping 1,000,000 gallons of tar sands crude oil into the river and causing untold damage to the water, land and those who live on it. > >[…] > >Protests and legal challenges against the aging Line 5 pipeline continue, with many impacted communities calling for the pipeline to be completely shut down.
Eighteen primarily Republican-led states have passed laws or enacted policies restricting what educators can say about race, history, and racism since 2021. Every day brings another report involving book banning, or new legislation censoring access to knowledge and history. Across the U.S., boo
>In February 2023, the state of Florida threw out a promising Advanced Placement curriculum in African American History pilot, claiming it lacked “educational value.” The “Stop WOKE” legislation in Florida, Texas, and several other states represents an effort to purge U.S. history of any references to violence against Black, Brown, Indigenous and Asian people by white supremacists. > >Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “anti-woke” campaign would revise how history is taught, including omitting or minimizing the contributions of historic Civil Rights leaders like Rosa Parks. DeSantis is under fire for suggesting enslavement benefited the people held captive in the U.S. by “teaching them new skills.” > >For activists, woke is slang for awareness. Calls to “stay woke” echoed throughout the history of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, reverberating through the recent Black Lives Matter movement. This is not an issue of some white students allegedly claiming discomfort over learning about the brutally racist history of their ancestors – it’s about trying to totally erase that history with textbooks that glorify white supremacy.
Quoting Carroll P. Kakel’s The Holocaust as Colonial Genocide, pages 29–30:
>In the same lands once conquered by the Teutonic Knights, a similar imperial‐colonial project reappeared in the eighteenth century, under the auspices of Frederick II (‘the Great’), King of Prussia (1740–86).14 Immediately after ascending to the throne, the new King of Prussia began a series of conquests and annexations in ‘the East’, seizing the province of Silesia from Austria and fighting during the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) to retain it. > >Following the 1772 partition of Poland (between Austria, Prussia, and Russia), Frederick II gained new lands in East Prussia and Polish (or West) Prussia, recovering territory that had been conquered, settled and lost by the Teutonic Knights. Inspired by the American example, Frederick compared the inhabitants of Polish territories acquired between 1772 and 1795 — the ‘slovenly Polish trash’, he called them — to Iroquois American Indians [read: Haudenosaunee] and named three of his settlements in the acquired territories Florida, Philadelphia and Saratoga.15 > >Drawn to the tasks of agricultural improvement and internal colonization, Frederick carried out great reclamation and colonization projects, seeking to ‘plant’ colonists on reclaimed land in ‘the East’, land located in the marshlands of the north German plain. Under his auspices, recruitment stations advertised Prussia as a ‘promised land’ for hardworking immigrants. As part of what has been called Peuplierungspolitik (population policy), peasant settlers and craftsman were solicited from Germany, as well as from German‐speaking Europe. > >Frederick’s agents recruited German farmers with the promise of free land, and Frederick himself looked to replace ‘Polish’ nobles with ‘Prussian’ ones. He also sought to gradually ‘get rid’ of all the Poles, and aimed to expel the 25,000 Jews living in West Prussia at the time.16 In West Prussia, he established 1,500 colonist villages and hamlets, populated by 100,000 settlers from his own kingdom and 250,000 immigrants from other parts of Germany.17
(Emphasis added.)
I am mildly angry, because I was aware of this character ever since I played Sid Meier’s Civilization IV (which was in…2008, maybe?) and somehow I had no clue about any of this.
His baseless assertions remind me of when he declared ResearchGate ‘alt‐right’, and when I asked for evidence all that he told me was ‘I was there a few times and saw their bad takes.’
Why the fuck would an alt‐right website of all things host a black researcher’s report on Fascist Italy’s mustard gas attacks on Ethiopians? That’s utterly mindless. It pissed me off because I wanted to tell people about a serious subject and the first comment that I got was an ‘I don’t like this source’ comment (and a poorly substantiated one at that). I thought, ‘Fuck, I guess that I can’t link to this one anymore.’
That said, I think that a permanent ban was too long for him.
Lel, 1939… aside from serving Eurocentrism, it’s an irresistible opportunity for antisocialists to put the Soviets and the German Fascists on the same level and make communists out to be ‘the bad guys’ again. Those are the only justifications. If I remember The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich correctly, the British government at the time implied that WWII still hadn’t begun yet (which they also said in 1931).
There are numerous proposals better than 1939 for WWII’s first year. I’d go so far as to say that 1939 is the worst candidate of the bunch. There’s a reason that the period immediately afterward is called ‘the Phoney War’.
Neofascism is closely correlated with having a petty bourgeois or (former) military background. The petite‐bourgeoisie is frequently in competition with ‘foreign’ businessowners, and Western military culture is notoriously toxic, so the transition to neofascism is the easiest to understand in those cases. If the neofascist is lower‐class, it is possible that pseudosocialist rhetoric won him over (made all the easier by anticommunist schooling, which has nothing meaningful to say about Fascism), or perhaps a neofascist clique befriended him. There are various possible reasons.
who claimed to be a “classical fascicst”
Which almost proves that he is clueless about politics. Classical fascism basically isn’t a thing anymore; the adventurer‐conqueror campaigns simply wouldn’t be practical in a world of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, which could swiftly put an end to a state’s ambitious quest for more spazio vitale. Neofascists are instead likelier to promote neocolonialism, because that’s what’s ‘in’ right now.
#NAFO is a living example of […] humour, intelligence and enthusiasm.
What the fuck is she talking about?
Currently I am replaying Deus Ex, a cyberpunk first‐person shooter highly influenced by classic conspiracy theories. I can really appreciate the story as a grown‐up, and there is one particular scene that I had always glossed over until replaying it now…
Mid‐story spoilers for Deus Ex
There is one particular character, Walton Simons, who is remarkably two‐faced. When you read the lore (newspapers, e‐mails and such), Simons, being the supposed director of FEMA, comes across as a caring, concerned, and responsible individual who (falsely) reassures the public that scientists are hard at work developing a cure for the latest pandemic, and that while he doesn’t know what is going on he is doing everything that he can to help stop the virus that is taking countless lives.
The reality is something else…
In case you are having trouble reading the text:
Walton Simons: ‘Captain Zhao. The helicopters will be there shortly. They are to be loaded for spraying of the virus. No delays. I want the helicopters operating before sunrise.’
This scene was where I could actually feel my stomach churn, not necessarily due to the character himself, but because I feel like I know individuals who are exactly like this: the unidentified perpetrators of the very atrocities that they publicly declare to be at work reducing.
It’s possible that this is simply a coincidence (even though the writers of Deus Ex clearly did their homework), but we do have nonfictional examples of U.S. authorities spraying a virus on cities, to which I’ll link outside of this spoiler.
On a more serious note, how many of us are aware that U.S. authorities tested biological weapons on thousands of unwitting citizens?
I’m betting satire on this one; neoimperialists aren’t this straightforward when it comes to conflating sympathy for Russians with defending the Russian government.
It has to be something more indirect or implicit, like an innocent visitor listing ‘ten great things about Russia’ or talking about all of the nice, accomplished Russians that she’s met. Something nice and simple that happens to be related to Russians. That’s what’s likely to get neoimperialists storming in with accusations.
The original thread they linked from lemmy.ml is someone complaining that you can get banned from lemmy.ml for orientalism. Good?
The problem is that many of the users complaining about ‘being banned for criticizing China’ can’t understand that it has more to do with their inappropriate socialization than it has to do with saying something unkind about the People’s Rep. of China. For example:
Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet are all Colonies of China, which it treats as Colonial Territories, by - Forcibly destroying the local culture. Forcefully extracting to harm of the locals. Genocide, abuse, kidnapping, rape. But there is no point in engaging to you. You are a liar. You know you are. When you deny genocides, you put yourself on the same side as the fascists and reactionaries of the past.
If I were younger I might have expected sympathy after being banned for spewing a deluge of serious accusations and deliberate antagonizations at somebody, but I know better now.
Admittedly it helps that I’m already a respected user here, but a more appropriate way of approaching the situation would going to https://lemmygrad.ml/c/communism101 and asking, for example, ‘How do you respond to accusations that China has colonized Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet?’ (Notice how I don’t beg the question by saying ‘What do you think about China colonizing…’, and it’s more specific than ‘How do you respond to accusations that China is genociding, abusing, kidnapping, and raping people?’ — which for anticommunists could refer to almost anything.)
We don’t bury our heads in the sand. We do respond to accusations that the PRC and the other people’s republics are incessantly committing atrocities. However, what does tend to get on our nerves are the users who uncritically and unquestioningly share one of the many slanderous rumors already polluting the capitalist media, and then get belligerent or persistent when we don’t immediately accept them as factual. In which case, it’s best not to bother.
It is important to remember that the right, and even the extreme right specifically, are not unified. Overgeneralizing is possible because many rightists have various, frequently incompatible proposals for achieving their long‐term goals. Don’t be too shocked to see a handful of neofascists opposing the NATO (at least in its current form).
Just like those that came before them, this resurgent brand of America First anti-interventionism is accompanied by the impetus to dismantle public spending and social services, as well as a vicious form of anti-immigrant nationalism. And ending the war in Ukraine is only a concern insofar as it allows them to fully direct all of the U.S. government’s resources toward a military confrontation with China — their top priority.
Likewise, remember that right‐wing goals bearing superficial resemblances to left‐wing ones still serve very different purposes. A few centrists may think that they’re being clever for pointing out a superficial similarity between us and the isolationist right, but they fail to properly analyse the situation (as usual) and overlook other policies that are closely tied to another policy.
Looking at that I had a feeling that it was in Asia, and I was right!
That’s another one. Leftoid nubs and self‐identified anticommunists usually see governing communist parties as highly élitist and exclusionary institutions (which is pretty dubious, to say the least).
I am guessing that their response would be ‘the bureaucracy’ (which would be inaccurate).
Workers World Party recently sent a message of sympathy and solidarity to the Communist Party of the Philippines concerning the party’s 10 members who were murdered by the bourgeois Philippine state. Ka Laan (Benito Tiamzon), Ka Bagong-Tao (Wilma Austria-Tiamzon) and eight of their comrades were ass
>Contrary to the assertions of the joint U.S.-Philippine counterinsurgency soldiers, this massacre has not caused the CPP to lose its fervor and spirit for the revolution. Instead, the loss of these members has only fueled the desire to see a new world, a world without the bourgeois Philippine government and without the arch-imperialist power, the U.S.
The International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG), Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE) and UNI Global Union (UNI-MEI) organized global in-person and social-media protests June 14 in a “Screenwriters Everywhere: International Day of Solidarity” with the Writers Guild (WGA) strike that be
>Writers in at least 35 countries including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, South Korea and Ukraine participated in these actions. > >IAWG Chair Thomas McLaughlin stated: “The companies that seek to exploit and diminish writers are global; our response is global, and the victory gained in America will be a victory for screenwriters everywhere.” (National Public Radio, June 14) > >These international writers unions have issued guidelines urging members not to scab, taking jobs away from WGA members. Jobs are being offered by transnational conglomerates like Amazon, Netflix and Disney, which are driven to make profits at the expense of writers’ income and livelihoods.
The writer participated in a delegation organized by the China/U.S. Solidarity Network that visited China from May 11 to May 31. Over the last few years, the U.S. media have routinely run stories accusing China of the erasure of Islam, in part based on the alleged mass demolition of mosques. All
>The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), an anti-China think tank with ties to weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, has produced various articles and an interactive map of China that supposedly lists sites of “forced labor camps” and “destroyed mosques.” > >This so-called database has been cited as a source by many articles criticizing China. But like other widely discredited sources — such as the far-right religious extremist Adrian Zenz, known as the architect of the “Uyghur genocide” narrative — the ASPI map contains a plethora of misinformation. This map, dubbed the “Xinjiang Data Project,” has incorrectly listed mosques under renovation as “demolished,” including the Keriya Aitika Mosque in Hotan, Xinjiang. > >The renovation of mosques is widely exploited by dishonest reporters looking to spin a story. Renovations of mosques, housing units, cultural sites and virtually every other type of structure are common throughout China, especially in southwestern regions like Xinjiang, where earthquakes are common.
Stop Cop City Solidarity has called a Week of Action for June 24-July 1, beginning with a kickoff barbecue and continuing with multiple protests throughout Atlanta. The call to action states in part: “We must continue to uplift the spirit of our beloved comrade Tortuguita, who was murdered in cold b
>Representatives of multiple organizations, including Community Movement Builders, the NAACP Legal Fund, Movement for Black Lives, Working Families Party and Black Voters Matter, described the referendum process to allow the people of Atlanta to vote on the fate of Cop City. The first step was taking place as their press conference was occurring. A representative of the Union of Southern Service Workers delivered the wording of the petition, which was admitted by the close of the press briefing to the City Clerk. > >The approved petition language was to be returned to the referendum campaign within seven days, but there was a delay due to a minor technicality. Once the language is returned, in the following 60 days, over 75,000 signatures of Atlanta voters, who were registered as of November 2021, have to be gathered. Once the necessary number has been vetted, the referendum language revoking the Cop City lease and all its provisions will be on the November ballot in Atlanta. > >This electoral strategy is occurring in tandem with the protest demonstrations, rallies and other events during the upcoming Week of Action, directed at the building contractors, donors and board members of the Atlanta Police Foundation. The list includes well-known businesses like Delta, Chick-fil-A, Home Depot, Coca Cola, Bank of America and AT&T. These wealthy corporations, who form the privately run foundation, are the political and financial muscle behind Cop City. > >While the call for the Week of Action originates from Atlanta, participation can be worldwide, since many of the entities listed are national and international profiteers. > >For additional information on the referendum campaign, see copcityvote.com > >and the Week of Action, June 24-July 1, stopcopcitysolidarity.org/mobilize.
The author is a co-director of the International Action Center and a contributing editor to Workers World newspaper. A slightly abridged version of this article was published in Global Times. U.S. imperialism’s hostility to China is increasing — with military threats, new rounds of sanctions and
>What we saw in Xinjiang were vibrant cities — Kashgar and Urumqi — full of tens of thousands of tourists and a local population of many nationalities. Huge and colorful marketplaces and bazaars, almost all run by Uygur families, stretched for blocks. Busy subway lines crossed the cities. Everywhere we saw food markets brimming with inexpensive produce. Restaurants, numerous cafes and street food stalls were packed with local people. In the evenings, the streets were lively and full. > >Numerous international studies, ignored in the Western media, back up our observations. > >The illiteracy rate in Xinjiang has fallen to 2.66%, lower than China’s impressive 2.85% national average. Before the 1949 Chinese Revolution, illiteracy was 80% throughout China and more than 90% in Tibet and Xinjiang. Today, 97.51% of small children are in preschool programs. Some 98.82% of the youth are enrolled in senior high schools in Xinjiang. (tinyurl.com/bdfyxn29) > >Over the past 60 years, the Uygur population has increased from 2.2 million to about 12 million, and average life expectancy has grown from 30 to 75 years. > >Drives through the countryside revealed fully mechanized agriculture with tractors, planters, drone sprayers, irrigation canals and acres of plastic-topped greenhouses. We saw no fields with workers doing hand labor — hoeing, picking or trimming. This is confirmed in numerous reports and many photos. The mechanization of cotton production is at 90%. (tinyurl.com/37s3e7e9) > >In Kashgar, the 15th-century Idkah Mosque houses up to 20,000 worshipers. It is only one of the many Islamic centers and mosques that we saw while walking the city streets and in several villages. Tall, slender minarets and dome-shaped roofs seemed to be a part of every block. > >We met with Uygur people working in food stalls, small groceries and farms. People of many nationalities are construction workers, truck drivers, animal herders, veterinarians, teachers and retirees. Many of them described how government subsidies and training programs had dramatically improved their living conditions and life opportunities.
For some Pennsylvania state legislators, incarcerated people belong in prison, no questions asked. “Lock ’em up and throw away the key,” as the reactionary saying goes. State policies that sustain the mass incarceration of Black and Brown people and members of impoverished communities hinge on peopl
>“I was able to obtain my GED in prison. I’ve learned communication and so many other skills. I’m a Certified Peer Specialist; that’s my job in here. I help my peers with their challenges and their stress when it comes to mental health. I think my nature is to help people. We just completed a course through Bucknell University on science and technology. > >“If you ask the staff, they will tell you lifers are the most model prisoners. We are the mentors. We are the ones who give back to the community. In the last 10 years, lifers here have raised over $100,000 for various community causes. Lifers increase their education, even though in Pennsylvania, not more than 10% of lifers are allowed to enroll in academic, vocational or treatment programs. > >“These are some of the issues we wanted to discuss with officials on May 23. We wanted to talk about alternatives to life without parole, about the impact our crimes have made on our victims, their families, communities and society as a whole. We had victims’ advocates come in, because we wanted to build a bridge with them. We wanted to show remorse. We wanted to be more productive and helpful when it comes to victims’ families.”
The Bronx Antiwar Coalition successfully chased U.S. Army recruiters out of a student career fair June 11. The fair was hosted by U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat at the City University of New York in The Heights (BMCC), in the predominantly Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights. The Coalition org
>The demonstration highlighted the risk of sexual assault that military workers, especially women of color, face. A 2020 report by the Service Women’s Action Network found that the rate of sexual harassment experienced by Latina women in the military was 42.9%, compared to 33.9% for non-Hispanic Black women and 26.9% for white women. > >Protesters demanded justice for the families of Juan M. Alcantara, Riayan Tejeda and Ramona M. Valdez — all Dominican-American youth from Washington Heights who were killed during the imperialist war in Iraq while “serving” the U.S. empire’s pursuit of natural resources and profits. > >[…] > >This writer, a teacher and organizer with the BAWC, said, “We must stand together with this young student in demanding better from our public schools. Shame on CUNY and Rep. Espaillat for bringing military and police recruiters to the career fair, while providing little to no opportunities for art students. This sends the message that CUNY views disadvantaged youth as nothing more than fodder for the U.S. war machine. > >“With their latest censorship of and smear campaign against CUNY law school student Fatima Mohammed — who defended the liberation of Palestine in her commencement speech — it is clear that CUNY’s alignment with U.S. and Western imperialism has made it part of the problem instead of part of the solution when it comes to creating meaningful career opportunities for oppressed youth in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan.”
Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement activists participated in the 10th Annual Acres Homes Juneteenth Parade on June 17, with signs and banners on a truck and a shiny red jeep. Activists spoke on a sound system to the hundreds lining West Montgomery Road in Northwest Houston. The crowds, wi
>Lee Greenwood held a large photo of her son who was executed in 2007, even though he didn’t kill anyone. His face exemplified those sitting on death rows around the country, as 41% on death row are African American, but they comprise only 14% of the general population.
> Furthermore, as the régime concentrated on demographic campaigns, homosexuality came to be perceived as sterile and therefore essentially anti‐fascist and selfish, against what was good for the nation.
(Source.)
Philadelphia When the neofascist, racist, anti-trans, book-banning group Moms for Liberty comes to Philadelphia for their national summit June 29-July 2, those most at risk will be the workers at hotels, libraries, restaurants and other venues where M4L plans to meet. For weeks activists have
>While UNITE HERE has attempted to organize a union for Marriott workers, pushback from management derailed the efforts. Speakers at protests outside the Marriott have raised that many of the workers are Black, Brown and LGBTQ. Without union protection, their jobs are on the line if they speak out against M4L [Moms for Liberty, the ‘liberty’ in this case being rich white men’s. — editor]. > >The week before Memorial Day, through anonymously leaked news, workers at the Museum of the American Revolution (MAR) first learned their bosses had agreed to host the opening “Welcome to Philadelphia” reception for M4L. The workers hadn’t been told earlier, even though the contract was negotiated in December 2022. (Philadelphia Gay News, June 5)
Two major private-sector unions, the Teamsters (IBT) and the United Auto Workers (UAW) have begun mobilizing for possible strikes when contracts expire with UPS Aug. 1, and the “Big Three” (Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which includes Chrysler Sept. 14. Big Three contracts with Unifor, which
>The fight will not be easy, given the current stage of capitalist decline and with a potential economic recession looming on the horizon. The profit-hungry capitalists are in no mood to return the union workers’ gains made in the past that the bosses have clawed back over the last few decades. > >But with the powerful writers strike — which may soon be expanded to include actors and many other film and media workers — continuing against the entertainment industry, and strikes at UPS and the Big Three on the horizon, class-struggle unionism can help to unify the working class against capital.
As NATO forces resume using radioactive weapons, now shipping them to Ukraine, China has translated “Metal of Dishonor,” a groundbreaking book compiled 25 years ago by the International Action Center warning of the devastating consequences of deploying depleted uranium (DU) munitions. The danger
>The IAC thanks the Chinese translator, Associate Professor Jia Jun of the Center for Modern World History, School of History, Beijing Normal University and Luminaire Books, a division of Shanghai Century Publishing Co., Ltd. for this timely contribution. > >Significantly, “Metal of Dishonor,” published in 1997 and reissued in 1999, played an important role in gathering a great deal of the suppressed information on the devastating impact of DU’s low-level radiation. The book, its study guide and documentary, “Poison DUst,” were part of an international campaign to ban DU weapons. > >The statement calling for the ban on the use of these weapons had tens of thousands of signers. It was translated into many languages and demonstrated the powerful campaign of antiwar forces exposing the impact of the use of these horrific weapons by Washington in the U.S. 1991 war in Iraq and the 1999 U.S./ NATO war to break up Yugoslavia. > >The book is an alarming exposé of the dangers of the Pentagon’s DU weapons; it issued a dire warning about their devastating effects on soldiers and civilians. In it, scientists, Gulf War veterans, and leaders of environmental, anti-nuclear, anti-military and community movements discuss the connection of DU to Gulf War Syndrome and the then-new generation of radioactive conventional weapons.
Seattle Researchers, scientists and engineers (RSEs) and postdoctoral student workers, part of a burgeoning national movement of campus workers, struck the University of Washington June 7. They belong to United Auto Workers Local 4121, with 6,000 members and growing, and they demand decent pay al
>The union’s pay demands are urgent. UW is not paying the minimum wage for salaried workers, picket leader Mickey Cassar told Workers World. Seattle rents have increased 92% since 2010, according to a study by the financial tech company Self. Workers are also demanding increased support for child care, with “market rate” child care costs extremely high. > >The strike is grinding research to a halt, according to organizers. The 2,400 RSEs and postdocs perform a wide range of critical research, from developing new theories to fight disease to designing policy to fight climate change. A union organizer stated they were involved in developing tests for COVID-19. > >The young strikers are up against a ruling-class university, one of the largest receivers of federal research dollars among public universities. UW President Ana Mari Cauce makes $842,000 in salary annually and lives in a state-provided mansion. The top 10 UW administrators make a total of $12 million a year.
Anarcho-Bolshevik @lemmygrad.ml ‘The political desperadoes and ignoramuses, who say they would “Rather be Dead than Red”, should be told that no one will stop them from committing suicide, but they have no right to provoke a third world war.’ — Morris Kominsky, 1970