Alternative News
Articles from non-mainstream as opposed to corporate for profit sources.
Marissa is still in jail, here are her words...
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- Published on Tuesday, 18 February 2020 11:02
- Written by editor
These vital stories will find a global audience and a life could be saved.
Hi PAOV,
Many of you who have helped us raise 60% of the funds we need to bail out Filipino climate activist and human rights defender Marissa Cabaljao. Thank you! We’re grateful that the Philippine National Police released Marissa’s 1-year-old daughter “Malaya” from jail this past week. However, 4 of the 5 human rights defenders are still locked up. It's been 10 days since the government raided their offices in the middle of the night and framed these activists on trumped up charges in order to squash progressive organizing. 17,000+ have signed the petition demanding their release.
Here are the first words we’ve received from Marissa in jail:
"The longer I am locked up here the more my blood boils down to my fighting spirit. The state is denying my baby daughter her Mother’s milk. My plea is the same as all Mothers separated from their children because of the fascist state. POWER TO THE PEOPLE! Thank you for all the moral support and response to Malaya's needs!"
If just some of the people reading this email chip in, Marissa could be reunited with her children tomorrow. We're 60% of the way there. Can you help us get the rest of the way?
Bail has now been
set at ₱120,000 pesos for each person or $3115 CAD / $2350 USD. The majority of families in the Eastern Visayas (where Tacloban is located) live in poverty with an income of ₱57 ($1.13 USD) per day. (1) That means paying off this bail would take the average family in Tacloban more than 5 and a half years. All money raised will go towards bail, which will result in the immediate release of the Tacloban 5. Any additional funds raised will go towards their legal bills going forward.
Campaign for Improved and Democratized Transit in Ottawa
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- Published on Tuesday, 18 February 2020 00:06
- Written by editor
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2001 ... February 18, 2020
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Campaign for Improved and Democratized Transit in Ottawa
Free Transit Ottawa
Our ‘New Vision’ involves demands for a significant expansion of ‘Fare Free’ and accessible transit, improved service, and a governance structure that would make transit decisions more accountable to the citizens of Ottawa.
Campaign Demands
Affordability: We propose that transit should be free to use during off-peak hours (i.e. between 9:00 am to 3:00 pm; 6:00 pm to 6:00 am; and on weekends).
Improved Transit: In order to make transit more reliable, expansive, and convenient we propose that 50 buses should be added to the weekend service, neighborhood bus routes should be created to link citizens to local health and social services, shopping and entertainment (i.e. beginning in priority areas such as Vanier, Bay Ward, West Ottawa and Barrhaven), 40 vehicles should be added to the Para Transpo fleet, and bus-only lanes should be created on the most habitually late routes.
Democratized Transit: We believe that the transit system will be improved by allowing the citizens who use transit, and...
Read more: Campaign for Improved and Democratized Transit in Ottawa
Bees
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- Published on Monday, 17 February 2020 05:18
- Written by editor
A,
Our country’s bee-killing pesticide ban just got put on hold. Officials are claiming “new evidence.”
That’s bad for the bees.
But if we can prove to the government that Bayer is up to its dirty tricks and is behind the delay, we could get the ban back on track.
If you’ve saved your payment information with SumOfUs, your donation will go through immediately:
Donate CA$93 nowDonate CA$139 now Read more: BeesCan the World's Second Superpower Rise From the Ashes of 20 Years of War?
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- Published on Monday, 17 February 2020 03:08
- Written by editor
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2000 ... February 17, 2020
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Can the World’s Second Superpower Rise From the Ashes of 20 Years of War?
Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies
February 15 marked the day, 17 years ago, when global demonstrations against the pending Iraq invasion were so massive that the New York Times called world public opinion "the second superpower." But the US ignored it and invaded Iraq anyway. So what has become of the momentous hopes of that day?
The US military has not won a war since 1945, unless you count recovering the tiny colonial outposts of Grenada, Panama and Kuwait, but there is one threat it has consistently outmaneuvered without firing more than a few deadly rifle shots and some tear gas. Ironically, this existential threat is the very one that could peacefully cut it down to size and take away its most dangerous and expensive weapons: its own peace-loving citizens.
During the Vietnam War, young Americans facing a life-and-death draft lottery built a powerful anti-war movement. President Nixon proposed ending the draft as a way to undermine...
Read more: Can the World's Second Superpower Rise From the Ashes of 20 Years of War?
The Deconstruction of the American State /w Clyde Barrow
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- Published on Sunday, 16 February 2020 01:04
- Written by editor
LeftStreamed — Recorded in Toronto, 9 February 2020
The Deconstruction of the American State /w Clyde Barrow
A month after Donald Trump took office as 45th President of the United States, his chief political strategist Stephen K. Bannon declared that “the new administration is in an unending battle for deconstruction of the administrative state.” While many commentators have seen the Trump administration’s actions as unhinged, erratic, unpredictable, and impulsive, this presentation situates those actions with a concept of “stateness” developed by leading institutionalist theorists. Clyde Barrow argues that the Trump Administration is, in fact, implementing the Bannon agenda by systematically deconstructing the American state and stripping it of its Stateness. The long-term result is a type of post-modern political apparatus unrestrained by the Constitutional, administrative, and technocratic limits that define the modern liberal-democratic state.
Clyde W. Barrow (Ph.D., UCLA, 1984), Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, is the author of Toward a Critical Theoy of States: The Poulantzas-Miliband Debate After Globalization (SUNY Press, 2016) and his newest book is The Concept of the...
Read more: The Deconstruction of the American State /w Clyde Barrow
Peace Brigades update - February 14, 2020
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- Published on Wednesday, 18 November 2020 13:22
- Written by editor
Bees
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- Published on Saturday, 15 February 2020 05:20
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Bayer just scored a huge victory in Canada. The bee-killing pesticide ban we won just got put on hold.
That’s grim news for bees -- but if we expose who’s behind this delay we could get the ban back on track.
Can you rush a donation now to save the bees?
If you’ve saved your payment information with SumOfUs, your donation will go through immediately:
Donate CA$93 nowDonate CA$139 now Read more: BeesPlease tell everyone:
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- Published on Saturday, 15 February 2020 00:10
- Written by editor
Hi PAOV,
Thanks for signing our petition asking Rio Tinto to cancel their membership to the Minerals Council of Australia and stop paying them to undermine action on the climate crisis.
This might seem like a very tiny action, but we know that public pressure works. Together, we can make sure all political ties with the coal lobby are cut for good.
There's more you can do: please share the petition!
Thank you!
Lucy & the entire 350.org team
350.org is building a global climate movement. You can connect with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and r38
What SumOfUs thinks
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- Published on Friday, 14 February 2020 12:02
- Written by editor
A,
15 hours into a marathon global coffee chat with SumOfUs members, I broke down listening to an amazing man named Paul. He lives in Australia, near the edge of the fires. And he woke up to the mournful sound of a black cockatoo outside his window, alone. Black cockatoos are never alone, they are supposed to travel in intimately connected flocks. But the fires had ravaged this majestic bird’s home and likely, his family. For Paul, and all of us in that coffee chat, it was too much. The devastation of Paul’s home country felt too familiar to all of us facing the very real impact of climate change on our communities.
But there was so much hope too: Renee, who honors her daughter’s life, cut short from a car accident when she was 21, by showcasing a movie they made together about the amazing solutions to climate change being pioneered by activists and community leaders across the globe. Or Ing, who used her experience and knowledge from a long career as an economist to publish a...
Who will receive a Liberty Award?
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- Published on Friday, 14 February 2020 08:32
- Written by editor
Liberty Awards Nominations Due Feb 14th
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...Bolivia: An Election in the Midst of an Ongoing Coup
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- Published on Friday, 14 February 2020 00:38
- Written by editor
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1999 ... February 14, 2020
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Bolivia: An Election in the Midst of an Ongoing Coup
Vijay Prashad
On May 3, 2020, the Bolivian people will go to the polls once more. They return there because President Evo Morales had been overthrown in a coup in November 2019. Morales had just won a presidential election in October for a term that would have begun in January 2020. Based on a preliminary investigation by the Organization of American States (OAS) that claimed that there was fraud in the election, Morales was prematurely removed from office; the term for his 2014 presidential election victory did not end until January. Yet, he was told by the military to leave office. An interim president -- Jeanine Áñez -- appointed herself. She said she was taking this office only on an interim basis and would not run for election when Bolivia held another election. She is a candidate for the May 3 election.
Meanwhile, Morales has been in exile in Argentina. His party -- the Movement for Socialism (MAS) -- has candidates for the presidency...
Read more: Bolivia: An Election in the Midst of an Ongoing Coup
We are heading to the Supreme Court of Canada
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- Published on Thursday, 13 February 2020 10:56
- Written by editor
The fight to end indefinite solitary confinement goes to the Supreme Court
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...We need YOU to help fight the climate emergency
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- Published on Thursday, 13 February 2020 09:44
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You can support Survival without spending a penny
"The approach of co-existence"
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- Published on Thursday, 13 February 2020 07:02
- Written by editor
Solidarity with the Wetsuweten Against the Colonial Policies of the Canadian State
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- Published on Thursday, 13 February 2020 04:12
- Written by editor
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1998 ... February 13, 2020
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Solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Against the Colonial Policies of the Canadian State
The RCMP raids over the last days on the orders of the Canadian government on Wet’suwet’en protestors blocking the construction of a $6.6-billion pipeline, by Coastal GasLink for a liquefied natural gas project in Northern British Columbia, has set off a storm of blockades, protests, and occupations across the country. It is impossible not to immediately recall the troubled and often brutal history of Canadian colonialism. The clash between First Nations protestors and RCMP brings our attention back to the political scars of the more recent crises in Oka and Caledonia, among others. The huge militarized police presence that has been mobilized against the protestors all too readily illustrates how pot-holed and full of detours any path to reconciliation and restitution within the territorial boundaries of the Canadian state will be. The adoption by the BC NDP government of John Horgan in the fall of 2019 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, with its emphasis on consultations, negotiated settlements,...
Read more: Solidarity with the Wetsuweten Against the Colonial Policies of the Canadian State
Be part of Wetsuwetens groundbreaking new legal challenge
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- Published on Wednesday, 18 November 2020 14:40
- Written by editor
Trail of destruction
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- Published on Wednesday, 12 February 2020 02:18
- Written by editor
February 11: Liv Tualau sits with activists atop flood prevention sandbags placed on the steps of Australia’s Parliament. Photo: Joseph Sikulu
#CutAllTies: As politicians headed to work yesterday morning, 350 Australia activists shone a light on the insidious influence of the coal lobby over Parliament. Bushfire survivors and Pacific Climate Warriors converged in Canberra, the capital, to create a “Trail of Destruction” of burnt debris from Parliament House straight to the Minerals Council office just 800 meters away.
Survivors lay bushfire wreckage using wheelbarrows. Photo: Joseph Sikulu
350 Australia is calling on the Minerals Council to step out of the way and make room for Australia’s urgently needed transition to 100% renewable energy. Their first target Rio Tinto is a powerful player in the coal coalition, but one of the most vulnerable to international pressure. You can urge Rio Tinto to leave the Minerals Council...
The Myth of State Neutrality
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- Published on Wednesday, 12 February 2020 01:18
- Written by editor
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1997 ... February 12, 2020
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The Myth of State Neutrality:
Police Violence, Labour, and the Unifor/Co-op Struggle
Jeff Shantz
We are taught at a very early age and socialized throughout our lives to respect and obey the rule of law. British Columbia Premier John Horgan recently invoked, rather infamously, the rule of law in justifying RCMP assaults on Wet’suwet’en defending their territory against imposition of the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline (never mind that his rule of law erases recognition of Wet’suwet’en law on unceded Indigenous territory). Saskatchewan Premier Doug Moe too has invoked rule of law in suggesting that locked out workers, Unifor members in Regina, take down picket barriers at the Federated Co-op Ltd. Refinery (even as police assist scabs getting into and out of the workplace).
These appeals, and associated language such as "enforcing injunctions" seek to remove politics from crucial issues of social and environmental justice and Indigenous sovereignty. They attempt to render issues of great ethical significance as simply legal or technical applications.
The notion of rule of law rests on an even...
NEW DATE! The T'Sou-ke Hills: What's Up & What's Next (Info Session, Q&A)
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- Published on Tuesday, 11 February 2020 10:10
- Written by editor
Read more: NEW DATE! The T'Sou-ke Hills: What's Up & What's Next (Info Session, Q&A)
Canadas 25¢ without a caribou?
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- Published on Tuesday, 11 February 2020 09:36
- Written by editor
Quebec’s deforestation companies have just been granted access to protected areas on the North Shore, home of the threatened woodland caribou.
Tell the Quebec government to reinstate its protective measures for the threatened woodland caribou.
A,
While no one was looking, Quebec abolished its own protective measures safeguarding the threatened woodland caribou, all in the name of giving giant logging corporations access to protected boreal forests.
Deforestation companies are staking land that the caribou, and the Innu nation, need to survive. And the Quebec government are letting those companies walk all over that land.
But this Quebec government is known for its flip-flopping on issues, especially when it is under pressure. It just overturned its own (bad) decisions on immigration. A strong support for Caribou now would show them just how organized and serious we are about protecting our caribou.
Tell the Quebec government to protect our boreal forests and reestablish protections on caribous.
Extinction is forever.
And...
More Articles...
- Teck could be approved tonight
- Ford's Fight with Educators: A Student's Perspective
- SEA Please come support the Wet'suwet'en actions happening this week!
- The Climate Crisis and the Crisis of Stranded Fossil Fuel Assets
- Workers fighting for their rights at Indonesia's Great Giant Pineapple need your support
- Trudeau's pipeline nightmare
- The Tightrope of Socialist Politics and Governance in Canada
- Monitoring the RCMP raid on Wet'suwet'en territory
- People power is making history
- J31 Fare Strike at Grand Central Station
