activism

These are dark days. As the COVID-19 crisis turns our world upside-down, the social isolation and atomization of capitalism has given way to full-blown social distancing. At a time when we most need to come together, we’re told that human contact can kill us. Alarm bells are flashing everywhere as the dead pile up, the economy burns, and more and more people’s mental health deteriorates. This is the most severe and far-reaching global crisis that most of us who are alive today have ever experienced. Its a terrifying, alienated, and stressful time. It’s also no time to give up.

The coronavirus pandemic is magnifying the cruelty of US foreign policy. The economic collapse is showing the failure of neoliberalism and how the empire-economy is not working for the people of the world, including the United States.

This year was already off to a fast start, beginning with Ricky Gervais’ scathing social commentary at the Golden Globes, preceded by Greta Thunberg’s UN address and the mysterious death of Jeffrey Epstein not to mention the run up to the 2020 election. But all that seems to have been sidelined by the global pandemic/lockdown which itself has been eclipsed by a global economic recession if not depression, if not collapse, and all this only months before the big election push.

For the past three years, several dozen New Yorkers have gathered each Saturday at Union Square, at 11:00 a.m. to vigil for peace in Yemen.

As people around the world are taking social distancing measures to keep their communities safe Coastal Gas Link and the RCMP continue to bring in workers from all over Canada during a pandemic putting both workers and entire northern communities with limited medical staff at grave risk.
At the same time the the oil and gas industry are mobilizing to get government bailouts as the crash in oil prices has made much of their production unprofitable and made the economics of projects like LNG Canada even more dubious.

These days, local is global.  Dorset is a small rural county on England’s south coast.  That doesn’t mean that its inhabitants aren’t worried about climate change.  They are.  Very.  Unfortunately, Dorset Councillors are more concerned about following government policies, policies that back using public money to invest in climate-damaging projects.  ‘Global’ doesn’t do ‘local’.  Global makes money for corporations and their investors, not the people who have to live with the result.

An anti-Semite used to be a person who disliked Jews. Now it is a person who Jews dislike.
– Hajo Meyer, Jewish German-born Dutch physicist and Auschwitz survivor.
Antisemitism is a trick we always use.
– Shulamit Aloni, Jewish Israeli, former Israeli Minister of Education, longtime member of the Israeli parliament.

Despite a widespread media narrative spreading incorrect information, NO agreements have been made on the Coastal Gas Link Pipeline, and the call for solidarity actions remains firmly in place!

February 22, 2020. The sun was brilliant, the slogans and posters striking, the round dance in the heart of Canada’s financial district, the 6 concentric circles of the real Canadians, those who honour Canada’s First Nations, made February 22, 2020 a historic occasion. The largest show of native solidarity in Canada’s history, the day was celebrated across the country. Here are a few memories courtesy of my cell phone.
And here’s my take on Presstv. I’m on at 3:30.