Jeff calls the politicians, developers, and non-profit agencies that flourish in this racket "poverty pimps," because homeless people are a commodity - something you use to make money. He says the LA Police Department is also in on the scam. They have a $2-billion budget that would go away if the crime rate dropped.
The U.S. air war in Japan was one of the most ruthless and barbaric killings of non-combatants in all history.
— General Bonner Fellers, MacArthur’s Intelligence Chief, from Cultures Of War: Pearl Harbour/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq by John W. Dower, 2011, pp. 195-96.
There are stories that are unrelated to the news, but can explain much better than many combat reports, why people like me are fighting against the Empire and imperialism, with such determination and vehemence. Not all stories are ‘big’ or ‘heroic’; not all include famous people or iconic struggles. Not all take place on battlefields.
But they ‘humanize’ the struggle.
Once in a while, I like to share such stories with my readers. As I will do right now.
Because without them, frankly, nothing really makes sense.
*****
I felt shaky and uneasy all day, preparing for this talk.
— Jehad Abusalim, a Palestinian from the territory of Gaza
Amina Mohammed, right, the deputy secretary-general of the UN, signed a partnership agreement with the World Economic Forum, led by Borge Brende, left, to speed up progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. António Guterres, the UN secretary-general (behind Mohammed) and Klaus Schwab, the Forum’s chief executive, joined the ceremony in June.
Following the drowning deaths of a man and his young daughter who were trying to enter Texas illegally, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele declared, "It's our fault." President Bukele pointed out that the dead man and his family fled El Salvador due to poor living conditions and violence in his country.
The central argument of Amusing Ourselves [Neil Postman] is simple: there were two landmark dystopian novels written by brilliant British cultural critics – Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell – and we Americans had mistakenly feared and obsessed over the vision portrayed in the latter book (an information-censoring, movement-restricting, individuality-emaciating state) rather than the former (a technology-se
At the front of a protest against Haiti’s president last week a demonstrator carried a large wooden cross bearing the flags of Canada, France and the US. The Haiti Information Project tweeted that protesters “see these three nations as propping up the regime of President Jovenel Moïse. It is also recognition of their role in the 2004 coup.”
Trump’s 2020 budget proposal reflects another significant increase in military spending along with corresponding cuts in spending by Federal agencies tasked with the responsibility for providing critical services and income support policies for working class and poor people. Trump’s call for budget cuts by Federal agencies is mirrored by the statutorily imposed austerity policies in most states and many municipalities. Those cuts represent the continuing imposition of neoliberal policies in the U.S.
The property rights of Catherine, a widow, have been threatened with violence in Magu, Tanzania. For widows across the globe, their losses can be uncountable, including their human rights. BEN SMALL/HELPAGE INTERNATIONAL
For many women around the world, the death of a spouse is magnified by many losses — of their social status, marital home, land, property, social security, dignity and, sometimes, their children. But men, on the other hand, lose none of their human rights while usually gaining support in starting a new chapter in his life.
