Alternative News
Articles from non-mainstream as opposed to corporate for profit sources.
This is about vulnerability
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- Published on Thursday, 04 June 2020 11:36
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Introduction to The Communist Movement at a Crossroads
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- Published on Thursday, 04 June 2020 06:52
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2112 ... June 4, 2020
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Introduction to The Communist Movement at a Crossroads
Under the general editorship of John Riddell, the record of the Communist International (Comintern) under Lenin has been retrieved from history and made alive again for our time. The aim of this series of texts, starting in 1983, has been to present the record, documents and debates of the Comintern, in its own words. The series chronicles the development of this dynamic revolutionary undertaking and showing it as a vibrant and living movement embracing millions around the world.
Posted here is the introduction to The Communist Movement at a Crossroads: Plenums of the Communist International’s Executive Committee, 1922-1923. Edited by Mike Taber and translated by John Riddell, the book is published by the Historical Materialism Book Series, and is available from Haymarket Books. This latest volume is noteworthy in showing the Comintern taking up several questions of contemporary relevancy, among them the united front and fascism. For this reason, the book will be of special interest both to those studying the history of the world Communist movement...
Read more: Introduction to The Communist Movement at a Crossroads
Black lives matter, everywhere.
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- Published on Wednesday, 03 June 2020 22:38
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Photo: Movement for Black Lives
No justice, no peace: Dozens of cities across the United States have seen historic protests over the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of police in Minneapolis. It’s sparked a crucial global moment, with solidarity protests planned in cities across the world this weekend. Organisers are urging attendees to take precautions against coronavirus.
350.org is in solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives and struggles for racial justice across the world. There is no just recovery for people and the climate, without addressing the systemic extraction, harm and violence towards Black communities. In order to tackle the climate crisis fairly, we’ve got to address the systemic racism that fuels it. See our statement here and check out these resources on what we must do to dismantle white supremacy. Consider supporting the Black-led organisations and bail out funds we’ve recommended.
Read more: Black lives matter, everywhere.
Standing Up for Racial Justice
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- Published on Wednesday, 03 June 2020 11:50
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Photo credit: Ashley Landis/AP
...The Murder of George Floyd Is Normal in an Abnormal Society
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- Published on Wednesday, 03 June 2020 00:10
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2111 ... June 3, 2020
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The Murder of George Floyd Is Normal in an Abnormal Society
Vijay Prashad
There is no need to wonder why George Floyd (age 46) was murdered in broad daylight in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25, 2020. The script of his death is written deep in the ugly drama of US history.
I Can’t Breathe 2020
Officer Derek Chauvin’s knee sat on George Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. After that time, George Floyd was dead. From the moment Chauvin put his body on an unarmed man, George Floyd said -- eleven times -- I can’t breathe.
Scientists who study human respiration say that untrained people can hold their breath from between thirty seconds and two minutes; anything more than that results in a process that leads eventually to death.
I Can’t Breathe 2014
Officer Daniel Pantaleo slammed Eric Garner onto the New York City sidewalk just minutes after Garner had helped resolve a dispute on the street. Pantaleo pushed Garner’s face onto the pavement, and Garner said -- eleven times -- I...
Read more: The Murder of George Floyd Is Normal in an Abnormal Society
Black Lives Matter
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- Published on Tuesday, 02 June 2020 16:18
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Friends,
In the midst of a pandemic and climate crisis, people across North America are rising up to confront racist police violence and white supremacy. We share the grief and outrage over the murders of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor.
Today, and every day, we must fight the systemic violence towards Black and Indigenous communities, who are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, the climate crisis, and white supremacy. We must also acknowledge that the work of addressing white supremacy is critical to building a climate movement rooted in justice.
As a team of predominantly white and non-black people of colour, we are asking ourselves the difficult and important questions of what it means to do anti-black racism work in the climate movement. Here are some immediate steps we have taken, and places to donate in Canada:
- Donate to Justice for Regis Korchinski Paquet Fund
- Support Black Lives Matter Toronto and other organizations that serve Black people in your community
- Listen to Pam Palmater’s Podcast with Desmond Cole on Anti-Black Racism in Canada & US
- Read this critical op-ed by Sandy Hudson on why "Defunding the police will save Black...
The Bank of Canada: In Crisis and Beyond
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- Published on Tuesday, 02 June 2020 03:22
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2110 ... June 2, 2020
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The Bank of Canada: In Crisis and Beyond
Scott Aquanno
Viewing the COVID-19 pandemic as a purely exogenous shock, Canadian economists and policymakers have tended to predict a quick return to economic growth once health restrictions are lifted. As an account of current events, this turns a blind eye to the uneven forms of adjustment produced by years of neoliberal cutbacks and how these both make a quick recovery unlikely and impose the burden of loss on care workers, racialized populations, and the working class more generally. Moreover, such framing of events warns of a new age of hyper-austerity when the health crisis abates, as governments either use debt to justify rollbacks or passively embrace financial discipline. The further erosion of public planning and investment this would entail makes avoiding another lost decade and addressing the environmental crisis ever more difficult to imagine. And yet, while many progressive commentators have called out these contradictions, not enough has been done to rethink the operation of key neoliberal institutions and put forward practical reforms that ultimately challenge...
The Far Right, Racism, and the Universities
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- Published on Monday, 01 June 2020 01:38
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2109 ... June 1, 2020
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The Far Right, Racism, and the Universities:
Memories of Western, Kenneth Hilborn, and the Politics of Opposition
Bryan Palmer
Marx wrote presciently in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) that "The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living." Our current period is truly one of many bad dreams.
Slavery’s horrors and state policies of ‘Indian’ subjugation have universities apologizing for their 18th-and-19th century complicity in the transatlantic trade in human flesh and an historical association dropping the name of a Prime Minister from its annual book prize in response to research uncovering genocidal practices. Statues commemorating ‘great white men’ of the past have been removed from places of prominence, their eminence now tarnished by revelations of bad acts that were once regarded in ruling circles as paving stones on the roadway to progress. Apologies abound; reconciliations are promised; reparations even spoken of from the podiums of would-be candidates for the highest of bourgeois political office.
The COVID 19-cancelled 99th-annual meeting of the Canadian...
Pangolins
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- Published on Sunday, 31 May 2020 05:16
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Wildlife traffickers are using Facebook to sell body parts of the adorable, extinction-threatened pangolin. But Facebook is refusing to take action.
Can you chip in CA$97 to call out executives with ads on their own platform and force them to protect pangolins?
If you’ve saved your payment information with SumOfUs, your donation will go through immediately:
Donate CA$97 nowDonate another amount
A,
The adorable pangolin has been around for 80 million years -- it's survived everything you can imagine. But now poachers are pushing it toward extinction.
And Facebook is helping!
Investigators just discovered that a simple multi-language search on Facebook turns up listing after listing for pangolin parts. It's against Facebook's rules but it isn't doing anything about it.
So let's make this a massive headache until they do. We already have...
Green Jobs Oshawa Virtual Press Conference
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- Published on Sunday, 31 May 2020 02:56
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LeftStreamed:
Green Jobs Oshawa Virtual Press Conference
Green Jobs Oshawa held an online Press Conference and Public Forum to highlight the desperate need for more PPE for our front line workers, especially N95 masks. We are calling on our governments to use their emergency powers to ramp up domestic production, starting with the obvious location of GM’s largely empty Oshawa facility.
Hosted by James Hutt (The Leap). Moderated by Tony Leah, autoworker and Green Jobs Oshawa organizer. Speakers:
- Pam Parks – front line health worker.
- Rebecca Keetch – Green Jobs Oshawa organizer.
- Michael Hurley – President of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE).
- Jennifer French – MPP for Oshawa.
- Canada has a shortage of over 100 million N95 masks;
- Lack of N95 masks has led to Canada having one of the worst rates of infection by healthcare workers in the world;
- GM will be employing 50-60 workers to produce surgical masks in a portion of the Oshawa Assembly complex, but not N95 masks;
- GM will be using only 30,000 square feet of the 10 million square foot Oshawa complex for masks....
COVID-19 and the Crisis in Long-Term Care in Ontario
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- Published on Saturday, 30 May 2020 04:50
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2108 ... May 30, 2020
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COVID-19 and the Crisis in Long-Term Care in Ontario
Ontario Health Coalition
The Ontario Health Coalition sent an open letter to Ontario Premier Doug Ford signed by family councils, health professionals, social organizations, cultural organizations, seniors’ and retirees’ groups, health coalitions, legal clinics, and many others who collectively represent more than 1.5 million Ontarians. Almost unbelievably, the Ford government is rushing through their new home and community care law through the provincial legislature, Bill 175 Connecting People to Home and Community Care Act 2020, during the pandemic, after being hustled through first and second readings in early March. A Ontario Health Coalition Briefing Note on the Bill, Ford Government’s Home Care Changes Dismantle Public Control, Risks Privatization, follows the Open Letter.
Dear Premier Ford,
While we are pleased that your government has committed to independence, non-partisanship and transparency with regards to the commission into long-term care and COVID-19, we are seeking some assurances regarding both this commission and the immediate measures needed that cannot wait for a commission. In addition, we believe that it is...
Read more: COVID-19 and the Crisis in Long-Term Care in Ontario
PBI at #NoWar2020 virtual conference
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- Published on Wednesday, 18 November 2020 13:22
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Take action for a Just Recovery
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- Published on Friday, 29 May 2020 09:50
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Paov,
People we know and care about are hurting because of decades of climate inaction, mass austerity and the COVID-19 crisis. Meanwhile, corporate elites continue to rake in millions of dollars off the COVID-19 crisis, and right wing interests think it’s a “great time” to ram through dirty fossil fuel projects that never had consent from communities to begin with.1
I feel the fear and anger in the face of these converging crises that so many of us are experiencing. That’s why I am hosting a Just Recovery teach-in for my community in the Ottawa Valley to channel that fear and anger into powerful action.
Over the next few weeks, there are over 30 teach-ins planned from coast to coast to start organizing to win a Just Recovery. Check out the map to find a digital teach-in with people near you and take action.
Don’t see a teach-in near you? It isn’t too late to raise your hand to host a community teach-in for a Just Recovery. Click here to get started. We’ll support you every step of...
11 Questions From Global Citizens About Beating COVID-19
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- Published on Friday, 29 May 2020 06:14
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READ
11 Questions From Global Citizens About Beating COVID-19
...Read more: 11 Questions From Global Citizens About Beating COVID-19
Palestinians Demand Sanctions on Israel to Stop Illegal Annexation
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- Published on Friday, 29 May 2020 05:10
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2107 ... May 29, 2020
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Palestinians Demand Sanctions on Israel to Stop Illegal Annexation
In a statement launched May 21st, tens of Palestinian civil society organizations, professional associations, unions, human rights and advocacy groups, and networks, representing an overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society, called on governments to adopt "effective countermeasures, including sanctions" to "stop Israel’s illegal annexation of the Occupied West Bank and grave violations of human rights."
Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Effective Measures by all States to Stop Israel’s Illegal Annexation of the Occupied West Bank and Grave Violations of Human Rights
- Ban arms trade and military-security cooperation with Israel.
- Suspend free-trade agreements with Israel.
- Prohibit all trade with the illegal Israeli settlements and ensure that companies refrain from/terminate business with Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.
- Ensure that individuals and corporate actors responsible for war crimes/crimes against humanity in the context of Israel’s regime of illegal occupation and apartheid are brought to justice.
Israel’s new right-wing government is once more set to formally annex large swathes of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). This de jure annexation would culminate years of gradual...
Read more: Palestinians Demand Sanctions on Israel to Stop Illegal Annexation
Trump's latest tantrum
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- Published on Friday, 29 May 2020 01:40
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Twitter just flagged 3 of Donald Trump's tweets. Now he's threatening to shut Twitter down! Twitter shouldn't come under attack for flagging lies that threaten our elections or could cause serious harm to people -- let's stand with Twitter against Trump, and when 100,000 join we'll organize a massive stunt on Capitol Hill.
A,
It finally happened.
After lying constantly on Twitter for years, Donald Trump finally crossed the company's line -- it just flagged 2 of his tweets for misinformation about voting, and another for glorifying violence!
Now Trump's having a tantrum and threatening to shut Twitter down.
Twitter doesn't always get it right, but it shouldn't come under attack for flagging content that could mess with elections or cause serious harm to people. So let's stand with Twitter against Trump -- when 100,000 people join, we'll organize a massive stunt on Capitol Hill with our message:
Shakira, Lady Gaga, Chris Rock, Coldplay, Miley Cyrus, and More Join 'Global Goal: Unite for Our Future' Campaign
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- Published on Thursday, 28 May 2020 14:32
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Global Goal Unite for Our Future
International Artists Join 'Global Goal: Unite for Our Future' Campaign
Read more: Shakira, Lady Gaga, Chris Rock, Coldplay, Miley Cyrus, and More Join 'Global Goal: Unite for Our...Justice, not torture
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- Published on Thursday, 28 May 2020 10:30
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Dear BCCLA supporter,
We have big news to share. Today, we’re announcing the end of our cross-appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada in our ground-breaking solitary confinement case.
We’ve been challenging the use of solitary confinement in federal prisons for years. As you may know, on June 24, 2019, we won a historic court ruling at the BC Court of Appeal that found the laws authorizing prolonged, indefinite solitary confinement in Canada’s federal prisons violate the Charter. Last month, the government abandoned their fight to overturn this important court decision.
This development will help ensure that our BC Court of Appeal ruling stands, and end any uncertainty about the unconstitutionality of Canada’s solitary confinement regime.
Read the full press release hereOur case...
Join Us as We Unite for Our Future
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- Published on Thursday, 28 May 2020 08:12
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Global Goal
Take Action and Unite for Our Future
Read more: Join Us as We Unite for Our FutureMore Articles...
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- Join a teach-in for a Just Recovery
- COVID Life and the Asset Economy
- Novel Virus, Old Story: Government Failings Put Healthcare Workers at Risk
- Stop Canadian pension $ from purchasing the Coastal Gaslink!
- This is how we build back better
- Bethunes Socialized Medicine and the Public Health Crisis Today
- A New Lucas Plan for Post-Pandemic Socially Useful Jobs?
- Palm oil victory: YOU did it!
