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xtruss · 8 months

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US ‘New Cold War’ Against China Is Self-Destructive

— By Jan Oberg | September 05, 2023

Illustration:Xia Qing/Global Times

Editor's Note:

The China-US bilateral relationship is one of the most important in the world. The trajectory of this relationship has attracted international attention. Still, the US is stepping up its efforts to suppress China on various fronts such as politics and diplomacy, economy, trade, technology, and military security, showing the true meaning of a cold war. The Global Times invites Chinese and foreign experts to expose the US' manipulation of the "new cold war" and reveal the damage it may potentially cause to the world.

A couple of years ago, The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF, in Sweden, of which I am the director, published "Behind The Smokescreen. An Analysis of the West's Destructive China Cold War Agenda And Why It Must Stop."

Among several perspectives of the US/Western accusation industry, we looked into the medialized stories about genocide in Xinjiang, forced labor and Taiwan, and nine mainstream media manipulation methods that aim to manufacture a systematically negative image of China in the Western mind.

We found that a cold war occurs by influencing the "free" press - also the Western state press - through three main mechanisms: a) Fake or fabricated stories, b) Omission - for instance, of every positive aspect of China's developments, and c) Source Ignorance: using the same few sources spreading disinformation, from the US rippling through and being repeated ad nauseam and never checking the root empirical evidence or validity of the assertions, in short, FOSI.

Ultimately, this causes a decay of the crucial and critical role of mainstream media and their conversion toward tabloid banalizing black-and-white worldviews - "we good, them evil" - that promote confrontation and warfare, all operated by the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex, MIMAC.

Tragically for democracy, mainstream media have become the leaders in promoting militarism, armament and legitimizing the empire and its wars. What are the elements of the cold war in all this?

First and foremost, the cold war is a psycho-political phenomenon. It dichotomizes our incredibly complex world into two: good versus evil. It seeks to preserve our superiority and keep others submissive and weaker. It promises war if its deterrence fails. And it precludes a world of equals, cooperation and mutual learning. If you are No. 1 in a system, you do not learn and listen; you teach, bribe and issue orders.

Cold wars may go well for the cold warrior when in ascendancy. In the "old" Cold War in Europe, two fundamentally Western systems - one based on Karl Marx, the other on Adam Smith, to put it crudely - competed while the US/NATO ascended after 1945. On all power scales, it was superior to the Soviet Union and its system. We know how it ended.

The winner then - foolishly - took it all: The US/NATO world did what it pleased within its exceptionalist "international rules-based order," not the UN Charter and other parts of international law. Catchwords: out-of-NATO-area military actions in violation of NATO's own Treaty - Yugoslavia - and regime change/resource/anti-terrorism wars on an assembly line basis; NATO's expansion against all promises given to the Soviet Union.

It all went so well and seemed so easy. Why listen to or empathize with others? Why focus on the changing world when "we" are the change-makers, God's own country par excellence? If we can get away with it, we do it. However, prudence, statesmanship and long-range thinking would have compelled global impact analyses instead of narcissist imperial self-aggrandizement.

The US Unilaterally Initiates New Cold War Against China! Illustration: Liu Xidan/Global Times

It went so well that the West overlooked the Rest: China's impressive socio-economic development based on an eclectic combination of Chinese concepts - that the West still doesn't understand - and imported Western elements; the establishment and maturation of organizations like BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and African and other regional organizations.

The West also did not sense the actual price that would be paid for its militarism: It's huge and growing burden on all civilian sectors, including technology and economy, and - in the wake of the history of colonialism and imperialism - the Rest becoming more and more nationally and collectively self-reliant - a concept developed about 50 years ago and ridiculed by the West.

And what was the result? Well, this is written the day after BRICS expanded with essential countries in Africa, the Middle East and South America - a huge step toward a multipolar and cooperative Rest saying: We can do without you, America and Europe! If you want to cooperate on new, reasonable terms, we are ready, but the days of your Western hegemony and universalization of Western values are coming to an end.

Such is global macro history: Empires have come and gone, and that of the US/NATO is the last: Nobody is so naive as to believe that it has a God-given right to be the ruler of the whole world and force others to accept its values.

The enormous world order changing before our very eyes is as predictable as it is inexorable. Only the ignorance - blinding intoxication - of power overlooks it. The West has run its race and become over-extended, insensitive to other cultures and ways of thinking, and unable to adapt to system changes but insisted on steering unilaterally. It's losing legitimacy in the eyes of others, relative economic and political strength and the creative ability to outline a better future world that the Rest feels attracted to: Classical decline indicators!

What I have said here is pure Gandhian thinking: You may harm others by using violence - physical, economic, military, structural, cultural and environmental - but, sooner rather than later, your violence boomerangs: It corrupts, debases, brutalizes and makes you more loathed than loved. A critical mass will develop.

In a deeper socio-cultural sense, the Christian Occident has never appropriately problematized those many types of violence upon which it built its relations with the Rest.

The West's cold war on China is about so much more than the issues that dominate daily news - chips, trade, Taiwan and the topics of the permanent accusation industry. It's about profound tectonic changes in humanity's way of developing - and about whether or not the West will join and contribute or become a de-developed periphery in the new world. And whether its empire will go down with a whimper or a bang, or adapt to macro history's unavoidable changes.

We know very little about humanity's future in the next 100 or so years. The safest philosophy will be for the Rest to, despite all, extend compassion and cooperation to the good forces of the West and abstain from tit-for-tat against its evil ones.

—The Author is the Director of the Sweden-based Think Tank Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research.

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dailyadventureprompts · 3 months

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Dm Tip: Playing the Villain/ Guidelines for "Evil" Campaigns

I've never liked the idea of running an evil game, despite how often I've had people in my inbox asking how I'd go about it. I'm all about that zero-to-hero heroic fantasy not only because I'm a goodie twoshoes IRL but because the narrative-gameplay premise that d&d is built around falls apart if the party is a bunch of killhappy murder hobos. Not only would I get bored narrating such a game and indulging the sort of players who demands the freedom to kill and torture at will (I've had those before and they don't get invited back to my table), but the whole conceit of a party falls through when the obviously villainous player characters face their first real decision point and attempt to kill eachother because cooperation is a thing that goodguys do.

Then I realized I was going about it all wrong.

The problem was I had started out playing d&d with assholes, those "murder and torture" clowns who wanted to play grand-theft-auto in the worlds I'd created and ignore the story in favour of seeing how much unchallenged chaos they could create. They set my expectations for what an evil campaign was, and I spent the rest of my time developing as a dungeonmaster thinking " I Don't want any part of that"

But what would an evil campaign look like for my playgroup of emotionally healthy friends who understand character nuance? What would I need to change about the fundamental conceit of d&d adventures to refocus the game on the badguys while still following a similar enough narrative-gameplay premise to a hero game? How do we make that sort of game relatable? What sort of power/play fantasy can we indulge in without going off the deepend?

TLDR: In an evil campaign your players aren't playing the villains, they're the MINIONS, they're mooks, henchmen, goons, lackeys. They're the disposable underlings of uncaring overseers who have nothing but ill intent towards them and the world at large.

Where as in a hero game the party is given the freedom to challenge and overthrow corrupt systems, in an evil game the party is suck as part of that corrupt system, forced to bend and compromise and sacrifice in order to survive. The fantasy is one of escaping that corrupt system, of biding your time just long enough to find an opening, find the right leverage, then tossing a molitov behind you on the way out.

Fundamentally it's the fantasy of escaping a shitty job by bringing the whole company down and punching your asshole boss in the face for good measure.

Below the cut I'm going to get into more nuance about how to build these kinds of narratives, also feel free to check out my evil party tag for campaigns and adventures that fit with the theme.

Designing a campaign made to be played from the perspective of the badguys requires you to take a different angle on quest and narrative design. It’s not so simple as swapping out the traditionally good team for the traditionally bad team and vis versa, having your party cut through a dungeon filled with against angel worshiping holyfolk in place of demon worshipping cultists etc.

Instead, the primary villain of the first arc of the campaign should be your party’s boss. Not their direct overseer mind you, more CEO compared to the middle managers your party will be dealing with for the first leg of their journey. We should know a bit about that boss villain’s goals and a few hints at their motivation, enough for the party to understand that their actions are directly contributing to that inevitable doom.

“Gee, everyone knows lord Heldred swore revenge after being banished from the king’s council for dabbling in dark magic. I don’t know WHY he has us searching for these buried ancient tablets, but I bet it’s not good”

Next, you need a manager, someone who’s a part of the evil organization that the party directly interfaces with. The manager should have something over the party, whether it be threats of force, blackmail, economic dependency… anything that keeps the antiheroes on the manager’s leash. Whether you make your manager an obvious asshole or manipulative charmer, its important to maintain this power imbalance: The party arn’t going to be rewarded when the boss-villain’s plan goes off, the manager is, but the manager’s usefulness to the boss-villain is contingent on the work they’re getting the party to do. This tension puts us on a collison course to our first big narrative beat: do the party get tired of the manager’s abuse and run away? Do they kill the manager and get the attention of the upper ranks of the villainous organization? Do they work really hard at their jobs despite the obvious warning signs and outlive their usefulness? Do they upstage their manager and end up getting promoted, becoming rivals for the boss-villain’s favor?

Building this tension up and then seeing how it breaks makes for a great first arc, as it lets your party determine among themselves when enough is enough, and set their goals for what bettering the situation looks like.

As for designing those adventures, you’ll doubtlessly realize that since the party arn’t playing heroes you’ll need to change how the setup, conflict, and payoff work. They’re still protagonists, we want them to succeed after all, but we want to hammer home that they’re doing bad things without expecting them to jump directly to warcrimes.

Up to no good: The basic building block of any evil campaign, our party need to do something skullduggerous without alerting the authorities. This of course is going to be easier said than done, especially when the task spins out of control or proves far more daunting than first expected. The best the party can hope for is to make a distraction and then escape in the chaos, but it will very likely end with them being pursued in some manner (bounties, hunters, vengeful npcs and the like). Use this setup early in a campaign so you have an external force gunning for your party during the remainder of their adventures.

Dog eat dog: It’s sort of cheating to excuse your party’s villainous actions by having them go up against another villain who happens to be worse than they are. The trick is that we’re not going after this secondary group of outlaws because they’re bad, we’re doing it because they’ve either got something the boss wants, or they’re edging in on the boss’s turf. This sort of plotline sees the party disrupting or taking advantage of a rival’s operation, then taking over that operation and risking becoming just as villainous as that rival happened to be. This can also be combined with an “Up to no good” plot where both groups of miscreants need to step carefully without alerting an outside threat.

The lesser evil: This kind of plot sees your party sent out to deal with an antagonistic force that’s a threat not only to the boss’s plans but to everyone in general. In doing so they might end up fighting alongside some heroes, or accidentally doing good in the long run. This not only gives your party a taste of heroism, but gives them something in their back pocket that could be used to challenge the boss-villain in the future.

The double cross: In order to get what they want, the party need to “play along” with a traditional heroic narrative long enough to get their goal and then ditch. You have them play along specifically so they can get a taste of what life would be like if they weren't bastards, as well as to make friends with the NPCs inevitably going to betray. This is to make it hurt when you have the manager yank the leash and force the party to decide between finishing the job , or risk striking out on their own and playing hero in the short term while having just made a long term enemy. This is sort of plot is best used an adventure or two into the campaign, as the party will have already committed some villainous deeds that one good act can’t blot out.

Next, lets talk about the sort of scenarios you should be looking to avoid when writing an evil campaign:

Around the time I started playing d&d there was this trend of obtusely binary morality systems in videogames which claimed to offer choice but really only existed to let the player chose between the power fantasy of being traditionally virtuous or the power fantasy of being an edgy rebel. Early examples included:

Do you want to steal food from disaster victims? in Infamous

Do you as a space cop assault a reporter who’s being kind of annoying to you? in Mass Effect

Do you blow up an entire town of innocent people for the lols? in Fallout (no seriously check out hbomberguy’s teardowm on fallout 3’s morality system and how critics at the time ate it up)

I think these games, along with the generational backwash of 90s “edge” and 00s “grit” coloured a lot of people's expectations ( including mine) about what a "villain as protagonist" sort of narrative might look like. They're childish exaggerations, devoid of substance, made even worse by how blithely their narratives treat them.

Burn down an inn full of people is not a good quest objective for an evil party, because it forces the characters to reach cartoonish levels of villainy which dissociates them from their players. Force all the villagers into the inn so we can lock them inside and do our job uninterrupted lets the party be bad, but in a way that the players can see the reason behind it and stay synced up with their characters. The latter option also provides a great setup for when the party's actually monstrous overseer sets the inn on fire to get rid of any witnesses after the job is done. Now the party (and their players) are faced with a moral quandary, will they let themselves be accessories to a massacre or risk incurring their manager's wrath? Rather than jumping face first into cackling cruelty, these sorts of quandaries have them dance along the knife's edge between grim practicality and dangerous uncertainly; It brings the player and character closer together.

Finally, lets talk about ending the villain arc:

I don't think you can play a whole evil campaign. Both because the escalation required is narratively unsustainable, but also because the most interesting aspect of playing badguys is the breaking point. Just like heroes inevitably having doubts about whether or not they're doing the right thing, there's only so long that a group of antiheroes can go along KNOWING they're doing the wrong thing before they put their feet down and say "I'm out". I think you plan a evil campaign up until a specific "there's no coming back from this" storybeat, IE letting the Inn burn... whether or not the party allows it to happen, it's the lowest point the narrative will allow them to reach before they either fight back or allow themselves to be subsumed. If they rebel, you play out the rest of the arc dismantling the machine they helped to build, taking joy in its righteous destruction. If they keep going along, show them what they get for being cogs: inevitably betrayed, sacrificed, or used as canon fodder when the real heroes step in to do their jobs for them.

Art

#dm tip #dm tips #writing advice #evil party #drafting the adventure #dnd #d&d #dungeons and dragons #blades in the dark #ttprg #pathfinder

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lapsed-bookworm · 3 months

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This isn’t an exhaustive list, but I’ve run into some of these organizations as places to donate, and it's fine for my followers to share other lists that have gone around. (I'm not going to be offended.) This is version three with some organizations that include long-term goals of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation and peace in addition to the initial organizations offering emergency aid. Organizations are listed alphabetically.

Alliance for Middle East Peace

ALLMEP is a coalition of over 160 organizations—and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis—building cooperation, justice, equality, shared society, mutual understanding, and peace among their communities. We add stability in times of crisis, foster cooperation that increases impact, and build an environment conducive to peace over the long term. (Even if you're not really keen on supporting AllMEP itself, searching Member Organizations may also be a way to find organizations based on sectors - environment, women, youth, etc. - or type - Palestinian, Cross Border, or Shared Society.)

American Friends of Magen David Adom

The most common way I’ve seen recommendations for USAmericans to donate to Magen David Adom. (Additional Friends Societies are on Magen David Adom’s site for other countries.)

As a fully-fledged member of the International Red Cross / Red Crescent, Magen David Adom serves as the Israeli Red Cross organization.

Anera

Anera, which has no political or religious affiliation, works on the ground with partners in Palestine (West Bank and Gaza), Lebanon and Jordan. We mobilize resources for immediate emergency relief and for sustainable, long-term health, education, and economic development. Our staff serve in their communities, navigating the politics that constrict progress to get help where it’s needed most.

A Land For All

A Land for All is a shared movement of Israelis and Palestinians who believe that the way towards peace, security and stability for all passes through two independent states, Israel and Palestine, within a joint framework allowing both peoples to live together and apart.

Doctors Without Border/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

An independent organization “focused on delivering emergency medical humanitarian aid quickly, effectively, and impartially.” This link goes to the Palestinian Territories section.

Friends of Roots

We are a network of local Palestinians and Israelis [in the West Bank] who have come to see each other as the partners we both need to make changes to end our conflict. Based on a mutual recognition of each People's connection to the Land, we are developing understanding and solidarity despite our ideological differences. Ongoing Initiatives include interreligious exchange, a women's group, partnership lectures, a children's summer camp, youth group, after school program, incident response team, and community de-escalators.

Hand in Hand

Hand in Hand is building inclusion and equality between Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel through a growing network of bilingual, integrated schools and communities. [...] The curricula in Hand in Hand’s schools are based on values that reflect both cultures and languages, oriented in multiculturalism and shared and equal citizenship. In our bilingual educational model, Hebrew and Arabic have equal status, as do both cultures and national narratives. Our thousands-strong adult community members come together year-round in celebration, solidarity, and dialogue. These community activities are geared towards parents, staff, and other active citizens who are interested in taking part in a shared community. We believe it is not apt to place the burden of creating a shared future on the shoulders of our children. We, the adults, must lead the way. These community activities are an inseparable part of our work towards building a shared society.

MAUSA - Muslim Aid USA

An international charity that provides assistance from natural disasters and conflict. They have a specific Palestine Emergency page.

Mrs Najah’s Kitchen

Emergency food relief in Gaza.

Off The Grid Missions

Off-The-Grid Missions (OTG) is a global humanitarian aid organization filling the gap in disaster-response by providing Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing people with critical life-saving resources in high-risk and disaster-stricken regions around the world.

Depending on the mission, aid can include assistance with evacuations, providing food, solar lighting and emergency electric sources, and assisting with alternatives to sound based warning systems. (Assistance with Deaf and Hard-of-hearing individuals in Palestine and Israel has been mentioned on quickly updated social media sites, like Facebook.)

Palestine Red Crescent Society

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) is an officially recognized independent Palestinian National Society. It is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Standing Together

Standing Together is a grassroots movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality, and social and climate justice. We organize protests across the country demanding economic equality, climate justice, and an end to the occupation. We hold workshops on grassroots power, organize get-out-the-vote campaigns, and run candidates for student union elections [related to university chapters]. Our alternative media outlet, Rosa Media, produces Hebrew and Arabic podcasts highlighting underrepresented political stories and perspectives from across Israeli society. We maintain a robust presence in Israeli social media – combatting extremist voices and advancing hope.

Women Wage Peace

Women Wage Peace is a broad, politically unaffiliated movement, which is acting to prevent the next war and to promote a non-violent, respectful, and mutually accepted solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the active participation of women through all stages of negotiations.

World Central Kitchen

World Central Kitchen is first to the frontlines, providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises.

They have response teams and partners in Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, and Egypt.

Charity Navigator page for additional organizations for the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Posted: 5 February 2024. (Link to Version 2.)

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ausetkmt · 7 months

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Where It’s Most Dangerous to Be Black in America

Black Americans made up 13.6% of the US population in 2022 and 54.1% of the victims of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, aka homicide. That works out, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, to a homicide rate of 29.8 per 100,000 Black Americans and four per 100,000 of everybody else.(1)

A homicide rate of four per 100,000 is still quite high by wealthy-nation standards. The most up-to-date statistics available from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show a homicide of rate one per 100,000 in Canada as of 2019, 0.8 in Australia (2021), 0.4 in France (2017) and Germany (2020), 0.3 in the UK (2020) and 0.2 in Japan (2020).

But 29.8 per 100,000 is appalling, similar to or higher than the homicide rates of notoriously dangerous Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. It also represents a sharp increase from the early and mid-2010s, when the Black homicide rate in the US hit new (post-1968) lows and so did the gap between it and the rate for everybody else. When the homicide rate goes up, Black Americans suffer disproportionately. When it falls, as it did last year and appears to be doing again this year, it is mostly Black lives that are saved.

As hinted in the chart, racial definitions have changed a bit lately; the US Census Bureau and other government statistics agencies have become more open to classifying Americans as multiracial. The statistics cited in the first paragraph of this column are for those counted as Black or African American only. An additional 1.4% of the US population was Black and one or more other race in 2022, according to the Census Bureau, but the CDC Wonder (for “Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research”) databases from which most of the statistics in this column are drawn don’t provide population estimates or calculate mortality rates for this group. My estimate is that its homicide rate in 2022 was about six per 100,000.

A more detailed breakdown by race, ethnicity and gender reveals that Asian Americans had by far the lowest homicide rate in 2022, 1.6, which didn’t rise during the pandemic, that Hispanic Americans had similar homicide rates to the nation as a whole and that men were more than four times likelier than women to die by homicide in 2022. The biggest standout remained the homicide rate for Black Americans.

Black people are also more likely to be victims of other violent crime, although the differential is smaller than with homicides. In the 2021 National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (the 2022 edition will be out soon), the rate of violent crime victimization was 18.5 per 1,000 Black Americans, 16.1 for Whites, 15.9 for Hispanics and 9.9 for Asians, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders. Understandably, Black Americans are more concerned about crime than others, with 81% telling Pew Research Center pollsters before the 2022 midterm elections that violent crime was a “very important” issue, compared with 65% of Hispanics and 56% of Whites.

These disparities mainly involve communities caught in cycles of violence, not external predators. Of the killers of Black Americans in 2020 whose race was known, 89.4% were Black, according to the FBI. That doesn’t make those deaths any less of a tragedy or public health emergency. Homicide is seventh on the CDC’s list of the 15 leading causes of death among Black Americans, while for other Americans it’s nowhere near the top 15. For Black men ages 15 to 39, the highest-risk group, it’s usually No. 1, although in 2022 the rise in accidental drug overdoses appears to have pushed accidents just past it. For other young men, it’s a distant third behind accidents and suicides.

To be clear, I do not have a solution for this awful problem, or even much of an explanation. But the CDC statistics make clear that sky-high Black homicide rates are not inevitable. They were much lower just a few years ago, for one thing, and they’re far lower in some parts of the US than in others. Here are the overall 2022 homicide rates for the country’s 30 most populous metropolitan areas.

Metropolitan areas are agglomerations of counties by which economic and demographic data are frequently reported, but seldom crime statistics because the patchwork of different law enforcement agencies in each metro area makes it so hard. Even the CDC, which gets its mortality data from state health departments, doesn’t make it easy, which is why I stopped at 30 metro areas.(2)

Sorting the data this way does obscure one key fact about homicide rates: They tend to be much higher in the main city of a metro area than in the surrounding suburbs.

But looking at homicides by metro area allows for more informative comparisons across regions than city crime statistics do, given that cities vary in how much territory they cover and how well they reflect an area’s demographic makeup. Because the CDC suppresses mortality data for privacy reasons whenever there are fewer than 10 deaths to report, large metro areas are good vehicles for looking at racial disparities. Here are the 30 largest metro areas, ranked by the gap between the homicide rates for Black residents and for everybody else.

The biggest gap by far is in metropolitan St. Louis, which also has the highest overall homicide rate. The smallest gaps are in metropolitan San Diego, New York and Boston, which have the lowest homicide rates. Homicide rates are higher for everybody in metro St. Louis than in metro New York, but for Black residents they’re six times higher while for everyone else they’re just less than twice as high.

There do seem to be some regional patterns to this mayhem. The metro areas with the biggest racial gaps are (with the glaring exception of Portland, Oregon) mostly in the Rust Belt, those with the smallest are mostly (with the glaring exceptions of Boston and New York) in the Sun Belt. Look at a map of Black homicide rates by state, and the highest are clustered along the Mississippi River and its major tributaries. Southern states outside of that zone and Western states occupy roughly the same middle ground, while the Northeast and a few middle-of-the-country states with small Black populations are the safest for their Black inhabitants.(3)

Metropolitan areas in the Rust Belt and parts of the South stand out for the isolation of their Black residents, according to a 2021 study of Census data from Brown University’s Diversity and Disparities Project, with the average Black person living in a neighborhood that is 60% or more Black in the Detroit; Jackson, Mississippi; Memphis; Chicago; Cleveland and Milwaukee metro areas in 2020 (in metro St. Louis the percentage was 57.6%). Then again, metro New York and Boston score near the top on another of the project’s measures of residential segregation, which tracks the percentage of a minority group’s members who live in neighborhoods where they are over-concentrated compared with White residents, so segregation clearly doesn’t explain everything.

Looking at changes over time in homicide rates may explain more. Here’s the long view for Black residents of the three biggest metro areas. Again, racial definitions have changed recently. This time I’ve used the new, narrower definition of Black or African American for 2018 onward, and given estimates in a footnote of how much it biases the rates upward compared with the old definition.

All three metro areas had very high Black homicide rates in the 1970s and 1980s, and all three experienced big declines in the 1990s and 2000s. But metro Chicago’s stayed relatively high in the early 2010s then began a rebound in mid-decade that as of 2021 had brought the homicide rate for its Black residents to a record high, even factoring in the boost to the rate from the definitional change.

What happened in Chicago? One answer may lie in the growing body of research documenting what some have called the “Ferguson effect,” in which incidents of police violence that go viral and beget widespread protests are followed by local increases in violent crime, most likely because police pull back on enforcement. Ferguson is the St. Louis suburb where a 2014 killing by police that local prosecutors and the US Justice Department later deemed to have been in self-defense led to widespread protests that were followed by big increases in St. Louis-area homicide rates. Baltimore had a similar viral death in police custody and homicide-rate increase in 2015. In Chicago, it was the October 2014 shooting death of a teenager, and more specifically the release a year later of a video that contradicted police accounts of the incident, leading eventually to the conviction of a police officer for second-degree murder.

It’s not that police killings themselves are a leading cause of death among Black Americans. The Mapping Police Violence database lists 285 killings of Black victims by police in 2022, and the CDC reports 209 Black victims of “legal intervention,” compared with 13,435 Black homicide victims. And while Black Americans are killed by police at a higher rate relative to population than White Americans, this disparity — 2.9 to 1 since 2013, according to Mapping Police Violence — is much less than the 7.5-to-1 ratio for homicides overall in 2022. It’s the loss of trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve that seems to be disproportionately deadly for Black residents of those communities.

The May 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer was the most viral such incident yet, leading to protests nationwide and even abroad, as well as an abortive local attempt to disband and replace the police department. The Minneapolis area subsequently experienced large increases in homicides and especially homicides of Black residents. But nine other large metro areas experienced even bigger increases in the Black homicide rate from 2019 to 2022.

A lot of other things happened between 2019 and 2022 besides the Floyd protests, of course, and I certainly wouldn’t ascribe all or most of the pandemic homicide-rate increase to the Ferguson effect. It is interesting, though, that the St. Louis area experienced one of the smallest percentage increases in the Black homicide rate during this period, and it decreased in metro Baltimore.

Also interesting is that the metro areas experiencing the biggest percentage increases in Black residents’ homicide rates were all in the West (if your definition of West is expansive enough to include San Antonio). If this were confined to affluent areas such as Portland, Seattle, San Diego and San Francisco, I could probably spin a plausible-sounding story about it being linked to especially stringent pandemic policies and high work-from-home rates, but that doesn’t fit Phoenix, San Antonio or Las Vegas, so I think I should just admit that I’m stumped.

The standout in a bad way has been the Portland area, which had some of the longest-running and most contentious protests over policing, along with many other sources of dysfunction. The area’s homicide rate for Black residents has more than tripled since 2019 and is now second highest among the 30 biggest metro areas after St. Louis. Again, I don’t have any real solutions to offer here, but whatever the Portland area has been doing since 2019 isn’t working.

(1) The CDC data for 2022 are provisional, with a few revisions still being made in the causes assigned to deaths (was it a homicide or an accident, for example), but I’ve been watching for weeks now, and the changes have been minimal. The CDC is still using 2021 population numbers to calculate 2022 mortality rates, and when it updates those, the homicide rates will change again, but again only slightly. The metropolitan-area numbers also don’t reflect a recent update by the White House Office of Management and Budget to its list of metro areas and the counties that belong to them, which when incorporated will bring yet more small mortality-rate changes. To get these statistics from the CDC mortality databases, I clicked on “Injury Intent and Mechanism” and then on “Homicide”; in some past columns I instead chose “ICD-10 Codes” and then “Assault,” which delivered slightly different numbers.

(2) It’s easy to download mortality statistics by metro area for the years 1999 to 2016, but the databases covering earlier and later years do not offer this option, and one instead has to select all the counties in a metro area to get area-wide statistics, which takes a while.

(3) The map covers the years 2018-2022 to maximize the number of states for which CDC Wonder will cough up data, although as you can see it wouldn’t divulge any numbers for Idaho, Maine, Vermont and Wyoming (meaning there were fewer than 10 homicides of Black residents in each state over that period) and given the small numbers involved, I wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock in the rates for the Dakotas, Hawaii, Maine and Montana.

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/14/where-it-s-most-dangerous-to-be-black-in-america/cdea7922-52f0-11ee-accf-88c266213aac_story.html)

#Where It’s Most Dangerous to Be Black in America #Black in america #Black Lives Matter

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workersolidarity · 12 days

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[ 📹 A group of Palestinian children visiting the graves of those killed in "Israel's" special genocide operation in Gaza are frightened by sudden and intense Zionist machine gunfire, causing the children to jump up in fear and run, a reaction that speaks to the horrors Palestinian children have endured during the Zionist genocide.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

ISRAELI OCCUPATION LAUNCHES SURPRISE ATTACK ON CENTRAL GAZA ON DAY 188 OF ISRAELI GENOCIDE

On the 188th day of "Israel's" special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed several new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 63 Palestinians citizens, mostly women and children, while another 45 others have been wounded over the previous 24-hours.

Even as most Arab and Muslim-majority countries have put on hold discussions to normalize relations with the Israeli entity, Indonesia today, in coordination with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has reached an agreement for the normalization of relations with the Israeli occupation. The agreement comes as part of an effort to facilitate Indonesia's entry into the OECD.

In return for the normalization, the OECD asked that "Israel" not oppose Indonesia's accession into the organization, while the Israeli occupation authorities said they welcomed the breakthrough.

According to reports, Indonesia was seeking to join the OECD, which requires a consensus from all member-states, as well as normal relations between all members.

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited on Thursday an F-15 airbase, where the occupation leader appeared to issue a threat to Iran, stating that "Israel" was ready for any potential attacks from neighboring countries, and added that the occupation would retaliate against anyone who harms the Zionist entity.

Speaking with F-15 pilots, Netanyahu said, “We are in challenging times. We are in the midst of a war in Gaza that is continuing with full force. In addition, we are continuing with ceaseless efforts to return our hostages, but we are also preparing for challenges from other fronts."

According to the Hebrew media, "Israel's" fleet of F-15 fighter jets are the "primary weapon for long-range strikes."

"We set a simple principle: Anyone who hits us, we hit them,” Netanyahu said in apparent reference to Iranian threats of retaliation for last week's bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the Syrian capital.

“We are ready to fulfill our responsibilities to Israel’s security, in defense and attack," the occupation's Prime Minister added.

As the Zionist occupation's authorities prepared for a potential Iranian strike, the occupation army today launched a surprise assault on the central Gaza Strip.

According to the Zionist media, the IOF announced that it had launched a surprise "targeted operation" against Hamas in the central Gaza Strip, storming the outskirts of the Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp, which the occupation claims has largely gone "untouched" by Israeli forces until now.

The Zionist occupation army pummeled the Nuseirat Camp with intense airstrikes and artillery shelling at dawn before Israeli soldiers and armored vehicles moved to penetrate the Camp, where local reports say the forces with the Palestinian Resistance confronted the invading Zionist army.

The latest Israeli incursion into central Gaza comes on the heels of the decision by IOF leadership to withdraw all meneuvering ground forces from the Gaza Strip, leaving only a single brigade, the Nahal Brigade, to secure the so-called "Netzarim" corridor, which the Israeli army built to seperate the northern and southern halves of the Gaza Strip, running from Israeli colonial settlements near the border fence with Gaza to Gaza's Mediterranean coast.

According to the Zionist media, upon the opening strikes of the latest offensive, the Israeli occupation air forces bombed a residential building in the Nuseirat Camp, resulting in the deaths of at least 5 Palestinian civilians, while the Israeli media added that other residential buildings were also targeted.

IOF authorities told the Hebrew media that it continues to carry out strikes in the Camp, bombing and shelling dozens of "Hamas" targets, including supposed underground tunnel structures, while the occupation Navy launched several strikes near the Mediterranean coast in support of the ground forces penetrating central Gaza.

The Zionist entity said the operation was launched after receiving intelligence indicating "the presence of terror infrastructure and many terrorists in the area."

Intense battles raged in the early hours of Thursday morning between the invading occupation army and local Palestinian Resistance forces, who popped out from hidden tunnels, leading the Zionist air force to bomb the area where Resistance fighters emerged from.

Meanwhile, Zionist occupation forces ramped up their bombing and shelling across various sectors of the Gaza Strip, instensifying airstrikes on Gaza City, as well as the Nuseirat Camp, along with several strikes on the city of Rafah in the south of Gaza.

In one example, Israeli occupation fighter jets bombed a gathering of Palestinian civilians in the vicinity of the Eastern Cemetery, located to the east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of five Palestinians, who's bodies were transported to Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital.

At the same time, Zionist warplanes bombed residential buildings in the al-Geneina neighborhood, east of Rafah, in the south of Gaza, while two civilian were killed when occupation gunboats fired shells bombing Palestinian homes in the Beach Camp, also known as the Al-Shati Camp, west of Gaza City.

Zionist forces then bombed the aforementioned residential building in the Nuseirat Camp, which martyred five Palestinian civilians, while simultaneously, IOF fighter jets launched several firebelts targeting the Dhu al-Nourin Mosque, as well as the Moaz bin Jabal Mosque, north of the Nuseirat Camp.

As the Israeli occupation's bombing and shelling rapidly intensified, Zionist soldiers penetrated north of the Nuseirat Camp from the direction of Salah al-Din Street and the Al-Mughraqa area, while Israeli military helicopters provided machine-gun fire, and Israeli bombers destroyed a "large number of residential towers" in the city of Al-Zahra'a.

In yet another Israeli occupation airstrike, fighter jets targeted one of the Al-Salhi towers, north of Al-Nuseirat, while displaced civilians sheltering inside a UNRWA school reported shrapnel flying into classrooms and the school yard, resulting in fear and panic among the civilians.

Zionist occupation forces also bombarded agricultural lands surrounding the Sultan's palace hall in the Al-Maghazi Camp, in the central Gaza Strip.

In another criminal atrocity, Israeli occupation forces bombed the civilian vehicle belonging to the family of Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in the Al-Shati Refugee Camp as they celebrated Eid al-Fatr on Wednesday, killing three of Haniyeh's sons, as well as wounding his daughter. Haniyeh's grandchildren were also killed in the strike, as they were inside the vehicle at the time of the assault.

Several civilian casualties were also recorded in an airstrike targeting a residential home belonging to the Al-Yaziji family on al-Nafaq Street in Gaza City, while at the same time, Zionist air forces bombed a residential home in the Al-Fukhari neighborhood, east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Occupation fighter jets also continued bombarding agricultural lands near the southern Palestine border with Egypt, though luckily, no casualties were reported in the strike.

Shortly before publishing, reports of yet another airstrike came in, with Palestinian media reporting four civilians martyred as a result of an Israeli airstrike targeting the Feras Market area, in central Gaza City.

As a result of "Israel's" special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the infinitely rising death toll has now exceeded 33'545 Palestinians martyred, over 25'000 of which being women and children, while another 76'094 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression beginning on October 7th, 2023.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

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haggishlyhagging · 1 year

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Human life and evolution are explained in many ways. We are indeed producers and toolmakers, as the Marxists and anthropologists say, and creators of symbolic culture. But we were not human until the appearance of the menstrual cycle. With it came the possibility of all evolutionary developments that are specifically human: extraction of mental energy from reproduction and survival, social bonding through human emotion, symbolism (symbols are mental children), recognition and valuing of the individual as a being with rights to pleasure and subjective exploration, social organization and sexual affection leading to the development of cultural and economic cooperation for the purpose of enhancing, rather than just maintaming, human experience. Otherwise, why evolve?

Women have got to understand the importance of the switch from primate estrus to human menstrual cycle, because this was the mechanism of female evolution. It is also the target of patriarchy. Female sexuality and female evolution are—have been, for 2 or 3 millennia at least—in a lethal deadlock with patriarchal ideology, religious, economic, and political. This is because patriarchy, as a system, wants to enforce and maintain male primate power-dominance-control over our species. The rise of patriarchy was an evolutionary step backwards, in this sense. The only thing blocking or neutralizing this patriarchal-primate urge toward dominance-control of the human species is the more advanced capacity for human creative communal process via social-sexual bonding evolved by the women of our species. I.e., we are still trying to evolve from the primate to the fully human; and in this long attempt autonomous female sexuality represents an advance, while patriarchal control over female sexual process represents regression.

-Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor. The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering The Religion of the Earth.

#monica sjöö #barbara mor #menstruation #human evolution #patriarchy #female oppression

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zvaigzdelasas · 6 months

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Chancellor Olaf Scholz wants Nigeria to increase LNG supplies to Germany and is demanding that Nigerian refugees be accepted back swiftly. Scholz, who held talks on Sunday and Monday in Nigeria's capital Abuja and subsequently in its commercial capital Lagos, is thus continuing his efforts to increase LNG imports from African countries to replace Russian gas [...] The German government had repeatedly urged African countries to abandon fossil fuel extraction. While increasing deportation of Nigerians, Berlin – according to Scholz – is trying to lure more “talents” from the country to work for German companies –a contribution to the brain drain depriving developing countries of urgently needed and expensively trained skilled labor. In Nigeria, Scholz also held talks on the developments in Niger. Last summer, with Nigeria's help, the EU sought to overthrow the military government in Niger that previously had ousted a pro-Western president and is seeking to lead the country to genuine independence from the former colonial powers.

This is Chancellor Olaf Scholz's third trip to Africa and his second to West Africa. In May 2022, Scholz had traveled to Senegal and then on to Niger; where he visited the German troops deployed in that country, before going on to meet with pro-Western President Mohamed Bazoum. Bazoum has since been overthrown by putschists, who can rely on a widespread popular rejection of French dominance in West Africa.[1] This rejection is also growing in Senegal.[2] The two countries Scholz is visiting this time – Nigeria and Ghana – are, like Senegal and Niger, members of the West African regional organization ECOWAS, but they are not former French colonies. Their foreign relations are therefore less affected by the current anti-colonial wave in West Africa’s Francophonie. Moreover, both countries have been Germany’s long-standing cooperation partners of, albeit at a relatively modest level[...]

With his visit in Nigeria on Sunday and Monday, Scholz was seeking to expand bilateral economic relations with a focus on energy resources. German oil imports from Nigeria currently account for around half of the total trade volume. Now the German government also wants to import gas from the country – just as it did from Senegal, where Chancellor Scholz had also negotiated gas supplies in May 2022.[3] This had already raised some eyebrows at the time. Berlin had long been prominent in making the demand that the African continent should abandon its use of fossil fuels. However, subsequent to its decision to halt Russian oil and gas imports, it began to promote tapping new deposits in Africa, for example in Senegal, and is now seeking supplies from the new sources. [...] In 2021, with 14 percent of the EU’s imports, Nigeria was the EU's fourth largest supplier after the USA, Qatar and Russia, with most of it sold to Spain and Portugal.[4] Just before his trip, Scholz had already stated in an interview with the Nigerian newspaper Punch [linked here] that German corporations were also interested in LNG supplies from Nigeria.[5]

To accelerate the repatriation of Nigerians from Germany was Scholz’s second important objective on his visit to Nigeria. Nigerians are rarely granted asylum in Germany. Between January and September of this year, of the 1,850 persons who applied for asylum in Germany only 118 have been granted a reliable right to remain.[6] However, it is currently not easy for Berlin to deport Nigerians, whose bid for asylum has been rejected. The Nigerian authorities only allow those into the country, who have valid original documents. Substitute papers, provided by German authorities to those Nigerians, who have lost their passports, are not recognized in Abuja. That has resulted in around 14,000 Nigerians living in Germany, who, in principle are obliged to leave the country. This year only 262 have actually been deported. Scholz was insisting that Abuja make their repatriation easier. Only “talents from Nigeria,” needed in the labor market, should be allowed to come, says the chancellor.[7] This is Berlin’s admission to lure well, and expensively-trained personnel – the so-called brain drain that inflicts serious damage to developing countries and is regularly criticized by experts.

Scholz used his stay in Nigeria to also discuss the situation in Nigeria’s northern neighbor, Niger. Following the putsch in that country, Nigeria had been one of those countries, that had been particularly advocating for a military intervention in Niger, to restore the overthrown President Bazoum to power. For that purpose, several of the ECOWAS countries, besides Nigeria, for example both Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire wanted to provide the necessary troops. In addition, there was also the prospect of French military assistance. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[8]) Ultimately the plan was abandoned – also due to the strong resistance from Northern Nigeria, which would have borne the brunt of the extensive damage in the case of a war with the neighboring country. Meanwhile, French troops have begun their withdrawal from Niger. Backing down from the threat of an intervention, supported by Paris and the EU, has cost ECOWAS credibility and weakened its position in West Africa, where it was already widely considered a French and Western lackey. In Abuja, Scholz met with ECOWAS Commission President, Omar Touray, exchanged views on the situation in Niger and praised ECOWAS – in a very odd choice of words – as “a powerful and functioning [!] organization.”[9]

Berlin’s attempt to expand cooperation with Nigeria under President Bola Tinubu is not free of risks. Tinubu came to power in late May – following a quite contested election, winning with around 37 percent of the votes, ahead of two strong opponents (Atiku Abubakar with 29 percent, and Peter Obi, 25 percent). Both opponents alleged the presidential election had been marred by irregularities and challenged the results, but lost their bid a few days ago before the country’s highest court.[10] However, Tinabu is still far from out of the woods. From the beginning of his administration, he imposed stringent austerity measures, such as halting the subventions on gasoline, meaning that many ordinary car owners no longer could afford to drive their cars, and with daily living costs skyrocketing. Whereas Tinubu is praised for his cuts in the West, Germany included – the government owned Germany Trade and Invest (gtai) foreign business agency speaks of “important reforms,”[11] – inside that country, there is great resentment. The number of Nigerians, forced to live on less than US $1/day, could grow from a current 83 million to 120 million and in the worst-case, to as many as 140 to 150 million in a population of 220 million, according to experts.[12] There are already warnings of possible unrest. The supporters of the defeated presidential candidate Obi, who feels cheated out of the victory, are are primarily young, rebellious Nigerians.

31 Oct 23

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anarchopuppy · 1 year

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You are invited to join for the first annual Weelaunee Food Autonomy Festival March 10-13. Together we will build our capacity in the forest by meeting each other, planting hundreds of fig, pawpaw, and persimmon saplings, grafting onto callery pears, and sharing in a variety of food autonomy workshops and discussions.

As we experience intensifying climate instability, economic disparity, and ecological destruction, our hands have been in the dirt, working to share food and growing techniques within the communities we inhabit. Across the continent, diverse collectives, farms, and mutual aid hubs have organized themselves, especially since 2020, and have been busy creating autonomous food systems, developing grassroots crop breeding, building food production and distribution systems for collective resilience and communal luxury—outside of the market or USDA management. These efforts at mutual aid and horizontal experimentation challenge state violence, racist dispossession, and the myth of scarcity.

At the same time, a movement in Atlanta enters a third year defending a 300 acre forest, which is threatened by construction of a police training facility (dubbed Cop City) and what would be the largest soundstage in the world, solidifying Atlanta as the new Hollywood. Those defending the forest from these dystopian projects are also creating a world outside of the market or state's control. Eggplants and fig trees sunbathe at the edge of the creek, a cold frame awaits spring germination, foragers commune with the undergrowth, and carpenters improvise structures on the ground and high in the canopy.

Restoring this forest, scarred with a history of indigenous dispossession and prison slave labor, is a complicated task. But we know autonomous food production can break the dirty cycle of land displacement and dependence on the capitalist food system. Moving in this way, towards food autonomy, is essential to the vitality of all life inhabiting the forest. We want to take this opportunity to share lessons and knowledge in all things plants, and learn from the ideas and work of others from all over, inside the fertile context of a forest occupation. Now is the perfect time to combine practical discussions of food autonomy with the movement work of defending the Atlanta forest, in what Cooperation Jackson calls a strategy of "building and fighting."

Learn more

#solarpunk #stop cop city #atlanta #tortuguita #defend weelaunee #activism

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 2 years

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Brazilian government officials downplay Amazon murders at OECD event

Hosting a meeting between the OECD and Latin American nations in Brasília, the Brazilian government sought to soften the latest blow to the country’s international reputation — the murders of British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira.

Economy Minister Paulo Guedes said that Brazil is the “greatest green power” and a “decisive part” of environmental protection in the world. Vice President Hamilton Mourão said the country “preserves human rights” and fosters “sustainable development.” And Foreign Minister Carlos França said the deaths “do not create an obstacle” for Brazil’s OECD membership path.

Messrs. Phillips and Pereira were murdered in a region of the Amazon with growing cases of drug and arms trafficking, illegal fishing and poaching, and land invasions. The case laid bare the lawlessness that has reigned in remote Amazonian areas due to government neglect.

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #environmental justice #indigenous rights #journalism #dom phillips #bruno araujo pereira #amazon rainforest #organization for economic cooperation and development #paulo guedes #carlos franca #foreign policy #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

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bfpnola · 8 months

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Fifty years ago, 15-year-old Sonia Yaco ran for the school board in Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of the youngest people in the country ever to run for a seat on the Board of Education. A member of a group called Youth Liberation, whose platform was founded in 1970, she believed schools would be best run by the people required to be inside them for about seven hours a day, 180 days a year.

Youth Liberation developed a 15-point platform that was far-reaching in its vision. In addition to calling for an end to sexism, sexual discrimination, class antagonism, racism, colonialism, and what they called “adult chauvinism,” the group wanted to form communities outside the structure of the nuclear family, live in harmony with nature, abolish juvenile detention centers and mental institutions, establish global solidarity with youth all over the world, be free of economic dependence on adults, and have the right to their own “new culture,” which included everything “from music and marijuana to free clinics and food cooperatives.”

The 20 or so young people in the group, ranging in age from 12 to 16, wanted “a nationwide movement for youth civil rights, akin to the Black Liberation movement and the growing women's movement,” one of the founders, Keith Hefner, later wrote.

Backed by the radical socialist Human Rights Party, Yaco tells Teen Vogue she delivered stump speeches in a hand-sewn, black ruffled skirt and a black leather jacket. At the time, Ann Arbor, birthplace of the Students for a Democratic Society, was a political hotbed. Youth-led organizations had helped rally support for the 26th Amendment, which was ratified in 1971, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. With popular books like Children’s Liberation (1973), Escape from Childhood (1974), and The Children’s Rights Movement: Overcoming the Oppression of Young People (1977), the idea of youth liberation was gaining force. Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor distributed their message through an underground newspaper, which was a collection of news items, how-tos, and stories from youth all over the country. Yaco informed her parents that, given her political commitments, having a curfew wasn’t going to work, though she did still do the dishes. She talked to PTA forums and rock concerts of thousands, all with the message of youth empowerment. Each time she arrived to speak, she remembers, there was the question of whether or not she would be allowed on stage. She tells Teen Vogue that a school board member once told her to “shut [her] fat lip.” At another event, she says she encountered labor and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, who told her, “I’ve been hearing about you.” The resistance against her candidacy was so great that the Board of Education prohibited Yaco from running, instigating a Supreme Court case which she ultimately lost. Still, with 1,363 votes, Yaco says she got the highest number of write-in votes ever received.

When we think of ageism, it commonly refers to older adults, not the other way around. Though many don’t tend to think of young people as oppressed, a recent study published in the Children and Youth Services Review argues that young people are, in many ways, similarly vulnerable to exploitation. Though young people under 18 can be tried in adult court, they are generally not allowed to vote or hold federal office. They are surveilled and policed in schools, medicated and institutionalized without consent, and paid less for their work. In some states, they cannot get vaccinated without parental permission. Many of these issues are particularly acute for youth of color — some as young as preschoolers — whom research has shown are viewed as older and not as “innocent” as their white counterparts. “You're actively teaching children how to deal with an active shooter, but you can't let them have a say in budgeting, you can't let them discuss curriculum,” says Yaco. While rhetoric about the need to “save the children” is rampant, much public policy in the United States — from the struggling childcare system to gun violence in schools — reveals otherwise. The U.S. is the only country in the United Nations that hasn't ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a historic human rights treaty.

The same justifications historically used to deny other groups their basic freedoms are still applied to youth, explains scholar Mich Ciurria. “The popular narrative about children — as spoiled, ungrateful, and mentally ill — mirrors the popular narratives about 1960s housewives, Black working mothers, and disabled people,” she wrote in a recent essay. To be “childish,” after all, is a derogatory term. As psychologist Robert Epstein argues in an article for Scientific American, what is commonly chalked up to an innate “irresponsibility” or “laziness” — the idea of the unformed teen brain — may simply be a response to living under the repressions of modern society. A 1991 study reviewing research on young people in 186 preindustrial societies — more than half of which had no word for “adolescence” — revealed little evidence of the kind of antisocial teen behavior found in the West, according to Epstein’s summary. In his research for the piece, Epstein found that, based on surveys he conducted, “teens in the U.S. are subjected to more than 10 times as many restrictions as are mainstream adults, twice as many restrictions as active-duty U.S. Marines, and even twice as many restrictions as incarcerated felons.” Young people have long been at the forefront of liberation struggles. Youth played a big part in the Civil Rights movement, which would inspire other movements that followed. In 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks became famous for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, a 15-year-old named Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same action. Galvanized by the Civil Rights movement, the National Indian Youth Council, formed by a group of young people in 1961, organized “fish-ins'' in support of land-use rights. The 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade saw more than a thousand young people, some as young as seven, attacked and jailed after taking to the streets in peaceful protest. In 1972, the Gay International Youth Society of George Washington High School, a group of students of color in the Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights, formed one of the first gay-straight alliances on the basis of student civil rights.

By 1979, Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor had disbanded, and the idea of youth liberation gradually faded from popular consciousness, but activists today are still organizing around age as one form of discrimination in a larger system of interlocking oppressions. For Margin Zheng, the former president of the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA), a group founded in 1998, youth liberation is deeply intersectional. “Young people are BIPOC, young people are queer, young people are of various genders and of no gender, young people are disabled, young people are poor, young people are immigrants and migrants — just like older people,” they write as part of their principles of anti-ageism. Zheng, the child of conservative Chinese immigrants, felt constrained both by their family life and their experience in school. “I secretly longed to be homeschooled and have the freedom to do my own thing, but my parents did not believe in nontraditional education,” they tell Teen Vogue. They attended their first school board meeting in ninth grade and soon began to question why students didn’t have more of a voice. “People think that they can make sweeping generalizations about people of a certain age, but you can’t generalize about youth just as you can’t generalize about people of a certain race, gender, etc.,” they say. Ashawn Dabney-Small, who ran for Boston City Council as an 18-year-old and former vice president of NYRA, became involved in youth activism to address the issues that affected him. “It's not about advocating, it's about speaking from your experiences,” says Dabney-Small, who has experience with the foster care system and the effects of poverty. “That's why I got involved in certain issues, policies that revolve around my life because it's literally my life.” As an activist, Dabney-Small worked on campaigns against gun violence. Recently, he advocated for Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley’s bill to lower the federal voting age to 16 — a move that could revolutionize American politics. “Schools and families are the places where we (young people) begin to feel that we have to struggle for our freedom,” Youth Liberation Acnn Arbor wrote in 1972. (One of the indirect results of Yaco’s campaign was the founding of the alternative Community High School that same year.)

Indeed, many activists today — in movements from unschooling to family abolition — see the institutions of school and family as structures that should be radically reimagined. From Indian Boarding Schools to the school-to-prison pipeline, unpaid domestic labor to assaults on queer chosen families, critics say schools and certain family structures have long been used as tools of oppression for women, queer people, and people of color. In a utopian world, Zheng says, people wouldn’t be judged and set apart by age. Instead, they envision more intergenerational spaces where younger and older people — of all races, genders, sexualities, and abilities — can learn and grow together. “Just as young people would be empowered to cultivate and apply their strengths to work they find meaningful, older people would be embraced in their own personal growth, knowing that learning and unlearning are processes that happen all throughout the lifespan,” they say. Each person would be recognized for their own unique potential. The vision is not unlike the original platform outlined by Youth Liberation more than 50 years ago. As Zheng says, “There would be no prisons, no police, and no schools, only communities of lifelong learning, caring, and joy.”

#undescribed #resources #youth liberation #history #black liberation #bipoc #michigan #socialism #abolition #education #civil rights #anti racism #family #autonomy #queer #trans #intersectional feminism #signal boost #reaux speaks

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groupfazza · 5 months

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سمو الشيخ حمدان بن محمد بن راشد آل مكتوم، ولي عهد دبي، رئيس المجلس التنفيذي لإمارة دبي 🔻

أعلنت منظمة التعاون والتنمية الاقتصادية OECD نتائج برنامجهم الدولي لتقييم مستويات الطلبة PISA في 81 دولة ومنطقة حول العالم حيث يتم تقييم مهارات الرياضيات والعلوم والقراءة … جاءت مدارس دبي الخاصة في المرتبة التاسعة عالمياً في الرياضيات (في 2009 كانت مدارس دبي في المرتبة 38 دوليا في الرياضيات).

كما جاءت مدارس دبي الخاصة في المرتبة الـ 14 عالمياً في العلوم والـ 13 عالمياً في القراءة.

نشكر الكوادر التعليمية المتفانية .. ونشكر هيئة المعرفة والتنمية البشرية بدبي على جهودهم ومتابعتهم .. ونؤكد بأن جودة التعليم هي جودة حياة يستحقها المواطن والمقيم وأسرهم .. وقوة مدارسنا اليوم هي قوة لمستقبلنا وضمان لنجاح أجيالنا الجديدة.

____________

His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai 🔻

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announced the ranking results of its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2022) in 81 countries and regions around the world, evaluating skills in mathematics, science, and reading.

Dubai’s private schools ranked ninth globally in mathematics (in 2009, Dubai schools were ranked 38th globally in mathematics).

In addition, private schools in Dubai ranked 14th globally in science and 13th globally in reading.

We extend our gratitude to the dedicated educational staff and express our appreciation to the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) for their efforts and diligent follow-up.

We emphasize that the quality of education contributes significantly to a better quality of life for our citizens, residents, and their families. The intellectual strength of our schools today augments the strength of our future and ensues success for the new generations.

Thursday, 7 December 2023 الخميس

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probablyasocialecologist · 8 months

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While Marx often shows enthusiasm for the potentiality of enhanced forms of human cooperation enabled by globalizing production, already in the nineteenth century, he observed an antagonistic separation of town and country and suggested that production chains were overstretched and wasting resources. Today, lessening the spatial disjuncture between production and consumption must be an explicit feature and aim of sustainable and just transition and, in this context, calls on the left for partial deglobalization, including the shortening of commodity chains, have merit and are quite consistent with Marx’s analysis. In a process of partial deglobalization, production for local and domestic needs—rather than production for export—would again become the center of gravity of the economy. A move away from the export orientation of domestic corporations and a process of renationalization could also allow enterprises to begin to develop their own strategies, moving away from the whims of the global market and choices taken by corporate controllers. Such transformation could enable spaces for independent development in the Global South. To do so, they could focus on shifting agrarian systems, orienting their production away from agro-export (which is a source of tremendous ecological irrationality and unequal exchange) toward food sovereignty. Such shifts would need to be accompanied by simultaneous, coordinated shifts toward enhanced local and domestic food production in Global North, alongside a move from high-input agriculture to agroecology, and, in settler colonial contexts, enhanced Indigenous sovereignty. Within domestic spaces or regions, efforts must simultaneously be made to mend a rift between the city and the country. For a model of the environmentalist city, one could look to Havana for inspiration. During Cuba’s Special Period in the 1990s, organic, low-input agriculture was developed both in the countryside, as well as in the island’s capital through urban farms. Urban agriculture is here not niche or small-scale—it covers large expanses within and at the outskirts of the city, where rich land is located. In the transition to renewables, energy production should also be localized as much as possible. This is a potentiality inherent in renewable energy “flow,” in contrast to concentrated energy “stock,” or fossil fuels. While lessening the spatial disjuncture between production and consumption is part of developing ecologically rational production, this aim should be recognized to be in some tension with economic planning (at least in the longer term), insofar as expansive planning is potentiated by the socialization of production. Thus, calls for localization of production imply a diminishment in productive association across firms and regions and the potential to plan such interconnections. Practically, it is important to recognize that such a process confronts material interdependencies, as existing productive networks and infrastructural configurations support and sustain huge swaths of human life. Different regions and cities also have different specializations and different ecological capacities. In an existing world of evolved economic interdependencies, the reproductive needs of various communities require continued global resource flows. Climate change also creates severe survival and livelihood challenges on a highly uneven basis, and global trade and divisions of labor can act as safeguards against issues such as pandemics related to water-supply failures and reduced agricultural yields. More broadly, we should carefully consider Marx’s suggestion that well-organized territorial divisions of labor are collective powers and can be a part of collaboration in human affairs. This extends to territorial specialization, which, consciously organized, could involve a collaborative partitioning of resources and capacities.

#ecosocialism #planning #globalisation #degrowth

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aristotels · 10 days

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Establishment of an international commission for the audit of illegitimate foreign debt.

*translation (me and google) of the goals and politics of RF (Workers Front), croatian marxist party. its a long read but its very good, it goes into eu colonialism, effects of imperial core on periphery countries etc.

The debt of the Republic of Croatia should be (partially or completely – depending on the possibilities) frozen, reprogrammed and cancelled, and an international commission should be established, following the example of Ecuador and the existing world practice, which will establish the proportion of illegitimate foreign debt in it, i.e. debt that previous authorities (in cooperation with lenders) did illegitimately, without asking the people for their opinion and without taking into account the interests of the majority of society.

One of the biggest problems that plagues many countries, especially on the periphery of world capitalism, is debt repayment (as a rule, to banks, institutions and individuals from the most developed countries of the capitalist core).

Countries on the periphery are often forced to borrow precisely because of the imposition of economic policies imposed on them by the authorities and capital of the countries of the capitalist core, through instruments such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the European Union, etc.

Thus, through the establishment of "free trade" (in which the stronger and bigger always win) and often the entry of "foreign investments", the domestic industry, natural resources and agriculture of peripheral countries are destroyed, while imports and dependence on foreign economies increase. The deficit that arises after the destruction of domestic production is then compensated by borrowing on the foreign market, often in such a way that the debts are practically impossible to repay and that entire countries are condemned to permanent indebtedness, which clearly benefits those who give loans because, apart from getting rich on it without any work, provides a tool for further political pressure.

This then leads to the fact that the entire economies of countries on the periphery, again under political pressure from the most developed countries (i.e. their capitalist class), are organized in such a way that everything is subordinated to (futile) debt repayment or reforms that benefit foreign capital, and what else then it prevents the development of the indebted countries of the periphery (the governments of the countries of the capitalist core also borrow, but in such cases it works differently because they and their capital are dominant in world power relations).

The question that arises here is whether it is fair that the return of debts to a handful of usurious institutions and individuals in the most developed countries is presupposed to the development of less developed and underdeveloped countries and the interests of the majority of society in these countries?

Is it more important, for example, that an individual country has enough money for its health and education, or is it more important that the loaned money be returned to Wall Street with interest and on time?

In addition, the question arises whether it is legitimate to impose on the entire society to pay back debts that, among other things, arose as a result of the economic policy imposed by the same circles to whom the debt is owed. Is it fair that entire countries live in misery because some government, elected in who knows what way, concluded a loan agreement (often on unfavorable terms) and for who knows what purposes? Considering that such loans have never been voted on in popular referendums, can the entire society be considered forever responsible for their return? In the end - why should the question of repaying debts depend only on the one who received the money, and not on the one who lent it to someone? Doesn't the person who lends money bear a certain risk?

Why should entire countries remain in debt slavery for years just because, for example, certain foreign banks decided to make money by lending funds that they knew in advance that the respective countries would hardly (if ever) be able to pay back? Why would Croatia have to repay the debts incurred by the government of Ivo Sanader, the former prime minister now in prison for corruption, for years to come?

Such questions are not just pure theory - in practice and international law, there has been an institution of the so-called illegitimate debt precisely in the cases we were talking about. If, for example, it is concluded that the money was lent by a corrupt government under deliberately unfavorable conditions and that the lender was aware of this, it is perfectly legitimate for the loan not to be repaid, or at least not to be repaid in full.

In view of this, and based on the already existing world practice, the Workers' Front advocates the establishment of an international commission to review the illegitimate foreign debt of the Republic of Croatia (as Ecuador recently did and as SYRIZA is planning for Greece). After the audit in question, it would be seen how much of the (illegitimate) debt can be canceled, frozen or rescheduled, in whole or in part. Canceling or freezing the payment of at least part of the debts would enable the redirection of funds for the development of the country and for social welfare.

Of course, it is unnecessary to specially mention that here too the matter should be carried out in a realpolitik wise, making various tactical political alliances around the world and minimizing potential damage.

Joint struggle with labor and social movements around the world to cancel the debts and interest on the debts of less developed countries. Drastic reduction of internal debts in all countries, except for small depositors up to a certain amount, and the use of the freed money to meet basic social needs.

The debt problem is not only a problem for Croatia, but also for a large part of the world. Therefore, in solving it, one must try to work together with other progressive governments (today, primarily some Latin American countries, and in the future maybe some others), as well as with various progressive social movements around the world that are not in power. Thus, pressure could be exerted jointly from below (e.g. through protests, public campaigns, etc.) to cancel the debts of less developed and indebted countries. Such a struggle, in order to succeed, must be international.

In addition, debt problems need to be solved within the country as well. There are currently around 315,000 blocked people in Croatia. The debts of ordinary people and workers should be immediately canceled and/or reduced, thus making life easier for those whose basic existence is threatened.

In cooperation with labor and social movements in other countries, the fight to build a world system where high production technology will not be limited only to the most developed Western countries, but will be systematically and at low prices transferred to less developed countries.

The struggle for a post-capitalist world cannot be limited to just one country. Progressive forces in the world must work together to build a more socially just world economic system that will be based not on competition and the wealth of the minority and the poverty of the majority, but on the cooperation and planned development of all countries. It is completely clear that there will be many problems in the process and that this goal will not be achieved in the near future.

The current EU functions primarily in the interests of large capital in the developed Western European core. Therefore, it should be disbanded and a new united workers' Europe built on the foundations of equality, solidarity and an economy that works for the benefit of the majority of society, and in cooperation with other progressive forces of all European countries.

In an attempt to realize its anti-capitalist program, the Workers' Front firmly stands on internationalist positions, realizing that the struggle against the dictatorship of capital cannot take place within the borders of just one country. Therefore, it is completely clear that the struggle for a fairer society, as we strive for, cannot take place without cooperation with progressive forces from other countries in Europe and, ultimately, the entire world.

It is therefore completely clear that the Workers' Front is not in favor of closing Croatia within its borders, but that it supports the idea of a united Europe (and in a broader framework than the framework of the currently existing EU) on the progressive foundations of cooperation, solidarity and an economy that would work in the interests of the majority of society.

But the European Union is not an idyllic union of European unity that works for the betterment of the entire European population. Today, the EU is, above all, a neoliberal project, under whose auspices an extremely pro-capitalist policy is conducted, primarily in the interest of large Western European capital (from countries such as Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, etc.), and to the detriment of peripheral and semi-peripheral countries (such as are Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, but to a large extent also larger countries such as Spain, Portugal and Italy) and generally the working majority of the entire EU.

Such political orientation of the EU is clearly seen in the recent insistence of the EU on austerity measures, in which the costs of the great global crisis of 2007-8. year, they are beaten exclusively on the backs of the workforce, while favors to capital continue. In addition, there are increasingly obvious tendencies to increase the democratic deficit in the EU, where more and more powers are transferred to the largely unelected structure of the Eurobureaucracy, and even the little limited democracy that exists within the framework of capitalist liberal democracy is ignored. In the same way, the EU institutions have been promoting policies for some time, especially since the beginning of the 2007-8 crisis, which tend to abolish acquired labor rights and "flexibilization", i.e. precarious, insecure and poorly paid work.

Considering the institutionalized neoliberalism that exists in the EU, where the EU roughly sets and controls the fiscal (budgetary), monetary and general economic policy, it is completely clear that a large part of the progressive moves highlighted in these program requirements are practically impossible to carry out within the EU (despite examples like that of Hungary, where the right-wing populist government managed to defy Brussels to a certain extent in some sectors).

It is also clear that any reindustrialization of Croatia in a completely open European free market is impossible - as examples from history show, industrialization and economic development in an open market (without protectionism towards industries in their infancy) is not possible because in a free market stronger (in (in this case, large Western European industries) always win. This became quite clear immediately after Croatia's entry into the EU - despite the fact that, according to experts' estimates, Croatia could produce food for around 25 million people, the import of milk increased by 90% after July 1, 2013. and already in the first months of membership in the EU, the import of pork increased by about 300%, and eggs by 524%.

From all this, it is clear that progressive politics, despite its necessary extremely internationalist ideological orientation, cannot and must not be enslaved by misconceptions about the EU as the realization of the dream of a united Europe - the EU is not and cannot be. Such a Europe has yet to be fought for, and on completely different, progressive economic and political grounds.

Leaving NATO membership considering that it implies questionable moral and political decisions (such as military participation in the occupation of different countries), unnecessary costs (annual membership fee and purchase of weapons) and increases uncertainty (explicit inclusion in one of the global geopolitical blocs certainly does not contribute security of the country, for example in the event of a conflict between the West and Russia or China).

Membership in NATO, contrary to the proclaimed goals, does not bring any benefits to Croatia (as well as other smaller countries in a similar position). As a member of NATO, Croatia must participate (at its own expense) in imperialist occupation "peace" missions, such as the one in Afghanistan, where the Croatian army is used to enforce the geopolitical interests of the USA and other major Western countries. The costs of participating in NATO will increase even more after 2014 due to the cooling of relations with Russia (it is required to allocate 2% of GDP to the military of each of the members), and NATO membership does not in any way increase the country's security. Namely, it is very easy to see that in any future conflict (eg between Russia and the West) it would be much safer for Croatia to stay out of the entire conflict, instead of positioning itself in one of the camps. Membership in NATO does not make Croatia safer, but becomes a potential target in conflicts in which NATO participates.

The complete openness and availability of all interstate treaties, agreements and diplomatic acts and the disbandment of existing secret services to expose the trading of social interests under the slogan of "protection of national interests".

It is a common political practice that various decisions, documents and contracts are made in secret, away from the public eye, which is especially used when it comes to unpopular and unfavorable circumstances for the majority. In the last few years, some of such practices have exposed the so-called Wikileaks affair. The same applies to the secret services, which under the slogan of "protection of national interests" actually work against the interests of the majority of society, as was recently seen with the scandals exposed by Edward Snowden. Such practices should be stopped - all documents etc. of public importance must be accessible and transparent to everyone (through publication in the media and on the Internet), while the existing secret services, which are an important tool in preserving the status quo (and which work against the interests of the majority of society ), should be disbanded.

#txt

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kp777 · 9 months

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By Tom Phillips

The Guardian

Aug. 8, 2023

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has vowed to haul the Amazon out of centuries of violence, economic “plundering” and environmental devastation and into “a new Amazon dream”, at the start of a major regional summit on the world’s largest rainforest.

Addressing South American leaders gathered in the Brazilian city of Belém, Lula offered a bold blueprint for the future of the Amazon, a 6.7m sq km region that is home to nearly 50 million people spread across eight countries and one territory.

The Brazilian leftist promised to repair his country’s environmental and international reputation after four “disastrous” years under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, during which the rainforest and Indigenous communities came under growing attack. “Thankfully … we have managed to turn this sad page in our history,” said Lula, who took power in January after thwarting Bolsonaro’s re-election plans.

Lula pledged to promote an ambitious model for the rainforest region – 60% of which lies within Brazil – in which environmental protection was accompanied by desperately needed social inclusion, economic growth and technological innovation.

“The rainforest is neither a void that needs occupying nor a treasure trove to be looted. It is a flowerbed of possibilities that must be cultivated,” Lula told the audience, which included the presidents of fellow Amazon nations Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, as well as the prime minister of Guyana and Venezuela’s vice-president.

Pledging to achieve zero deforestation by 2030, Lula said: “The Amazon can be whatever we want it to be: an Amazon with greener cities, with cleaner air, with mercury-free rivers and forests that are left standing; an Amazon with food on the table, dignified jobs and public services that are available to all; an Amazon with healthier children, well-received migrants [and] Indigenous people who are respected … This is our Amazon dream.”

youtube

Indigenous communities demand greater change as Amazon rainforest summit begins – video

The comments came at the start of a rare two-day meeting of the eight-member Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (Acto), which Lula called as part of efforts to reposition Brazil on the world stage as a key player in the fight against the climate crisis.

Among the issues being discussed at Acto’s first such meeting in 14 years were a possible deal to halt deforestation by 2030 and joint efforts to fight rampant illegal mining and organised crime groups that are tightening their grip on the rainforest region. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, has been pushing for an end to oil and gas exploration in the Amazon, although Brazilian moves to develop an oilfield near the mouth of the Amazon River complicate those efforts.

Petro used his intervention to call for the creation of “an Amazonian Nato” under which regional military would join forces to protect the jungle, about 6% of which lies within Colombia’s borders.

“You defend life with reason – but also with weapons,” he said, also proposing a “Marshall Plan” to pump resources into Amazon protection and a specialised Amazonian court to punish crimes against the biome.

Dina Boluarte, the president of Peru, home to about 11% of the Amazon, also urged action to preserve a rainforest that “isn’t just the lungs of the world – it’s the heart of the world”.

“We must act now. There is no time to lose,” said Boluarte, who was making her first trip abroad since Peru was gripped by protests after she took power last December.

After hours of talks, a joint Acto communique, called the Belém Declaration, was published, calling for increased police and intelligence collaboration to fight illegal activities and environmental crime as well as human rights violations against Indigenous people and activists. It said a law enforcement centre would be opened in the Brazilian city of Manaus to promote cooperation among regional police forces.

The 113-point text also urged greater efforts to slash deforestation and promote sustainable development in the region. However, the document fell short of many expectations for failing to include a common goal of zero deforestation by 2030.

Marcio Astrini, the executive secretary of the Climate Observatory group, said he had mixed feelings about a declaration that was weaker than many environmentalists had hoped for.

“It’s a first step. It was important for [these leaders] to come together but there isn’t much concrete in there. It’s a list of very generic promises. It was lacking something more forceful,” Astrini said.

“We’re living in a world which is melting. We are breaking temperature records all the time. How can it be that in a 22-page declaration the presidents of eight Amazon countries can’t clearly state that deforestation needs to stop?”