A View From The Left- WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME-Join And Build The Resistance

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

How Gentrification Is Killing US Cities and Black Lives

What you read in the pages of How to Kill a City is a heartbreaking story of the destruction of Black lives. You read how cultures are wiped out of a city's fabric, and all for a $6 latte. Business leaders claim they are helping "renovate" a city, bringing it back to its original luster, while passing off the displaced as a kind of collateral damage. They may feel a little bad for a moment, but checking their bank account offers them the reassurance they are doing it for the right reasons.  Gentrification is no longer just a buzzword used to describe renovation in a once poor neighborhood on the occasional whim of a developer; it is now a systematic plan by the country's wealthiest individuals to take away even more from struggling communities and minority groups, turning their losses into profits.  Gentrification takes a community's personal tragedy, loss and destruction, and monetizes it.   More

BILL MCKIBBEN: On April 29, We March for the Future

It is hard to avoid hyperbole when you talk about global warming. It is, after all, the biggest thing humans have ever done, and by a very large margin. In the past year, we’ve decimated the Great Barrier Reef, which is the largest living structure on Earth. In the drought-stricken territories around the Sahara, we’ve helped kick off what The New York Times called “one of the biggest humanitarian disasters since World War II.” We’ve melted ice at the poles at a record pace, because our emissions trap extra heat from the sun that’s equivalent to 400,000 Hiroshima-size explosions a day. Which is why, just maybe, you should come to Washington, DC, on April 29 for a series of big climate protests that will mark the 100th day of Trumptime. Maybe the biggest thing ever is worth a day…  Trump is either the end of the fight for a working planet Earth—or the moment when that fight turns truly serious. That choice is not up to him. It’s up to the rest of us.   More

If you can’t go to DC. . .

Saturday, April 29 @ 12:00 pm - 3:30 pm

BOSTON PEOPLE’S CLIMATE MOBILIZATION

On April 29, the #PeopleClimate March will bring together hundreds of thousands of people from across the country to demand JOBS, JUSTICE, and REAL CLIMATE SOLUTIONS. Here in Boston, we’ll have a full day of workshops and activities to build and grow our movement, starting with an energizing rally at 12pm on Boston Common. Join us!

*Schedule for Boston PCM on April 29* See more at: peoplesclimate.org
>>12:00-1:00pm
– RALLY for jobs, justice and bold action on climate on Boston Common
>>1:00-3:30pm
– ACTION TABLES, activities, and art-making on Boston Common
– TEACH-INS on the connections between the climate fight and other struggles for justice at indoor spaces around the Common (learn more here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1302204036560536/)

CLIMATE CHANGE AS GENOCIDE

Not since World War II have more human beings been at risk from disease and starvation than at this very moment. On March 10th, Stephen O’Brien, under secretary-general of the United Nations for humanitarian affairs, informed the Security Council that 20 million people in three African countries -- Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan -- as well as in Yemen were likely to die if not provided with emergency food and medical aid. “We are at a critical point in history,” he declared. “Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the U.N.”  Without coordinated international action, he added, “people will simply starve to death [or] suffer and die from disease.” Major famines have, of course, occurred before, but never in memory on such a scale in four places simultaneously…  The likelihood that droughts this severe would be occurring simultaneously in the absence of climate change is vanishingly small. In fact, scientists generally agree that global warming will ensure diminished rainfall and ever more frequent droughts over much of Africa and the Middle East. This, in turn, will heighten conflicts of every sort and endanger basic survival in a myriad of ways.  More

THE SHOCKING REALITY OF A FUTURE OF SHRINKING JOBS

The jobs reports would have us believe our rebound from the recession is almost complete. The reality is very different. The Economist has some fancy words for it: "Job polarization," in which middle-skill jobs decline while low-skill and high-skill jobs increase and the workforce "bifurcates" into two extremes of income…  Most of our new jobs are in service industries, including retail and health care and personal care and food service. Those industries generally don't pay a living wage. In 2014, over half of American workers made less than $15 per hour, with some of the top employment sectors in the U.S. paying $12 an hour or less.  Worse, most underpaid workers are deprived of the benefits higher-income employees take for granted. A Princeton study concluded that a stunning 94 percent of the nine million new jobs created in the past decade were temporary or contract-based, rather than traditional full-time positions.   More

The average millennial worker makes less than the average baby boomer did in 1975

Over the past four decades, young American workers saw their average incomes decline by 5.5 percent after adjusting for inflation, according to new figures published Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1975, workers aged 25 to 34 had a median personal income of $37,000 in modern dollar terms. In 2016, that number was down to $35,000.  Earnings have declined despite the fact that today's young people are better educated than 40 years ago. Thirty-seven percent of young people had a bachelor's degree last year, compared to 22.8 percent in 1975.   In part, experts say, the decline in average incomes results from new impediments to financial success that confront millennials, but that older Americans did not have to overcome. A more unequal economy presents fewer opportunities for younger workers.  More

Dakota Access Pipeline Mogul Cut $250,000 Check for Trump's Inauguration

Included in the roster of funders is pipeline builder Kelcy Warren, who contributed a quarter-million dollars to the event. Warren's company, Energy Transfer, is behind construction of the controversial Dakota Access pipeline.  In an interview with The Dallas News in January, Warren described 2016 as the "toughest year of my life," referring to protests that rocked the company over the construction of DAPL. He said that Trump's election gave him hope.  Protests over DAPL forced the Obama administration to put the project on hold. Indigenous and environmental activists claim the pipeline threatens lands and water that are crucial to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North Dakota. Trump, however, ignored those pleas and green-lighted construction of DAPL in February.  Several other companies that later benefited from executive actions taken by President Trump also donated to the inauguration.  Coal mining giant Murray Energy and petrol companies Chevron and Citgo gave over a million dollars combined. Last month, Trump took actions that put former President Obama's signature climate change regulation, the Clean Power Plan, in jeopardy.  More

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NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong

DOUBLE STANDARDS ON SYRIAN CASUALTIES

When an alleged nerve gas attack took place on the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun on April 4, the perpetrator was instantly identified as the Syrian government – though many doubts still exist and there has not been a complete and impartial investigation.  Heartbreaking stories and photos about child casualties and “Assad’s war crimes” dominated the news for days on end.  Donald Trump ordered a supposedly retaliatory missile attack against a Syrian air base – a unilateral act that would have been illegal under the UN charter even if the Syrian government were guilty.  Compare the response to thesuicide bombing attack on a bus convoy of Syrian Shi’ite evacuees near Aleppo a few weeks later, which killed more civilians, including over 80 children.  MSM reports refused to name the perpetrators because no group had claimed responsibility -- and the story vanished quickly from the news.

Weapons Expert: The Nerve Gas Attack Described in White House Report Did Not Occur

The conclusion of this summary of data is obvious—the nerve agent attack described in the WHR [White House Report] did not occur as claimed. There may well have been mass casualties from some kind of poisoning event, but that event was not the one described by the WHR…  This raises troubling questions about how United States political and military leadership determined that the Syrian government was responsible for the alleged attack. It is particularly of concern that the WHR presented itself as a report with “high confidence” findings and that numerous high-level officials in the U.S. government have confirmed their belief that the report was correct and to a standard of high confidence.  More

Trump’s Syria strike clearly broke international law — and no one seems to care

President Donald Trump’s surprising decision to launch a cruise missile strike on Syria was sharply criticized by Russia as a “flagrant violation of international law.” While it might be tempting to dismiss this claim as mere Putin-esque propaganda, on this question at least, Russia is almost certainly correct. In the view of most international lawyers, the US strike on Syria is a crystal-clear violation of the UN Charter. So why doesn’t anybody, except Russia and some international lawyers, seem to care?  The uncomfortable answer seems to be that, at least with respect to this question — can a state use military force against a regime that uses banned weaponry against citizens? — international law simply doesn’t matter very much. And this suits the United States and the Trump administration just fine.  That may sound like an endorsement of lawlessness, or of a Trump administration foreign policy that may be driven by little more than one man’s whim, but it’s actually a worldview that both Democratic and Republican administrations have embraced.  More

America Is the World's Biggest Terrorist Organization—Why Is That So Hard to Understand?

It is always the ‘rogue state’ that is the threat to the world order – Iraq here, North Korea there. And in that ‘rogue state’ it is always the dictator who commands the entire monstrosity. Mockery is the guise with Kim Jong-un as it was with Saddam Hussein. These men have no taste: Saddam with his garish disco mustache and anachronistic military uniform and Kim with his New Wave haircut and his strangely out of proportion laughter. Threats are made to emanate from them – they itch to attack and are only held back by the democratic role of the United States, who sanctions the countries till they starve or patrols their waters with massive war ships to intimidate them into surrender. But the United States is not a threat. It is merely there to ensure that the real threats – Iraq then, North Korea now – are kept in check. The author, in other words, is always the Eastern Despot.   More

WAR IS NOT AN OPTION FOR KOREA

The United States and North Korea are like two “accelerating trains coming toward each other,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned last week. North Korea test-fired four ballistic missiles off the coast of Japan as thousands of South Korean, Japanese, and U.S. troops, backed by warships and warplanes, are currently engaging in massive military exercises, including the deployment of the Navy SEALS that killed Osama Bin Laden.  With no communication other than military posturing, Pyongyang is left to interpret Washington’s maneuvers as preparation for a pre-emptive strike. Given the political vacuum in South Korea following President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment, all tracks are heading towards one destination: war…  Although the fantasy of surgical strikes to topple brutal dictators has long intoxicated American military officials, they’ve been restrained by the sobering reality of such reckless action. In the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton considered a first strike on North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the Pentagon concluded that even limited action would claim a million lives in the first 24 hours — and this was well before Pyongyang possessed nuclear weapons.  More

THE COMING CRISIS WITH IRAN

President Trump has flip-flopped many times during his first months in office. But none may be as consequential as his decision on April 18 to certify that Iran is abiding by the nuclear deal of 2015, paving the way for further waiving of sanctions. In just a few months, Mr. Trump has gone from promising to “tear up” the nuclear deal to allowing its extension. The administration has now said it will conduct a 90-day review of whether lifting sanctions — as required by the nuclear deal — will be in line with American national security interests. But that timeline is not long enough to save the deal and stop the United States and Iran from sliding dangerously back to a path toward war. There are a number of potential land mines on the near horizon. The first is in Congress, where a bipartisan effort is underway to introduce new sanctions on Iran that, despite the protestations of the legislation’s sponsors, would violate the terms of the nuclear agreement by adding new conditions onto the deal.   More

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