Progressive Politics

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says Amazonia suffering its worst drought in more than 40 years

Students are one of the biggest contributors to rising economic inactivity, with deteriorating mental health a key factor

China has endured a summer of extreme weather and heat waves across much of its north and west.

"White supremacist and antidemocratic movements have always used the claim that so-called Black savages are coming to destroy, especially when political power is up for grabs," said one critic. "This is no different."

The Green Party of England and Wales has voted to recognise Israel's actions in Gaza as a genocide, becoming the first major British political party to do so.

Having made Gaza a prominent plank of its campaign in several areas during the July general election, the party won an unprecedented four seats in parliament.

The motion, which was passed at the party's annual conference on Sunday afternoon, branded Israel's assault on Gaza a "genocide" - and declared support for the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement

On stage last night during the presidential debate, as the war on Gaza grinds on, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump battled over who had the most pro-Israel and anti-Iran credentials. After a brief moment of hope that Harris might offer something different to American voters, this seemed to confirm a grim status quo: No matter who is elected president, the U.S. will remain deeply invested in structures of violence and repression across the Middle East.

On Israel, Harris spent time during the debate stating her commitment to helping Israel “defend itself,” which is Harris-speak for a continued blank check of U.S. military support for Israel. This oft-repeated Harris position, now enshrined on her campaign website, undermines the hope that many Democratic voters might have had for a future Harris administration that would prioritize an end to Israel’s war in Gaza

TheConversation.com

Lcsupply.com

On Sept. 11, 1973, the elected Socialist government of Salvador Allende of Chile was toppled in a right-wing military coup led by future dictator Augusto Pinochet and supported by the CIA

A far-right demo was far surpassed by the mobilisation of anti-racists and Palestine solidarity activists, but more can be done to capitalise on this, report James Black and Ross Maidment

"You don't have to agree with the tactics of climate activists to understand the importance of defending their rights to protest and to free speech."

We’re all doomed, says freshwater ecologist Dr Mike Joy

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20218492

UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, has survived 75 years of Israeli-Palestinian strife. Can it survive the latest conflict?

By Ben Hubbard

For this article, Ben Hubbard conducted more than three dozen interviews and visited refugee camps in the West Bank. He has spent more than a decade covering the Middle East, and reported from inside Gaza for The Times during the Hamas-Israel war in 2014.

Sept. 12, 2024

Black Liberation Media

Counterpunch.org

Brown will become the first Ivy League university to hold a vote on divestment since the war on Gaza began

When the student encampment in support of Gaza was dismantled at Brown University in Rhode Island back in April, it was incumbent upon one request from protesters: that the university hold a vote to divest from companies engaged in Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians.

That rare vote is scheduled to take place next month, and with the anniversary of the 7 October attacks approaching, pro-Israel voices on campus are now stepping up pressure on the Corporation of Brown University - its board and leadership - to avoid the vote entirely.

On Monday, a group of students made up of members of Brown Students for Israel, among others, are making the case in front of the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management (ACURM) that a vote on divestment is “functionally antisemitic” and that “there is no genocide in Gaza”, according to a memo that has not yet been released to the public.

Middle East Eye has examined the 39-page document drawn up by the students, entitled ‘The Case Against Divestment’. It insists that “investment in military equipment producers keeps Israelis… safe.”

Harris’ statement gives us a very clear window into just how little she and her boss care about the death of an American citizen at Israel’s hands.

“The killing of Aysenur Eygi is a horrific tragedy that never should have happened…Aysenur was peacefully protesting in the West Bank—standing up against the expansion of settlements—when her young life was senselessly cut short. No one should be killed for participating in a peaceful protest. The shooting that led to her death is unacceptable and raises legitimate questions about the conduct of IDF personnel in the West Bank. Israel must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again.”

Harris then stated that she accepted Israel’s version of the incident, saying, “Israel’s preliminary investigation indicated it was the result of a tragic error for which the IDF is responsible. We will continue to press the government of Israel for answers and for continued access to the findings of the investigation so we can have confidence in the results. There must be full accountability.”

Both Biden and Harris affirmed Israel’s absurd story that a trained sniper accidentally fired a shot that ricocheted off a rock and managed to hit Aysenur with a kill shot to the head that ended her life in minutes. It is a cartoonish narrative of a magic bullet that wouldn’t be remotely credible in a movie script.

Jonas Ceika - CCK Philosophy

The Democratic and Green party candidates each command close to a third of the Muslim-American vote

On the presidential debate stage Tuesday, former President Donald Trump spewed reliably racist and lie-riddled diatribes about towns being taken over by “millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, for her part, didn’t bother to counter the sentiment, the central ideological violence at the heart of Trump’s message. Harris, albeit in the predictably moderated tones of a Democratic border authoritarian, upheld the right-wing lie that immigration — the migration of poor people, that is — should be stopped.

Both candidates purported to offer diametrically opposed visions for the country’s future. When it came to immigration and the U.S. border, however, only one narrative was available throughout the night: Immigration is a social ill, if not a criminal endeavor, to be deterred as much as possible.

AG: Did you even consider disbanding and supporting Harris?

HAS: In July, immediately after President Biden dropped out of the race, we reappeared in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC demanding that Vice President Harris speak to us, meet with us. We extended our hand, asking what her policy on Gaza was. What was her policy on the genocide? We wanted to know exactly what was in her mind, since she had worked actively with the president since the genocide began. We wanted to hear from her mouth, in front of us, what she would do if she became the president on January 20.

The media took our message, our demands for a permanent, unconditional ceasefire and a full arms embargo, and we were met with complete rejection, no comment, no meeting. That's what led up to our decision that we had no choice but to do what we began in October, that we would denounce the party's position on genocide and begin a campaign against her, as we did on August 19, 2024, outside of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

AG: So you're looking to win a moral victory by helping to cost the Democrats the election?

HAS: Yes, our strategy is to punish the president and the vice president now running at the top of the ticket for the genocide. It should be known in history that people of conscience came out and ensured her defeat. We want to send an undeniable signal to the political class that they can never engage in genocide and win.

We're counting on the people of this country to respond to this moment, this moral urgency, that a genocide is happening, that we are investing billions of dollars in the destruction of an innocent people on the verge of destruction.