Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
April 22, 2019
Hello All – With the release of the Mueller Report, the drama of the Trump presidency moves on to the next Act. The protagonists remain the same – Trump & Co., the Democrats, and the media establishment and supporting cast. As the drama unfolds, how will we, the audience, respond and participate?
The Mueller Report provides no relief from the tensions developed in the previous Acts. Russian "meddling" is confirmed, "collusion" is dismissed, and "obstruction" is described, even if it does rise to the level of "crime." Trump & Co. claim victory, while the Democrats vow to pursue the issues not resolved by the Report, though they are divided between Impeachment and Investigation.
Within the Democratic Party, the leadership has spoken clearly in favor of Investigation, dismissing Impeachment as unrealistic. A useful article in The Nation entitled "The Mueller Report Is a Road Map for Congressional Investigation" outlines the most likely course that the Democrats will take. But proponents of Impeachment are gaining some ground. that a slim majority of Americans want Trump impeached. Elizabeth Warren has stated that she favors Impeachment, and other Democratic presidential candidates will have to decide on this also. And the newly elected radical women in the House of Representatives are demanding that the House get going on Impeachment.
Thus two issues are at stake here, though closely mingled. One is, Is there a moral imperative to initiate Impeachment, given the magnitude of Trump's crimes and misdemeanors? The second issue is, Which course of action, Impeachment or Investigation, is more likely to help the Democrats win in 2020?
We see a Third Way forward. On Saturday, CFOW's weekly peace vigil supported Impeachment, but with a different approach. Similar to Noam Chomsky's take (linked below), we see the choices as presented above by the Democrats as likely to lead to a loss in 2020. The Mueller Report "revealed" what we more or less knew from Day One: that Trump is a corrupt egomaniac, beholden to big business and earning his pay by inflaming his "base" – 30 percent of the electorate – on cultural issues of little interest to the rich people running the country. Proving this in great depth is unlikely to change the 2020 electoral outcome. Thus our leaflet on Saturday proposed that the Impeachment of Trump be framed around his real and serious crimes – his crimes against peace and threats of war; his sabotage of any meaningful response to our environmental crisis; his brazen violations of law against immigrants and refugees, and his Nazi-like confinement of children in cages, and so on.
Finally, there remains the issue of Russian "meddling." This received only a few pages in the Mueller Report; basically, the very foundation of the claims against Trump and thus the Mueller investigation are not examined in the Report. These claims have been questioned in many previous newsletters, and are discussed critically in some of the good/useful reading linked below. Now it suffices to link Stephen F. Cohen's observations on how the Russian "meddling" claims are aggravating the new Cold War; the assessment by former intelligence professionals that the Russian "hacking" theory is far from proven; and an investigation by Gareth Porter throwing doubt on the claims that Facebook posts by Russian "bots" played a role, or were intended to play a role, in influencing the 2016 election. Congressman Eliot Engel, in his capacity of chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, promises to introduce legislation to "punish those responsible" for Russian interference in our elections.
So the choices confronting the Democrats and the political Establishment now are whether to attack the Trump presidency – whether through Impeachment or through Investigation – via an attack on the Muller Report trivia or by an attack on Trump's more fundamental misuses of power that threaten our nation's well-being and harm millions of people throughout the world. I think only a powerful clamor from the Multitude will force the Democrats to address the real issues of peace, climate chaos, and economic justice. Can we do it?
News Notes
Over the weekend – and now Earth Day – the Extinction Rebellion broke out in Europe and the USA, especially in the UK, where there were hundreds of arrests and lots of colorful action. Check out the Rebellion's "Updates" #5 and #6 for full coverage and lots of great pictures.
In Westchester, more than 60,000 immigrants and refugees live under threat of deportation. Last October, South Church in Dobbs Ferry gave Sanctuary to a family so threatened. Now our friends at South Church are looking to raise $35,000 to do some rehab work that would give the church and future Sanctuary families suitable accommodation. To learn more (and please consider making a contribution), go here.
Next Friday, April 26th, marks the 33rd anniversary of the 1988 meltdown of a nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, just north of Kiev in Ukraine. The UN calls this the worst environmental catastrophe in human history. Much about the disaster remains unknown, including how many were killed and what dangers remain. To learn more about this story, go here.
Sally O'Neill, one of the great human rights workers in Central America, was tragically killed last week in an automobile accident. Read about some of her achievements here. Ironically, in illustrating O'Neill's role in bringing the 1981 Mozote (El Salvador) massacre to the world's attention, The Times' report links the writing of Raymond Bonner, whose reporting at that time, on Mozote and much else in El Salvador, was critical of the role of the USA and the government troops that it trained to fight insurgents. Under pressure from the Reagan administration, The Times soon removed Bonner from the El Salvador beat.
Finally, in this space last week we noted the dangers in which Rep. Ilhan Omar was living, given the media demonization and the many threats to her life. An article in The Nation this week underscores this theme, writing "Donald Trump Isn't Playing Games With Ilhan Omar—He's Inciting Violence."
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Ongoing – Weather permitting, the CFOW stalwarts gather every Saturday from 12 to 1 PM at the VFW Plaza in Hastings (Warburton and Spring St.) to protest war and other evils. Please join us!
Ongoing – The Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Hastings still has room for a few dozen members. CSA's connect local/regional farms with consumers, providing fresh organic vegetables (as they come into season) in exchange for a pre-payment that helps the farmers get their new season off the ground. The CSA in Hastings is managed by CFOW stalwart Elisa Zazzera, and the shopping/eating season runs from June 5 to November 13. You can learn about the CSA partner, Stoneledge Farm, here. For more information, email Elisa at hastingsCSA@gmail.com.
Friday, April 26th (and on-going) – Supporters of the Green New Deal have organized dozens of "Town Halls" to explain what The Deal is and how to help bring it into being. On Friday there will be Town Halls on W. 18th St. in NYC and at Sarah Lawrence College in The Bronx. And many more are scheduled. The event is free. More info and to get a Reservation, go here.
Sunday, May 5th – CFOW's next monthly meeting will be held at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 7 to 9 p.m. At these meetings we review our work/the happenings of the past month and make plans for the month to come. Everyone is welcome at these meetings.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Our leaflet and posters for our rallies are usually about war or climate change, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. We (usually) meet on the first Sunday of each month, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. And if you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
This Newsletter
Articles linked in the CFOW newsletter are intended to illuminate some of the main action-issues about which we are concerned. Coming mostly from the "dissenting media," they provide an alternative to the perspectives of the mainstream media. As always, we have some excellent "Featured Essays." I also encourage you to check out the sections of articles about the Mueller Report and the arrest of Julian Assange; an in-depth report by Al McCoy about the history of the US drug wars; and an essay about the late and great historian Eric Hobsbawm. Read on!
Rewards!
The Newsletter's Rewards provide stalwart readers with an oasis of calm and a welcome diversion from the troubles of the world. The Rewards this week are from the 1936 film "Modern Times," Charlie Chaplin's last (more or less) silent film, which I watched over the weekend. How does the Little Tramp deal with the Great Depression? First, he gets a job at a Ford-type factory with aspirations to speed up everything, including Charlie's lunch. Next, he lucks into a job as a night watchman, where he tries out the roller skates. Fired once again, he gets a job as a singing waiter. And finally, when girlfriend Paulette Goddard feels that there's no hope for her, he bucks her up and makes her smile and they walk off together, into the new day. Popular Front romanticism at its best. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
(Video) A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
By Naomi Klein, The Intercept [
---- Today, The Intercept launches "A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," a seven-minute film narrated by the congresswoman and illustrated by Molly Crabapple. Set a couple of decades from now, it's a flat-out rejection of the idea that a dystopian future is a forgone conclusion. Instead, it offers a thought experiment: What if we decided not to drive off the climate cliff? What if we chose to radically change course and save both our habitat and ourselves? What if we actually pulled off a Green New Deal? What would the future look like then? This is a project unlike any we have done before, crossing boundaries between fact, fiction, and visual art, co-directed by Kim Boekbinder and Jim Batt and co-written by Ocasio-Cortez and Avi Lewis. To reclaim a phrase from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it's our "green dream," inspired by the explosion of utopian art produced during the original New Deal. And it's a collaboration with a context and a history that seems worth sharing. [Read more and see the video]. And for more on this topic, read "Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism. Have we got the stomach for it?" by Phil McDuff, The Guardian [UK] [Mach 28, 2019] [Link].
(Video) The Mueller Report: Glenn Greenwald vs. David Cay Johnston on Trump-Russia Ties, Obstruction & More
From Democracy Now! [April 19, 2019]
---- The Justice Department has released a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's 448-page report detailing Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia and President Trump's attempts to impede the special counsel's investigation. The report states the campaign "expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts," but Mueller concluded, "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." … We host a debate on the report's findings between two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists: Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept and David Cay Johnston, who has covered Donald Trump since the 1980s. [See the Program]
For more useful reading on the Mueller report – "Robert Mueller Did Not Merely Reject the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theories. He Obliterated Them," by Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept [[Link]; "Will the Mueller Report Make the New Cold War Even Worse?" by Stephen F. Cohen, The Nation [April 17, 2019] [Link]; "Mueller Report Likely to Renew Scrutiny of Steele Dossier," by Scott Shane, et al., New York Times [April 19, 2019] [Link]; and "The 'Guccifer 2.0' Gaps in Mueller's Full Report," by Daniel Lazare, Consortium News [April 18, 2019] [Link].
(Video) Chomsky: By Focusing on Russia, Democrats Handed Trump a "Huge Gift" & Possibly the 2020 Election
From Democracy Now! [April 18, 2019]
[FB – This is one part of a lengthy interview with Noam Chomsky, hosted by Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman at Boston's historic South Church. All of them are very interesting, imo.]
---- The Democrats invested everything in this issue. Well, turned out there was nothing much there. They gave Trump a huge gift. In fact, they may have handed him the next election. That's just a—that's a matter of being so unwilling to deal with fundamental issues, that they're looking for something on the side that will somehow give political success. The real issues are different things. They're things like climate change, like global warming, like the Nuclear Posture Review, deregulation. These are real issues. But the Democrats aren't going after those. They're looking for something else—the Democratic establishment. I'm not talking about the young cohort that's coming in, which is quite different. Just all of that has to be shifted significantly, if there's going to be a legitimate political opposition to the right-wing drift that's taking place. And it can happen, can definitely happen, but it's going to take work. [See the Program]
Without Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, we would live in darker, less informed times
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent [UK]
---- Lost in this dog-fight is what Assange and WikiLeaks really achieved and why it was of great importance in establishing the truth about wars being fought on our behalf in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. This is what Daniel Ellsberg did when he released the Pentagon Papers about the US political and military involvement in Vietnam between 1945 and 1967. Like Assange, he exposed official lies and was accused of putting American lives in danger though his accusers were typically elusive about how this was done. But unless the truth is told about the real nature of these wars then people outside the war zones will never understand why they go on so long and are never won. Governments routinely lie in wartime and it is essential to expose what they are really doing.
For more on Assange's arrest – "Julian Assange Suffered Severe Psychological and Physical Harm in Ecuadorian Embassy, Doctors Say," by James Risen, The Intercept [[Link]; "Media Cheer Assange's Arrest," by Alan MacLeod, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [FAIR] [April 18, 2019] [Link]; and two articles by Kevin Gosztola on Shadowproof, "Justice Department Charges Julian Assange With Computer Crime But Alleges Conspiracy To Abet Espionage,"[April 11, 2019] [Link]; and "FBI Affidavit In Assange Case Shows Government Is Criminalizing Publication Of Afghanistan War Logs," [April 16, 2019] [Link].
WAR & PEACE
The Toxic Lure of 'Guns and Butter'
---- The current political brawl over next year's budget is highly significant. With Democrats in a House majority for the first time in eight years, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and most other party leaders continue to support even more largesse for the Pentagon. But many progressive congressmembers are challenging the wisdom of deference to the military-industrial complex – and, so far, they've been able to stall the leadership's bill that includes a $17 billion hike in military spending for 2020…. It was a contention that Martin Luther King Jr. emphatically rejected. "When a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, social programs must inevitably suffer," he pointed out. "We can talk about guns and butter all we want to, but when the guns are there with all of its emphasis you don't even get good oleo [margarine]. These are facts of life." But today many Democrats in Congress evade such facts of life. They want to proceed as though continuing to bestow humongous budgets on the Pentagon is compatible with fortifying the kind of domestic spending that they claim to fervently desire. [Read More]
The War in Yemen
Trump's Veto on Yemen War Is a Sign That the Strongmen in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia Are Winning
By Sarah Aziza, The Intercept [
---- On Tuesday, Donald Trump invoked his veto power for only the second time in his presidency. Trump's move struck down a congressional resolution to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. In doing so, he stifled a moment of rare bipartisanship, flexing his own authoritarian tendencies to protect a fellow autocrat, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is known by the initials MBS. By doing so, Trump not only signaled his loyalty to a prince who has been widely implicated in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as the imprisonment and torture of numerous human rights activists, but he has also ensured that the U.S. would remain complicit in the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Far from an effort to protect the Constitution, as Trump claimed, the veto was rather the latest example of the autocratic, tit-for-tat deal-making that has in recent years increasingly dominated the geopolitics of the Middle East…This trend has dramatic implications in the Middle East. Since the collapse of the Arab Spring and in the wake of years of foreign intervention, hopes of democracy in the region have in large part given way to a cast of authoritarian rulers. From MBS in Saudi Arabia to Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey to the recently re-elected Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, the region has grown increasingly polarized under hawkish, right-wing leaders. [Read More]
The War on Venezuela
Defending Venezuela: Two Approaches
By
---- Recent U.S. attacks on Venezuela have generated a widespread international response. Good willed people from all walks of life have come forward to express their solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution and their opposition to intervention. This is inspiring and leads one to conclude that there is generalized dissatisfaction with the global system and, together with it, a willingness to be critical and work for change. Naturally these defenses have focused on imperialism, intervention and interference. The overall consensus is "Hands off Venezuela." This slogan is a good one, since every thinking person today defends democracy, and a condition for democracy is that nations maintain (or attain) their sovereignty. (Nothing could be more antidemocratic than having foreign powers interfere in a country and have them sponsor foreign-appointed pretenders such as Juan Guaidó). However, this focus on imperialist interference, correct as it is, has sometimes led to an apparent indifference to the content of the revolution and its internal dynamic. … It is one thing to show the criminality of imperialist interference—it is indeed criminal—but it is a more powerful gesture to show that popular democracy can confront imperialism. [Read More]
War with Iran?
U.S. Risks Roiling Oil Markets in Trying to Tighten Sanctions
By Edward Wong and Clifford Krauss, New York Times [April 15, 2019]
---- The Trump administration has reached a critical juncture in its efforts to tighten United States oil sanctions against Iran and Venezuela. By pressuring China and India to end or sharply reduce oil purchases from Iran and Venezuela, American officials are seeking to cut off a key economic lifeline for what the administration considers to be two rogue nations that threaten the stability of the Middle East and Latin America. But they must do that without roiling global markets, further straining relations with China and India or raising gasoline prices in the United States. The dilemma has led to a fierce debate within the Trump administration, which is set to decide by May 2 whether to extend waivers allowing China, India and three other nations to buy Iranian oil. A halt of oil shipments would constrict global oil supplies and increase costs at a time when much of the world economy is slowing. [Read More]
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CRISIS
Why Won't New York State Take Bold Action on Climate Change?
By Sean McElwee, The Nation [April 16, 2019]
---- According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we have about 12 years to dramatically reduce our rate of carbon pollution or face a dire and apocalyptic future. There has been very little action on climate change at the federal level, but in the states, there have been growing calls to set legally enforceable mandates to combat carbon emissions. In New York, the Climate and Community Protection Act (CCPA) would enshrine these mandates into law. There is just one problem: Governor Andrew Cuomo. … The bill was first introduced in 2016, and passed the state Assembly three times. The state Senate looks poised to act on the bill this year, but Cuomo has not supported it nor said that he would sign it. For the past four years, he's ignored the legislation, while claiming to be a climate leader. Instead, Cuomo has proposed his own bill, the Climate Leadership Act. But the CLA falls far short of both the national Green New Deal and the CCPA, which is supported by over 170 organizations in New York State. [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
'The FBI Appears to Be Engaged in a Modern-Day Version of COINTELPRO'
Janine Jackson interviews Nusrat Choudhury, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [FAIR] [April 19, 2019]
---- The FBI appears to be engaged in a modern-day version of COINTELPRO, and many of us remember, COINTELPRO took place in the last century, in the '50s and '60s, targeting covert activities against civil rights leaders and black people who had the courage to protest racial discrimination and to advocate for full equality and racial equity in this country. It looks like it's version 2.0. And when we look at this document, this FBI intelligence assessment, from August 2017 that creates this label of "Black Identity Extremists," it's based on nothing; there's no credible evidence that such a movement or group even exists. But what that report shows is that the FBI is looking at First Amendment–protected activity to determine who is a so-called "Black Identity Extremist." That report shows a focus at the FBI on social media activity, on the online search terms that people use, and what kind of internet content a person may like, as well as their associations with certain groups. [Read More]
The U.S. military prison's leadership considered Mohamedou Salahi to be its highest-value detainee. But his guard suspected otherwise.
By Ben Taub, The New Yorker [April 15, 2019]
---- The fragmented image of Mohamedou Salahi that United States military, law-enforcement, and intelligence agencies assembled in a classified dossier was that of a "highly intelligent" Mauritanian electrical engineer, who, "as a key al-Qaida member," had played a role in several mass-casualty plots. Other men carried box cutters and explosives; Salahi was a ghost on the periphery. The evidence against him lacked depth, but investigators considered its breadth conclusive. His proximity to so many events and high-level jihadi figures could not be explained by coincidence, they thought, and only a logistical mastermind could have left so faint a trail. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
In New Effort to Deter Migrants, Barr Withholds Bail to Asylum Seekers
By Michael D. Shear and Katie Benner, The New York Times [April 16, 2019]
---- The Trump administration on Tuesday took another significant step to discourage migrants from seeking asylum, issuing an order that could keep thousands of them in jail indefinitely while they wait for a resolution of their asylum requests. The order issued by Attorney General William P. Barr was an effort to deliver on President Trump's promise to end the "catch and release" of migrants crossing the border in hopes of escaping persecution in their home countries. The order — which directs immigration judges to deny some migrants a chance to post bail — will not go into effect for 90 days. It is all but certain to be challenged in federal court, but immigrant rights lawyers said it could undermine the basic rights of people seeking safety in the United States. [Read More]
Decriminalizing the Drug War: The Damage done by a Century of Drug Prohibition
---- We live in a time of change, when people are questioning old assumptions and seeking new directions. In the ongoing debate over health care, social justice, and border security, there is, however, one overlooked issue that should be at the top of everyone's agenda, from Democratic Socialists to libertarian Republicans: America's longest war. No, not the one in Afghanistan. I mean the drug war. …. Instead of reducing the traffic, the drug war has actually helped stimulate that 10-fold increase in global opium production and a parallel surge in U.S. heroin users from just 68,000 in 1970 to 886,000 in 2017. On the other side of history's ledger, the harm-reduction movement led by medical practitioners and community activists worldwide is slowly working to unravel the global prohibition regime. With a 1996 ballot measure, California voters, for instance, started a trend by legalizing medical marijuana sales. By 2018, Oklahoma had become the 30th state to legalize medical cannabis. Following initiatives by Colorado and Washington in 2012, eight more states to date have decriminalized the recreational use of cannabis, long the most widespread of all illicit drugs. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Trump's Embrace of Netanyahu Will Haunt the Middle East for Years
By Phyllis Bennis, The Nation [April 15, 2019]
---- Among Palestinians, there was little need to ask about what the election meant for them: Whatever government emerged seemed guaranteed to maintain current Israeli positions in support of occupation and apartheid, against international law, for war with Iran, for full-throated alliance with the US president and US military aid, and against human rights for Palestinians and equality for all. … During the campaign, Netanyahu not only vowed to annex illegal Israeli West Bank settlements in violation of international law, but also expressly disavowed the State of Israel's obligations to its Palestinian citizens. … It's been clear for a while that Netanyahu's power is thoroughly bound up with his up-close-and-personal alliance with the US president. Trump's list of gifts to Netanyahu goes back a long time. But Trump's embrace of Israel has escalated the already-supportive relationship far beyond any of those earlier assumptions. The whole run-up to the election was a tour de force of US enabling of Netanyahu's reelection and the rise and consolidation of Israel's far-right wing. [Read More]
Trump's America, Netanyahu's Israel
By Adam Shatz, London Review of Books [April 18, 2019]
---- Israel's legislative elections on 9 April were a tribute to Binyamin Netanyahu's transformation of the political landscape. At no point were they discussed in terms of which candidates might be persuaded by (non-existent) American pressure, or the 'international community', to end the occupation. This time it was a question of which party leader could be trusted by Israeli Jews – Palestinian citizens of Israel are now officially second-class – to manage the occupation, and to expedite the various tasks that the Jewish state has mastered: killing Gazans, bulldozing homes, combating the scourge of BDS, and conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. With his promise to annex the West Bank, Netanyahu had won even before the election was held. It wasn't simply Trump's recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights that sped the incumbent on his way; it was the nature of the conversation – and the fact that the leader of the opposition was Benny Gantz, the IDF commander who presided over the 2014 'Operation Protection Edge', in which more than 2000 Gazans were killed. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
Eric Hobsbawm's 20th century.
By David Marcus, The Nation [April 8, 2019]
[FB – When Eric Hobsbawm died a few years ago, we lost one of the great historians of our time, both in terms of what he wrote and how he influenced younger historians (e.g. me). Almost alone among the incredible cohort of leftwing British historians of the 1950s and thereafter, Hobsbawm remained in the Communist Party, increasingly a lone survivor of a now-lost hopeful era. During his later years and after his death, many critics focused on his CP connection to dismiss what he had done. To me, the question was: How did being in the CP affect his history writing, for better or worse? The book under review here seems to address this question; and I think it raises broad questions about "commitment" and "objectivity" for those working in many fields, not just academic history.]
---- Faced with the failures of early-20th-century communism, Hobsbawm found himself forced to liberalize his socialism. This was, he insisted, what Marx would also have done—"to recognize the novel situation in which we find ourselves…and to formulate not only what we would want to do, but what can be done." … Hobsbawm often lamented that the agitations of his primitive rebels did not leave behind any lasting institutions for the present. But the unconventional radicals of the 20th century—Hobsbawm included—did leave a mark, giving the left an image of a wide-ranging egalitarianism with which to challenge the reigning inequalities and injustices of its day. The popular fronts that it inspires will certainly not look like those of the past. They will face new challenges, and they will be forced to make history in their own way. But then again, none of us gets to act in the circumstances of our choosing. [Read More]
Earth Day: Colonialism's role in the overexploitation of natural resources
April 18, 2019]
---- We are currently experiencing the worst environmental crisis in human history, including a "biological annihilation" of wildlife and dire risks for the future of human civilization. The scale of that environmental devastation has increased drastically in recent years. Mostly to blame are anthropogenic, or human-generated factors, including the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil. Other industries like gem and mineral mining also destroy the world's ecological sustainability, leading to deforestation and the destruction of natural habitats. Much of this traumatic exploitation of natural resources traces its origins to early colonialism. Colonialists saw "new" territories as places with unlimited resources to exploit, with little consideration for the long-term impacts. They exploited what they considered to be an "unending frontier" at the service of early modern state-making and capitalist development. To understand our current ecological catastrophe, described as "a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040," we need to look at the role of colonialism at its roots. [Read More]
