Alternative News
Articles from non-mainstream as opposed to corporate for profit sources.
British Protesters Condemn Racism by Tearing Down a Statue of a Slave Trader
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- Published on Friday, 12 June 2020 04:38
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British Protesters Condemn Racism by Tearing Down a Statue of a Slave Trader
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Breaking Point in Long-Term Care in Ontario
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- Published on Friday, 12 June 2020 02:42
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2121 ... June 12, 2020
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Breaking Point in Long-Term Care in Ontario:
Violence, the Pandemic, and Healthcare Workers
The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged Ontario’s long-term-care homes. The majority of the province’s pandemic deaths have occurred in these institutions, where conditions became so dire the province was forced to call on the Canadian Armed Forces for desperately needed help. Those soldiers, in turn, observed conditions so appalling that a report was transmitted back to National Defence headquarters in Ottawa -- a report so bleak that Premier Doug Ford has said reading it was the hardest moment of his time in office. The provincial government has pledged an independent commission to look into the LTC system; the provincial ombudsman has begun its own investigation. But Ontario’s LTC system has been extensively studied for years. The problems that made the pandemic so devastating had not been unknown. This week, TVO.org will catalogue just a few of the reports, papers, and other warnings regarding the state of our LTC system that were issued before the pandemic -- and that we could have acted on. Today:...
Lets Make a Belieber Out of Justin Trudeau
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- Published on Thursday, 11 June 2020 15:16
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This is Huge — Justin Bieber Just Asked PM Trudeau to Save Millions of Lives!
...The elephant in the room
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- Published on Thursday, 11 June 2020 15:02
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Doing the work
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- Published on Thursday, 11 June 2020 14:14
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A,
Canada, and the whole world, is at a moment of reckoning that I, honestly, didn’t think was possible in my lifetime.
In the midst of a pandemic that kills Black and Brown people at twice the rate of white people, and the police murders in the US that coincided with the recent deaths of Chantel Moore and Regis Korchinski-Paquet and sparked the memories of countless other deaths of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour here in Canada whose stories have never been told -- we have seen, in stark reality, the inequitable system affecting all aspects of our lives.
As a white woman and brand new Executive Director for our community, I have been spending the past week doing some hard work: my own reckoning with the ways I have failed to be a co-conspirator with anti-racist movements; an organizational reckoning with a fierce and courageous team to identify and change the racism of our internal practices and policies; and a vow to amplify the work that staff of color have been doing for years. This is a moment of recommitment to running campaigns with all of us that are core to our mission -- people over profit -- but also those...
'Open the Economy'? The Pandemic, Costs, Benefits, Capitalism
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- Published on Thursday, 11 June 2020 11:22
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2120 ... June 11, 2020
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‘Open the Economy’? The Pandemic, Costs, Benefits, Capitalism
Harry Glasbeek
It is mid-June 2020. Everywhere there is a push to ‘open the economy’. What is meant, of course, is to bring back, as soon as possible, the profit-seeking activities of capitalist firms. It is an unchallenged assumption that the return of normal capitalism, that is, the ceaseless drive for the private accumulation of socially produced wealth, is crucial to overall welfare. But even as the push seems irresistible, there are murmurings of concern. What if the virus is not as beaten as the policymakers think it is? What if, like Rocky, it makes a stunning comeback? Should we not be more certain ere there is a return to full-blooded capitalist activities? After all, it requires a balancing of lives against economic welfare. Should that be even contemplated?
Weighing lives against the potential to gain material wealth is a norm. Indeed, the legal system repeatedly endorses that kind of balancing. As Richard Posner, a highly regarded legal scholar (now a senior federal US judge) observed:
Don't miss an important conversation tonight
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- Published on Thursday, 11 June 2020 11:04
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Friends,
Right now, people across Canada — and all around the world — are rising up against racism, white supremacy, and police brutality.
Racism and white supremacy are deeply rooted in this country's history, institutions, and culture. If things are going to change, it’s not enough that we’re non-racist — we all need to be actively anti-racist. But many of us don’t know where to begin.
That’s why 350 Canada along with our friends at Leadnow, Sierra Club BC, and Climate Action Network are hosting a teach-in today to come together to learn about the moment we’re in and why anti-racism is crucial to a Just Recovery from COVID-19. Here are the details one last time:
When: TONIGHT, June 11th at 4pm PT / 7pm ET
What: Why a Just Recovery must be anti-racist: Mass online teach-in
Where: Online via Zoom here.
We have already had an overwhelming response so far. We recommend tuning in early to book your seat on Zoom. If you are unable to join by Zoom, we will have an online overflow room you can join...
All Out: Policing, Racism and Our Collective Response
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- Published on Wednesday, 10 June 2020 14:44
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2119 ... June 10, 2020
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All Out: Policing, Racism and Our Collective Response
Socialist Project
The recent murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis is the latest in a series of criminal acts by police departments against black people in the US, and it echoes the similar recent crime against the medical technician Breonna Tayler in Louisville, Kentucky, as well as the racist hate crime against the unarmed jogger Ahmaud Arbery, in Georgia.
This violence against black people is a symptom of the deeper structural racism of capitalism, the state and society in the United States, and in Canada as well. While racialized forms of unequal access to jobs and wage disparities, deprivations in the provision of public housing and healthcare, and environmental pollution are endemic to capitalism, the global COVID-19 pandemic has hit racialized communities the hardest.
Because of this, the Socialist Project declares its unconditional solidarity with the multiracial working class uprising against racist state violence that has erupted up across the US. It is encouraging that, while led by African-American activists, there is growing solidarity and...
Read more: All Out: Policing, Racism and Our Collective Response
Canada — step up on COVID-19
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- Published on Wednesday, 10 June 2020 11:34
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Canada: We Need a Serious Investment to Fight COVID-19
...The City Dispossessed of Its Commons
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- Published on Wednesday, 10 June 2020 03:18
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2118 ... June 10, 2020
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The City Dispossessed of Its Commons
Dimitris Fasfalis
The city as a way of dwelling in the world has not always existed -- quite the contrary. In fact, most of the long history of our species has taken place outside of any urban setting. The global triumph of the city in our time, paradoxically, hides its disappearance as a common space of exchange and relationships inhabited by those who freely, and autonomously, appropriate it. The empty urban landscapes of the current crisis suggest to our gaze, beyond an apocalyptic tone fueled by fear, the expectation of a "return to normal."
Taking these urban landscapes of emptiness as a starting point, it is possible to show that their exceptional character screens the multiple links that they share with the features of urbanization achieved since the middle of the 20th century. These images of stopped cities, of deserted and silent streets, thus form part of a long-term process instead of being exceptions in urban history. To make use of the current crisis as an analytical lens...
Speaking out on systemic racism, Saudi arms deal, and more
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- Published on Tuesday, 09 June 2020 13:48
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Community members take a knee in front of City Hall in Toronto, June, 2020.
Canadian Quakers condemn systemic racism, commit to act
At Canadian Yearly Meeting and Canadian Friends Service Committee we hear the calls in the streets and in the media for an end to racial violence and injustice. This is echoed in communities across Canada. The ongoing wounds of racism are open and laid bare. We demand better from individuals, from our leaders, and from our institutions.
Read more: Speaking out on systemic racism, Saudi arms deal, and more
Police Violence and Liberal Politicians Spending
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- Published on Tuesday, 09 June 2020 03:30
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2117 ... June 9, 2020
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Police Violence and Liberal Politicians’ Spending
Sonali Kolhatkar
Not since the mass protests that originated in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 when a white police officer killed a black man named Michael Brown, has the United States witnessed the current magnitude of the movement against police brutality. The brutal videotaped killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, has pushed Americans to the limit of what they will tolerate from police. Huge multiracial protests have broken out in hundreds of cities demanding an end to racist policing. While many of the problems can be laid at the feet of President Donald Trump, whose administration obliterated the modest Obama-era police reforms and who has delighted in openly encouraging police to be violent, the current status quo of accepting and encouraging racist and murderous policing has been a largely bipartisan project at the federal, state, and local level.
Protests against police brutality have a long history that predates the rallying cry of "Black Lives Matter" becoming a household phrase. Well before Trump was on the...
A Just Recovery must be anti-racist
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- Published on Monday, 08 June 2020 12:12
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Friends,
Last week, as millions of people around the world took to the streets to protest police brutality that continues to claim the lives of Black and Indigenous people, Chantel Moore, a young Indigenous mother, was shot 5 times and killed by police during a wellness check in New Brunswick.
We are outraged over the police-state violence that murdered Chantel, and claimed the lives of Eishia Hudson, Jason Collins, Kevin Andrews, Regis Korchinski-Paquet and D'Andre Campbell in the past few weeks in Canada.
Things need to change, and they need to change now. We know addressing anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism is a Canada problem. But many of us may not know where to start.
That's why we, along with Climate Action Network and Leadnow, are hosting a teach-in this Thursday, June 11th at 4pm PT / 7pm ET to learn about the moment we’re in and hear from Black and Indigenous movement leaders. We will dig deep to unpack why anti-racism is crucial to tackle the climate emergency and build out a Just Recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here are all the details:
What: Why a Just Recovery must...
The Mass Psychopathy of Shamelessness: From Israel to the UN
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- Published on Monday, 08 June 2020 03:02
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2116 ... June 8, 2020
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The Mass Psychopathy of Shamelessness: From Israel to the UN
Judith Deutsch
Why write about sadism and shamelessness now? Because it’s worse, it’s complex and its causes and effects need to be better understood. Its physical and psychological manifestations are day-to-day, uninhibited, and public: daily extra-judicial police killings like George Floyd in Minneapolis, the police killing of 32-year-old Iyad el-Hallak in Jerusalem, Muslims in India.
Historian J. Huizinga 100 years ago wrote about the waning of the middle ages and poetically characterized "the violent tenor of life" at that time. He found that as things fall apart, salient tendencies become more extreme. Our modern age may be an especially awful waning of all human life, with an emergent "sadistic tenor of life" in many quarters across the world. Despite many laws against torture, cruel and unusual punishment, incitements to violence, and abuse of civilians’ and particularly children’s rights, state-sanctioned violence is now practiced with relish and impunity.
Can "genocide" be applied here descriptively or legally? Has the Holocaust and its usages contributed to...
Read more: The Mass Psychopathy of Shamelessness: From Israel to the UN
Ten Days that May Have Changed the World
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- Published on Sunday, 07 June 2020 01:32
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2115 ... June 7, 2020
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Ten Days that May Have Changed the World:
An Internationalist Perspective in Six Parts
Richard Greeman
Sparked by the police murder of George Floyd and fueled by Minneapolis authorities’ reluctance to arrest and charge the murderer’s three police accomplices, mass protests have been sweeping across the US with an intensity not seen since the 1960s. In over 150 cities, African Americans and their allies have flooded the streets, braving the COVID-19 pandemic, braving police violence, challenging centuries of racial and class inequalities, demanding liberty and justice for all, day after day defying a corrupt, racist power structure based on violent repression.
1. Breaches in the System’s Defenses
Today, after ten consecutive days in the streets, this outpouring of popular indignation against systematic, historic injustice has opened a number of breaches in the defensive wall of the system. The legal authorities in the state of Minnesota, where George Floyd was murdered, have been forced to arrest and indict as accomplices the three other policemen who aided and abetted the killer, against whom the charges...
US Abandons Open Skies for New Age Space Weapons
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- Published on Saturday, 06 June 2020 01:16
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2114 ... June 6, 2020
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US Abandons Open Skies for New Age Space Weapons
Prabir Purkayastha
With the US deciding to walk out of the Open Skies agreement, the US is signaling to the world that it intends to return to days of Pax Americana that existed post-World War II, when it was the sole possessor of nuclear weapons. It already walked out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 under George W. Bush, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty under Trump. The only nuclear arms control treaty that still remains in place is the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which provides a rough limit and parity on the US and Russia’s nuclear arsenals. Its days also seem to be numbered, as it expires on February 5, 2021, leaving very little time for any serious discussion.
The Trump administration is now considering a resumption of nuclear tests, which would be in violation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT. Is this yet another treaty destined for the waste paper basket? This is apart from...
20 Organizations Canadians Can Support in the Fight for Racial Equality
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- Published on Friday, 05 June 2020 06:24
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20 Organizations Canadians Can Support in the Fight for Racial Equality
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Public Education Beyond the Pandemic
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- Published on Friday, 05 June 2020 04:00
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2113 ... June 5, 2020
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Public Education Beyond the Pandemic
Dudley Paul
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair." ― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
In The New Yorker recently, writer John Cassidy raised the possibility of some good that might come in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic but worried about the other shoe dropping. On the one hand, he explained, there is the "argument for universal healthcare (in the US), competent government and better treatment for members of the working class -- such as nurses, transit workers, supermarket clerks, and employees at food-processing plants…" Simple things like decent wages and benefits, safe working conditions, planning and adequate healthcare -- all on the radar after decades of attacks and retrenchment.
But Mr....
Mark Your Calendars!
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- Published on Thursday, 04 June 2020 15:16
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