Debating the IHRA and Anti-Semitism: Why the CIJA Lost

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Published on Monday, 27 July 2020 02:34

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2155 ... July 27, 2020
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Debating the IHRA and Anti-Semitism: Why the CIJA Lost

Michelle Weinroth

For more than five years, and on numerous occasions, the Jewish anti-racist social justice organization Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV) invited the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) -- Canada’s pro-Israel advocacy group -- to a public debate. But the latter rebuffed each of IJV’s overtures. In recoiling consistently before the prospect of a confrontation with IJV, CIJA must have feared that in accepting to take up the challenge, its pro-Israel apologetics might be undermined. To engage directly with IJV would have meant yielding discursive space to dissenting Jewish voices, and opening itself up to some less-than-flattering public exposure. At worst, CIJA’s talking points would be revealed for what they are: i.e., well-rehearsed fictions or nursery tales, refurbished for adult ears. At best, they would not persuade.

Israel’s longstanding occupation of Palestine, its merciless blockade of the Gaza strip, and not least its brutal Operation Protective Edge (2014) that slaughtered 100 Gazans per day over 4 weeks, had caused a shift in...

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Capitalism is the Parasite; Capitalism is the Virus

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Published on Saturday, 25 July 2020 23:52

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2154 ... July 26, 2020
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Capitalism is the Parasite; Capitalism is the Virus

Matthew Flisfeder

With hindsight, a few years from now, it may well appear to us that the year 2020, the beginning of the third decade of the twenty-first century, marked the dawn of a new parasitic age. We can tell this much even by looking at one of the year’s most popular films. Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite (2019) tells the story of the poor Kim family living in a basement apartment of a decrepit house (a banjiha) in a Seoul ghetto. Both parents, Ki-taek and Chung-sook, as well as their young adult children, Ki-woo and Ki-jung, are all precarious gig workers. They scramble together to make ends meet, taking on every and any odd job they can find.

The apartment sits mostly below ground, but a window pane in the kitchen breaches the surface somewhat, giving them a ground level perspective of the outside world. The space, in this way, is an apt metaphor for the subordination (sub-ordination) of the poor, festering below the surface of...

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The Weeknds Manager Raised Over $100K in 1 Day to Figh

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Published on Friday, 24 July 2020 04:46

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r1 Plus, check out the shark-like robot that pics up trash, and more.

READ

The Weeknd’s Manager Raised Over $100K in 1 Day to Fight Hunger in Lebanon

...

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Nuclear Weapons and Extreme Threats

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Published on Friday, 24 July 2020 02:48

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2153 ... July 24, 2020
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Nuclear Weapons and Extreme Threats:
A Tale of Two Men Handling Emergency

Judith Deutsch

One man reacted to emergency and the other one didn’t. The two men are Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988), the highly revered Nobel Prize laureate nuclear physicist, and 22-year old David Livingston, Senior Airman and missile repairman who was killed in the Titan II nuclear missile accident in Damascus, Arkansas, in 1980. The purpose of focusing on these two men is not to describe "human nature" or masculinity or to diagnose psycho-pathology. It is to look at a case of nuclearism, at what went wrong, what could have been different, and what in these men’s characters interfaced with society. To draw this distinction, the sources for this article are Feynman’s talk and transcript about his work on the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project, and Eric Schlosser’s book Command and Control: Nuclear weapons, the Damascus accident, and the illusions of safety.

We face today at least four emergencies (each intertwined with the logics of capitalism but also having...

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A victory in the fight to ban street checks

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Published on Thursday, 23 July 2020 15:06

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Ban Street Checks r1

Sign our petition!

Dear BCCLA Supporter,

Yesterday, we had a small but significant victory in the fight to end police harm. The Vancouver City Council unanimously voted in favour of banning police street checks in the city! This comes one week after a similar motion passed in Victoria.

But the fight is not over.

All 11 municipal police boards in BC, the provincial Director of Police Services, and the BC government have the jurisdiction to immediately ban the practice of street checks across their respective cities and the province.

Will you sign the petition to ban police street checks?

"You are stopped at random and you are asked a bunch of questions. At that moment, you don't know if you are detained and the presence of police in uniform with a gun is threatening. How long are we going to say, 'stop harassing us.'"

This is how Lama Mugabo, Director of Hogan's Alley Society, speaks of the harassment and danger that Black, Indigenous, and homeless people...

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A hazardous data gap

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Published on Thursday, 23 July 2020 14:38

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A hazardous data gap r1 In the year 2020, when online retailers trace millions of packages simultaneously, B.C. uses physical papers to track the movement of hazardous waste. ...

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What our Indigenous friends had to say about reconciliation

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Published on Thursday, 23 July 2020 06:42

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r1

Download this newsletter in PDF.

Sheryl Lightfoot, University of British Columbia’s Senior Advisor to the President on Indigenous Affairs and the Canada Research Chair of Global Indigenous Rights and Politics. speaks about what reconciliation means to her.

New series of 1-2 minute videos shares Indigenous voices on reconciliation

Many settlers wish they could ask Indigenous people questions about reconciliation without appearing foolish or rude. Canadian Friends Service Committee knows...

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Pandemic Worsens, Resistance Will Follow

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Published on Thursday, 23 July 2020 04:46

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2152 ... July 23, 2020
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Pandemic Worsens, Resistance Will Follow

John Clarke

Two recent developments in the US seem to capture just how the destructive profit-driven irrationality of capitalism renders it incapable of effectively containing the present global pandemic. On July 10, the US recorded a staggering 70,000 new coronavirus cases in a single day, and Florida saw 11,433 cases, with 435 more people hospitalized. The next day, the reopening of "The Most Magical Place on Earth," Disney World, began in that state. Admission tickets for the four theme parks are already sold out for the month of July. Meanwhile, across the country in Los Angeles, it is reported that the factories used to produce face masks for front-line workers, under the ‘LAProtects’ initiative, have become a major source of coronavirus infection. The low wage sweatshop conditions that the mainly migrant workforce have to endure have proven deadly. Three factories have been closed after three hundred contracted COVID-19 and four died.

Rob Wallace has pointed out that ‘pandemics are mirrors.’ This one has been generated by capitalist conditions of...

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On notice

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Published on Wednesday, 22 July 2020 05:30

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r1

G20 Highlights, and a goodbye

Activists in Cape Town demand a Just Recovery from world governments and central banks.

Paov,

I’m so excited to share these beautiful action images with you from around the world.

Late last week, from Bangladesh to Brazil, Germany to the Philippines, people protested, projected, and spoke truth to power, urging the world’s most powerful economic leaders to fund a Just Recovery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our calls for justice also dominated the conversation online around the G20 meeting of finance ministers and Central Bank governors. They’ve definitely heard us – and they know we won’t stand for the usual fossil fuel bailouts, tax cuts for the rich, and debt-burdens for poor countries that only make the climate crisis worse.

No big announcements came out of the meeting – it wasn’t a formal decision-making space – but this was only the beginning. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll keep up the pressure on the people...

Read more: On notice

Scientists outraged over Trump

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Published on Wednesday, 22 July 2020 04:42

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A,

Trump and his cronies just approved glyphosate for another 15 years -- despite clear-cut evidence that it causes cancer.

But with your help, we can fight back. We’ve teamed up with a brave group of activists to take Trump and his administration to court.

Can you chip in to sue Trump and get glyphosate banned in the US?

If you’ve saved your payment information with SumOfUs, your donation will go through immediately:

Donate CA$95 nowDonate another amount

Thank you for everything that you do,
Angus and the team at SumOfUs

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URGENT: Trump’s buddies just authorised toxic glyphosate for another 15 years.

We’re joining a group of activists to sue Trump’s environment department in court -- and make a last-ditch effort to stop glyphosate. But we need your help to pull it off.

Can you chip in CA$95 to stop toxic glyphosate?

If you’ve saved your payment information with SumOfUs,...

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Laos Has Tackled COVID-19, But It Is Drowning in Debt to International Finance

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Published on Wednesday, 22 July 2020 03:10

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2151 ... July 22, 2020
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Laos Has Tackled COVID-19, But It Is Drowning in Debt to International Finance

Vijay Prashad

On June 11, Laos (Lao People’s Democratic Republic) -- a country of 7 million in Southeast Asia -- said it had temporarily prevailed over COVID-19. Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith said that his country had "gained an important victory in the first campaign against this vicious enemy." The first cases of COVID-19 detected in Laos were registered on March 24; a total of 19 people had been infected with the virus by April 12, and -- after 58 days of no new cases -- the last patient was discharged on June 9. There were no new cases of COVID-19 in Laos since April 12 (93 days of no new cases as of July 14). There have been no deaths from COVID-19 in Laos.

Laos is a landlocked country, surrounded by the People’s Republic of China, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia. It shares a 423-kilometer border with China, across which traders and tourists routinely travel. Nonetheless, Laos...

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Crunch Time for the Platform Management Model

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Published on Tuesday, 21 July 2020 02:14

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2150 ... July 21, 2020
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Crunch Time for the Platform Management Model

Ursula Huws

In what may come to be viewed as a historic court case, a group of UK Uber drivers from London, Birmingham, Nottingham and Glasgow have launched a legal action against Uber in the Netherlands, supported by the App Drivers and Couriers Union (ADCU), the International Alliance of App-based Transport Workers (IAATW) and Worker Info Exchange. The complaint against Uber, which is headquartered in Amsterdam, centres on its failure to provide access to data on drivers or explain its algorithmic management practices as required by the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Meanwhile, two other members of the ADCU, Yaseen Aslam and James Farrer, will be appearing in the Supreme Court in London on July 21st to defend themselves against Uber’s challenge against earlier landmark rulings that when they were working for Uber they should have been treated as workers rather than independent contractors, and should therefore have been entitled to paid holidays and the minimum wage.

The coincidence of these two cases exposes very...

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Good news in the fight to ban street checks

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Published on Monday, 20 July 2020 11:26

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Ban Street Checks r1

Sign our petition!

Dear BCCLA Supporter,

Sometimes it can feel like change is hard to achieve. It’s easy to feel discouraged, especially in a time of social distancing. If you’ve ever doubted the impact of collective action, I’m here to share some hopeful news.

The pressure is working! Last week, Victoria City Council voted for a motion calling for the Victoria and Esquimalt Police Board and Victoria Police Department to take immediate action to ban police street checks. This came after over 6500 people signed a petition calling for a ban on street checks across BC, and organizations in Victoria mobilized and pressured their City Council for a ban.

A motion calling for a ban on street checks is coming back to Vancouver City Council on Tuesday July 21, with speakers likely heard the next day. You can watch the meeting online here.

Let’s keep the pressure up. We want to reach 10,000 signatures to demand a Vancouver and province-wide...

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Scientists outraged over Trump

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Published on Monday, 20 July 2020 05:50

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URGENT: Trump’s buddies just authorised toxic glyphosate for another 15 years.

We’re joining a group of activists to sue Trump’s environment department in court -- and make a last-ditch effort to stop glyphosate. But we need your help to pull it off.

Can you chip in CA$95 to sue Trump and stop toxic glyphosate?

Donate CA$95 now

A,

The Trump government just announced that glyphosate will be drenching our food for another 15 years -- until 2035!

Scientists are outraged: The whole approval process was a total joke -- Trump’s environmental agency ignored just about every study that wasn’t paid for by Bayer-Monsanto.

And there's a good reason for that: Trump is really close to Monsanto’s bosses.

The US is one of the biggest exporters of agricultural products -- so that means glyphosate may end up on your plate, wherever you are.

But you can still fight back. If we can get a court to force the Trump administration to look at the real...

Read more: Scientists outraged over Trump