Anti-slavery

No later than the Wilsonian propaganda campaign to bring ordinary US citizens and the world to support US intervention in World War I, did the inhabitants—at least the “white” ones—become convinced that not only was their nation the new Eden but that merely by virtue of being an American one was loved and/or envied throughout the world. It is crucial to mention this ideological transformation because until 1917, when the US entered the war on the side of the British elite, most inhabitants of the US could be seen as despised.

It appears that 2015 is not going to be kind for McDonald’s. Consumers are rushing towards the exits away from GMO filled menus and shocking ingredients to reclaim their health.

I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color.
– Assata Shakur

Last night, in Beijing, I sat in a historic Szechuan restaurant with a friend who happens to be a Chinese diplomat. We exchanged some stories, ordered food, and then, suddenly, my throat felt dry and my eyes got misty.
I bowed and thanked her for the heartfelt offer China made to rescue Russia.
Just before leaving my hotel, I read the news on the RT:
“China’s foreign minister has pledged support to Russia as it faces an economic downturn due to sanctions and a drop in oil prices. Boosting trade in Yuan is a solution proposed by Beijing’s commerce minister.

Former heavyweight boxing champion Mohammed Ali (born Cassius M. Clay) is probably the most famous draft resister in US history. When refusing to accept the draft in 1967, during the American war against Vietnam he told the Press:

…or so said The Phantom of /dev/null before he hit the road. Didn’t say where he was going. Just mumbled something about not being able to obtain a Visa. Something about his Birth Certificate having been invalidated by his Death Certificate or some such bureaucratic nonsense.
/dev/null is in the process of being gentrified. Everyone split. No one around but Raghead (wisely posting from an ‘undisclosed location;’ then again, he’s a professional…).

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
– Langston Hughes, “Let America Be America Again,” written in 1935

Peter Linebaugh is an American Marxist historian who specializes in British history, Irish history, labor history, and the history of the colonial Atlantic: The rights and freedoms that we celebrate on the Fourth of July are the product of vast human struggle that remains unfinished

The survivors of a South American tribe which was decimated during the 1950s and 60s are taking Paraguay’s government to court over the genocide they suffered.
The case of the hunter-gatherer Aché tribe, who roamed the hilly forests of eastern Paraguay until being brutally forced out, became notorious in the 1970s.

Internationally ignored, life in Eritrea is brutal and shrouded in secrecy. The world is indifferent. The regime trusts nobody – even the UN’s special rapporteur on Eritrea, Sheila Keetharuth, has been denied a visa.